I'm Not A Master, I'm A Director
Chapter 402: Without Depp, That's Enough
If it were only insults and curses in the reviews, it wouldn't be a big deal for Disney.
Over the past few years, Disney had been greedily pumping out DVD releases of its classic animations, and the backlash had never been small. But for a commercial company like Disney, getting scolded wasn't a problem at all. As long as money was coming in, it was a victory.
However, when the first-day North American box office numbers for Cinderella landed on Robert Iger's desk, the "Smiling Mickey Mouse" suddenly found it difficult to keep smiling.
$8.12 million on opening day.
Five years ago, that might have been considered a respectable number. But in this era dominated by Shinji Matou, calling this opening "excellent" would only be self-deception.
Even a complete outsider could tell that these numbers had no chance of establishing dominance at the top of the box office.
"Mr. Iger…"
The secretary standing across the desk forced out a smile that looked worse than crying as he watched his boss's constantly shifting expression.
Robert Iger didn't answer immediately. He stared at the Cinderella box office figure again and again, as if confirming that the number wasn't just a mistake caused by failing eyesight.
After a long moment, Mr. Mickey Mouse finally looked up at his secretary and asked,
"And FA's numbers?"
The secretary replied without hesitation.
"FA made $11.23 million in North America yesterday. It's still the single-day champion."
"A difference of three million?"
Hearing the report, Robert Iger's brows knitted slightly.
The number was… delicate.
If this were the difference between two films' weekly totals, it would hardly matter.
But this was a single-day gap—and worse, it was the opening day for Cinderella.
If the next two days of the weekend showed growth, things might still be salvageable. After all, FA's box office curve was already steadily declining.
But if Friday's opening was already Cinderella's peak…
Several unpleasant thoughts flashed through his mind, but Robert Iger eventually forced them aside.
A man who had climbed to his position wouldn't lose composure over a single success or failure.
They would summarize the experience, analyze where Cinderella had gone wrong, and in the next head-on confrontation defeat Shinji Matou—making him taste defeat for once.
A single loss was also a valuable lesson.
Disney would grow stronger from this failure…
Yeah, right.
No one wanted to experience failure, and Robert Iger was certainly no exception.
After all, this time Cinderella had been released with the risk of losing box office revenue precisely to ambush FA during its second week.
And what happened?
FA's box office declined at a normal rate, but Disney's Cinderella performed far below expectations.
It was supposed to be Cinderella and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles teaming up to snipe FA.
Instead, it felt more like FA had sniped both Cinderella and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
How could Robert Iger possibly be happy with that outcome?
Sure, Cinderella still had a chance to turn things around. But after decades in the film industry, he knew full well that movies capable of miraculous comebacks were extremely rare.
And those that did usually succeeded because their pre-release expectations were underestimated or their marketing had been insufficient.
Besides, after he and several other studios had just tried to stab Shinji in the back, would the other side simply sit still and let him recover?
Robert Iger stood up from his chair and began pacing around the office. After a few steps, he muttered quietly,
"Is there really no one who can fight Shinji during the summer season?"
The words reached the secretary's ears.
He blinked and thought about it for a moment.
It seemed… there really wasn't anyone. At least not right now.
But the man in front of him was the one paying his salary. There was no way he could say something like "Losing in a head-on clash with Shinji is perfectly normal."
Did he want to lose his job?
Perhaps because the more he thought about it, the angrier he became, Robert Iger walked to the window and stomped his foot in frustration.
"Sigh… why can't anyone beat him even once? This was such a good opportunity!"
Hearing his boss's complaint, the secretary could only nod in silent agreement.
"Yes… this really was a good opportunity."
Cinderella had practically possessed every possible advantage. And yet, it still lost.
"Perhaps… it's because Shinji Matou is the number one figure in commercial cinema…"
The secretary blurted out the thought in his mind without thinking.
Robert Iger's face instantly turned dark, and he shot the man a vicious glare.
Realizing he had misspoken, the secretary immediately lowered his head, afraid that his boss might vent his anger on him.
Fortunately, the "Smiling Mickey Mouse" had enough composure. He didn't scold the secretary—because what the man had said was the truth.
Still, his mood was undeniably terrible.
An $8.12 million opening day was a number that made it impossible for Robert Iger to smile.
