In the second week of March, Paramount Pictures, driven by the Internet boom and the "Tonight Show", showed the grandeur and determination of the old film company. It raised the expansion of "City of God" from 182 rooms to 868 rooms in one breath, and directly entered the small-scale release stage from the limited screening stage, which reminded people of the development curve of the two works "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and "Angel Loves Beauty".

Many industry insiders believe that Paramount Pictures is too hasty.

As a low-cost independent film, Paramount originally had a crush on the potential of this work in the awards season - otherwise they would not have bought the South American distribution rights together. Now, the cost of "City of God" has been recovered smoothly. No matter how much the box office is earned, Paramount only needs to fully promote the reputation of the movie, and by the end of the year, it can occupy an invincible position and win the box office. Why not do it?

However, the "Tonight Show" effect still requires time to precipitate and ferment, and the role of the power of the Internet on the audience has not been actually proven. In addition, the energy invested by "City of God" in publicity is not good - Paramount's choice clearly shows that he wants to make a fortune in nothing.

This made industry insiders shake their heads, but no one had any idea to ask them to advise Paramount. "City of God" has reached its current position through the Internet power with a non-English work. This is the first time for the entire North American market. No one knows how to go next, so they can only wait and see.

The "City of God", which gathered countless curious eyes, withstood the huge pressure and lived up to expectations, earning 8,977 US dollars in a single museum, won 7.8 million US dollars in just three days on the weekend, which made the "City of God" reach fifth place in this week's weekend box office rankings!

As the only work among the top ten that shows less than a thousand theaters, the performance of "City of God" is amazing so that "Young Agent Cody" and "Hunting Game" that premiered this week are ashamed. Major newspapers across the United States, led by the "New York Times", "Los Angeles Times" and "Chicago Tribune", have all truly pushed "City of God" to all audiences in the United States for the first time - it is no longer the Internet, no longer the "Tonight Show", but the extensive publicity of authoritative media. Such treatment reminds people of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon".

The cumulative box office of "City of God" at this time has reached 17.6 million US dollars, becoming the seventh non-English work in film history with a box office of more than 20 million yuan. What people are more looking forward to now is where the ultimate limit of this work is, is it the 33 million "angel loves beauty" or the 57 million "beautiful life" or...

Just imagine it is enough to make major media excited.

However, the outstanding performance of "City of God" was only lively in the media for two days, and it quickly cooled down because the war began.

On March 20, a joint force dominated by British and American troops bypassed the UN Security Council and unilaterally launched a military strike against Iraq, and the Second Gulf War officially broke out.

Not to mention the "City of God", even the entire entertainment industry, including Hollywood, has been silent. All aspects of society have shifted their attention to war. The confrontation between the pro-war factions and the anti-war factions has been pushed to extremes. Life in the peaceful era has officially ended. In the current 21st century, the cruelty and blood of war are coming to the face.

This is just the beginning.

Four days later, the 75th Academy Awards Ceremony was officially held at the Kodak Theater in Los Angeles. This was not only a big eye, but also a hot discussion. The anti-war voices in the whole Hollywood, represented by the Academy, have always remained high, but the actual implementation of the action was still heavy and thunder. On the night of the awards ceremony, only three actors who did not win the nomination refused the invitation to the Oscars and were absent from the awards ceremony, not to mention that there were Bruce Willis (Breast Ce-willis) who supported the war.

So, the award ceremony was held. No one felt the surprise.

Even so, opposing war and supporting peace became the only core theme of the award ceremony that night, and almost everyone present could not live without this topic.

In the end, this year's Oscars came to an end with "Chicago" and "piano" winning. Almost all media attention focused on the war, and even Oscars were stolen - the seventy-five-year-old Oscar ended the year's birthday in a hurry and amid the media's sarcasm.

The college held an award ceremony on its own. No one can tell whether it was a victory or an embarrassment.

Under such a background, "City of God" is naturally nothing. "Chicago" and "pianist" have almost stolen all the limelight. The former is considered a paradise in disaster and warms the fear of society. The Academy awarded the best film to it in the hope of injecting a shot of a heart-warming shot to the public; the latter is the most direct accusation of the war, which truly demonstrates the Academy's unswerving anti-war stance. Therefore, these two works also consumed the gimmick of "City of God".

