[Chapter 199: Acquisition of Hollywood Gossip Daily]
The market performance of Step Up 2 was indeed very impressive. On Friday, it opened in 2,800 theaters with 6,000 screens, raking in $11.83 million on the first day, plus another $1.86 million from midnight screenings. The total first day box office was $13.69 million, grabbing the top spot for daily earnings.
The second place went to The Fugitive, which had earned $9.17 million. The Fugitive had been strong, having pulled in $65.82 million in North America in its full week before, ranking just behind Jurassic Park and Speed for opening week. Industry experts predicted its total North American box office would reach around $180 million.
Step Up 2 continued its momentum. It earned $12.21 million on Saturday and $10.21 million on Sunday. Over its opening weekend, it amassed $36.11 million in North America, securing the weekend box office crown and astonishing many insiders, who declared that the era of youth musicals had arrived.
...
The massive success of the previous Step Up had sparked a wave of imitators. Now, sparked by Step Up 2's success, many more film studios were preparing to jump into the youth musical genre. But Linton knew very well that without exceptional quality and careful cost control, any new projects entering the market now were likely to suffer huge losses.
He clearly remembered that in his previous life, Step Up 2 had premiered three years after the first film. During those two years, numerous copycat projects flooded in, many being poorly made films that bored audiences. Most of those projects ended up in significant losses.
Although Step Up 2 was of good quality with truly spectacular dance sequences, its North American box office failed to reach $60 million, falling short of expectations and even underperforming the first movie.
Fortunately, most of the films in this genre hadn't been released overseas, so international audiences hadn't grown tired of the style. Step Up 2 had gained an outstanding $130 million overseas.
Now, only one year had passed since the first film's release, with only two competing youth musical films released in the meantime. These two films -- Paramount's Dance Fever High and Warner Bros.' Dancing Life -- were both of high quality with good box office numbers, not wearing out the audience.
By the second half of the year, five or six more similar youth musical films were set to release. It was likely that by the end of the year, audiences would start growing weary of the genre.
...
However, none of this affected Step Up 2. Thanks to Universal's ramped-up promotion and relentless publicity tours featuring Anne, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Jennifer, the film's box office kept soaring, with weekday drops remaining healthy.
From Monday to Thursday, it made $22.73 million, and by the end of the week, the North American total reached $58.84 million. Starting the second week, the film was released overseas in 10 countries.
...
Even better, merchandise related to the film -- the hats and clothes Leonardo's character wore, plus dolls of Leonardo and Jennifer -- turned into hot sellers. Sales reached $14.3 million, $7.8 million, and $7.3 million respectively.
Leonardo and Jennifer also showcased their immense star power, driving strong product sales.
...
However, soundtrack sales were only modestly successful. Although Linton composed two theme songs called Level Up and Shake Your Pom Pom, the overall album quality was just decent.
Despite the film's popularity, only about 700,000 soundtrack albums were sold, far less than the first film's soundtrack sales. Nevertheless, Level Up and Shake Your Pom Pom both entered Billboard's top 50 singles.
Seeing these results, many studios could no longer sit still as 7 or 8 new youth musicals announced green lights.
...
Meanwhile, the media started mocking Linton for misjudging the box office, claiming his forecasts were way off.
But Linton didn't care; he preferred underestimating rather than boasting and then being proven wrong. Let them laugh -- it only added buzz around the film and boosted his profits.
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On August 16, Linton and Lou Wasserman attended a social appreciation banquet hosted by the LAPD, where they were warmly welcomed by top officials.
After donating a $2 million check on behalf of the Speed studio, the LAPD hierarchy fully accepted them as insiders. They even upgraded their access cards to gold status, granting them more privileges.
Thanks to Hoff's introductions, Linton got acquainted with most mid-to-high level LAPD officers, exchanging business cards. He believed this would make his future dealings with the LAPD smoother or at least more convenient.
---
After over ten days of discussions and negotiations, Winnie and Goodman finally reached a purchase agreement with the shareholders of Hollywood Gossip Daily. The Linton Charity Foundation acquired full ownership for $700,000.
The acquisition closed on August 18. Linton, accompanied by assistant Meena and PR agent Ellie, along with Winnie and Goodman, visited the Hollywood Gossip Daily office.
The office was located in a Burbank building, with less than 2,000 square feet of space. It housed editor-in-chief Sharon Layman, three editors, eleven reporters, and one accountant.
The news content mainly relied on on-site reporters collecting material for the editors to cobble together copy. When there wasn't any valuable breaking news, the editor-in-chief and editors sometimes concocted gossip stories by speculation -- it was all tabloid content anyway.
They also bought stories from paparazzi, but with limited budgets, they generally couldn't get the most valuable exclusives and mostly depended on the reporters' gathered material.
Because exclusive or highly appealing news were rare, the tabloid's sales had always been stagnant, and the morale of the editorial team and reporters was low.
When the staff heard Linton was their new owner, they cheered from the heart, knowing he was a hot Hollywood millionaire. They no longer worried about budget problems.
Moreover, Linton himself was a major star and renowned playboy. His every move attracted public attention. As long as he was willing, the tabloid would have instant access to news -- at least priority rights. Future sales wouldn't be a problem.
...
After a simple welcome, Linton held a straightforward meeting.
He originally intended to ask about reasons for poor sales and suggestions for improvement, but instead, he ended up listening to complaints -- mostly that they simply didn't have enough money.
No money meant low morale; no money meant they couldn't pay informants well, so exclusive news weren't prioritized or acquired; no money meant paparazzi withheld valuable stories; no money meant weak distribution channels, all of which severely hurt sales.
"Alright, since you all say money is the main issue, I'll solve it right now. I'm injecting $2 million cash into the paper -- $1 million for channel expansion and $1 million to improve your reporting tools, staff salary, informant payments, and news purchases," said Linton.
"Sharon, come up with a specific plan for channel expansion and incentive schemes, and submit them to Winnie for review."
"Thank you, boss!" everyone cheered together.
"Hold on, I'm not done. Now that I've solved your problems, I'm going to expect results. You have three months to double the paper's sales. Can you do it?"
Everyone felt tense. This new boss wasn't easy to fool. They had just made it clear that money was the only problem, and now that was solved, they had no excuse but to say, "Doubling sales in three months? No problem."
"Great. Since you're confident, here's the deal: today's August 18. In three months, by November 18, I want to see results.
If you do it, everyone gets at least a 10% raise. If not, I'll get serious -- starting by firing Sharon and hiring an experienced editor from outside. As for the rest, I hope Sharon will seriously weed out underperformers based on merit."
Everyone exchanged glances. Linton was not just hard to fool but a tough boss, holding both carrot and stick -- an effective approach.
But this was better than the paper's current dying state. Maybe this shake-up would turn things around.
As they contemplated, Sharon spoke up, "Boss, no problem. If sales don't double in three months, I'll resign. But I have one condition I hope you can agree to."
"Go ahead. What's the condition?"
"As a major Hollywood director and star, you're naturally a hot news item. I hope you can provide us convenience by allowing the paper to have priority rights, preferably exclusives, on your news."
"Sure, I can promise that. Coordinate with my assistant later. I'm happy to cooperate with any stories you want to run."
"Including publicity stunts and dating rumors?" Sharon eagerly asked.
"No problem. But for extreme stories, have my PR Ellie review them first," Linton smiled approvingly, seeing she was a capable ally.
After all, his main goal in acquiring the paper was to boost coverage of himself and his women. But he wouldn't order it as a task; that would cause laziness. Instead, using incentives to make them chase sales actively would be far more effective.
*****
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