According to their previous estimates, Cinderella should have earned over $40 million during its opening weekend.
That meant the first-day box office should have exceeded at least $10 million.
Sure, the real number was only about $2 million lower than that expectation, but their projections had assumed the film would perform normally, with daily box office numbers gradually increasing over the weekend.
Judging from the current audience reception, whether the opening weekend could even reach $30 million was now a question.
In truth, if audience word-of-mouth had been strong enough, Disney could still rely on post-release revenue streams—home media, television rights, and various licensing deals—to make a profit.
But the audience reception for Cinderella was even more miserable than the opening-day box office.
According to data collected by rating agencies from offline theaters, the film's approval rating had already dropped to 45%.
And that was the polite, restrained version people gave when answering surveys face-to-face.
Online, on IMDb, Cinderella was already on the verge of being labeled a bad movie.
And the film had only been in theaters for one day.
Robert Iger didn't even dare imagine how low the ratings might fall in the coming days.
And in situations like this, comparisons were the most painful thing of all.
Their competitor, Fate/Apocrypha, had already been released for over a week, yet its word-of-mouth and box office stamina remained astonishingly strong.
Barring any accidents, that movie would undoubtedly become the darling of the May film market.
Of course, saying that Cinderella brought nothing but negative impact wouldn't be entirely accurate.
At the very least, its existence reminded people just how excellent the original animated version was.
According to reports, after only one day of Cinderella's release, the DVD sales of the animated Cinderella had increased by five percent.
It was clear that quite a lot of people, after being left with complicated feelings by the live-action film, had chosen to re-watch the animated version to cleanse their eyes.
And this was after Disney had spent the past two years aggressively selling reprints of its classic animation DVDs.
If those DVDs had been reissued less frequently, the animated Cinderella might have been sold out across all of North America.
Sitting back down in his chair, Robert Iger rubbed his forehead hard, doing his best not to let the gloom in his heart show on his face.
His approachable smile had always been part of his public persona.
If he started showing irritability, the company's morale would be the first thing to collapse.
The secretary wanted to help his boss somehow.
But even if he donated every penny of his personal wealth, it wouldn't increase the number of movie tickets sold by much.
Meanwhile, Robert Iger was still thinking about the film, trying to find a way to save Cinderella.
For a movie, poor box office and bad audience reception didn't necessarily mean the final verdict had been sealed.
If the film could achieve something during awards season, it might still recover its costs—or even turn a profit.
In fact, before Shinji Matou's rise, this had been the primary profit model for most films.
Back then, film critics held absolute authority. They were the most influential figures in the movie industry.
And that was precisely why critics hated Shinji Matou so much.
That man had dragged them down from their pedestal.
"Could Cinderella accomplish something during awards season?"
Robert Iger looked up at the ceiling and muttered the question to himself.
Before the secretary could respond, he shook his head and rejected the idea himself.
The reason was simple.
Even among critics, Cinderella's reception wasn't much better.
Although thanks to Disney's formidable PR machine, the film's critic scores appeared—on the surface—to be roughly comparable to Fate/Apocrypha.
But any critic who hadn't been reached by Disney's PR machine would give Cinderella a score so low it was practically buried underground.
To put it bluntly, the critics praising Cinderella were textbook examples of people getting paid to say nice things.
For a movie like that to win awards during the awards season? That would be harder than getting Gilgamesh to wear a maid outfit.
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"By the logic of the enemy of my enemy is my friend, Disney is your competitor. Shouldn't film critics be supporting Cinderella instead?"
Inside the studio office, Ryougi Shiki was busy fiddling with a tea set in her hands. She brewed black tea with great interest, but her mouth didn't stay idle either. While working, she kept firing off questions at Shinji about movies.
"Shinji, those parasites you talk about actually have a bit of professional ethics after all. They criticized Cinderella pretty harshly."
The Garden of Sinners was about to premiere soon, and Shiki's emotions were jumping around wildly—like Fou dancing in a rave.
She kept asking Shinji, the professional here, all sorts of questions in hopes of finding references for her own film.
"Who said that? If those people had professional ethics, I'd debut as a boy band with Archer, Shirou, and Gilgamesh." Shinji replied in a weak, listless tone.
He had just returned to Fuyuki City from North America. He had barely been seated for half an hour before Shiki came over.