However, after the screenings around, the reputation of "City of God" was completely spread, especially the outstanding performance released in a small scale last week was even more fueled. Therefore, in the third week of March, Paramount further mentioned the release of "City of God" to 981 theaters, showing strong confidence in the movie.

"City of God" delivered a weekend box office of 3.9 million US dollars in a single museum. This is the first time that the movie has dropped in the box office for five weeks since its release, and the upward momentum has slowed down. However, the cumulative box office of "City of God" has successfully reached 23 million US dollars, and the box office data that impacts "Angel Love Beauty" has been included in the agenda.

After that, the disadvantages of "City of God" were finally reflected, an independent film with a deviant sword, an art film with heavy intentions, a non-English film in Portuguese, and a drama film without a big name. After five consecutive weeks of explosions, the decline suddenly appeared.

Subsequently, Paramount Pictures maintained its release at 980 theaters for another two weeks, but the box office of a single museum had dropped to around 2,500 US dollars, and there was a further downward trend, which forced Paramount Pictures to start shrinking the screening scale. However, thanks to the excellent reputation of the film, Paramount's shrinking pace was always unhurried and orderly, which allowed the film to successfully release in major theaters in North America for fifteen weeks, and it was not offline until the last week of May. After witnessing the outrageous reputation of "Find Nemo", it officially ended its North American box office journey.

It is worth mentioning that the activity of Javier's blog lasted for three weeks, screened out 63 posts, attracted more than 140,000 replies and comments, not to mention an average daily click rate of 120,000, which has become one of the most sensational events since the Internet era.

Relying on the solid reputation of "City of God", Rotten Tomato Network's freshness dropped to 96%, and the rating on imdb also dropped to 8:7. It steadily ranked in the top 250 films and ranks 15th. This is not only the work that non-English works perform best on imdb, but also the only non-English work in the top 30.

Without any further remarks, the excellence of "City of God" is obvious at a glance.

With the concerted efforts of the audience, the final box office of "City of God" reached 45 million US dollars, easily surpassing "Angel Love Beauty", occupying the third place in the North American historical box office rankings, only behind the "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and "Beautiful Life" that defies the heavenly performance. These three works are also the only three non-English works in film history so far with a box office of over 40 million North American!

What is even more rare is that the issuance rights of "City of God" were sold to 25 countries and regions around the world, including Brazil, and achieved results beyond imagination. The overseas box office was as high as 83 million US dollars, which shocked everyone. Brazil, Germany, the United Kingdom and Spain ranked in the top four overseas box office respectively, and the box office all exceeded the 8 million threshold. Brazil became the largest ticketing stock in the world after North America, winning a box office of 15 million US dollars, with remarkable results.

In the absence of everyone's optimism, "City of God" won 128 million US dollars in box office data worldwide. Whether it is the cost of a movie of only 3 million US dollars, the background of the Portuguese, or the factors of directors, screenwriters and actors' debut, it is a result of a complete victory from any perspective. This result was not only beyond the media's expectations, but even beyond the expectations of Paramount Pictures. Even Brad Gray looked shocked and wondered, "What's going on with this box office?"

As a dark horse, "City of God" has achieved a double-leading reputation and box office performance. Not to mention the performance of the awards season at the end of the year, it is certain that Paramount's outstanding performance at the box office made Paramount laugh almost unhooked, which also allowed Lance and Chaos Pictures to break into the sight of major Hollywood film companies overnight.

In Hollywood, people call the Sundance Film Festival a "blockbuster springboard" and then call the Toronto Film Festival a "Oscar backyard", which means that if an independent director wants to enter the mainstream Hollywood circle, he will go to Sundance; if an independent director wants to win the Oscars, he will go to Toronto.

Now Lance has emerged from the platform of Sundance. The rapid rise really caught Ryan Cavalug, George Clooney and others off guard. Congratulations to the Denver Broncos led by Payton Manning for successfully winning the Super Bowl, celebrating, howling, and celebrating! The excitement is so great that it can't be calmed down! Congratulations to Daman, congratulations to Daman!
Chapter completed!