Though he was a bit tired, having someone to chat with wasn't bad. After experiencing "hell" overseas, Shiki's gentle voice felt incredibly soothing.
"Shiki-nee, you need to understand something," Shinji said.
"For those people, their only moral standard is money."
Since Shiki was one of his own people, Shinji didn't hold back when he started complaining.
"If a profession doesn't make money, then it's just a hobby, right?"
Shiki set down the teacup, a bitter smile appearing on her face.
"But why would they help us this time?"
"Nonono~ Shiki-nee, you've got it wrong."
Shinji lifted the cup of black tea Shiki had brewed for him, took a sip, and explained.
"They're not helping us at all. They're just helping themselves."
"If remake movies like Cinderella, which are basically rushed cash-grabs, can still succeed," Shinji continued, raising one finger with a faint smile, "then everyone might as well start remaking old films. There'd be no need for critics to analyze movies anymore."
He chuckled lightly.
"If Disney could remake an animated movie and succeed every single time, then those critics—who didn't say a word about it—would look pretty awkward, wouldn't they? Their influence would drop even further."
"That makes sense."
Shiki nodded slightly. She pursed her lips and took a small sip of the tea in her cup.
"Still… they helped us a little this time, didn't they? That's not so bad."
"With or without them, it doesn't really matter."
Shinji shrugged indifferently.
Sure, the double failure of audience reception and professional reviews for Cinderella would inevitably bring massive negative impact.
But how many viewers critics could still influence nowadays was a complete unknown.
You couldn't say they were completely useless, but their usefulness was barely better than nothing.
Still, Shinji hadn't expected Cinderella to be this fragile.
It couldn't even surpass the opening-day box office of Fate/Apocrypha, which had already been in theaters for over a week. That was completely different from what he remembered.
However, after analyzing it carefully, the film's poor market reaction wasn't really Shinji's doing.
In Shinji's previous world, one of the most important reasons Cinderella succeeded was its release timing.
It had been released during a slow season.
Because there were no other blockbusters competing at the time, Cinderella had essentially become the tallest among dwarfs.
Not only that, but before Cinderella, Disney had already built momentum with a well-received live-action fairy tale adaptation—Maleficent.
And by that time, it was already 2017. Audiences were getting a little tired of all the action-heavy, effects-driven blockbuster films.
A fairy-tale style movie like Cinderella offered a refreshing change of pace.
Only when all of those factors combined together did Cinderella achieve its success.
However, the Cinderella in this world didn't possess any of the factors that had made it successful before.
A great release window?
None.
Sure, the summer season was the peak season for movies—but with the quality of Cinderella, how could it possibly compete with Fate/Apocrypha?
A decent previous entry to build momentum?
Still none.
In this world, Cinderella was actually the very first film in Disney's live-action remake series.
So there was no prior success paving the road for it.
What about an advantage in audience demographics?
That didn't exist either.
Yes, quite a few Mary Sue–loving teenage girls chose to watch the film. But in a movie market where audiences were still in the process of being cultivated, their numbers simply weren't enough to push Cinderella's box office to a higher level.
"Sure enough… timing, location, and people—all three really matter."
Thinking about how the same film had such different fates in two different worlds, Shinji couldn't help but sigh.
"Huh? Shinji, what did you just say?"
Ryougi Shiki, who had been enthusiastically talking about critics helping them, suddenly froze mid-sentence. She looked at Shinji in surprise.
"What I meant is," Shinji said calmly, "once your movie releases, you won't get such lucky treatment."
"Eh?!"
Shiki's expression stiffened instantly.
Shinji smiled at her.
"Don't forget, Pirates of the Caribbean is an original film. Critics won't deliberately give it bad reviews."
"Do you have to be so cruel…"
Shiki lowered her head and muttered in frustration.
But before long, she lifted her head again, regaining her spirit.
"Still, that Pirates of the Caribbean movie might turn out terrible! I mean, it's just a movie adapted from a theme park ride. How could something like that possibly be good~?"
"That's not necessarily true."
"Shinji! That's your movie too! Which side are you even on?!"
Shiki complained angrily, but Shinji ignored her completely.
After all, Shiki didn't know the film—but Shinji, a transmigrator, knew very well just how successful Pirates of the Caribbean would become.
Although the Pirates series had peaked with its very first film, and each later installment became progressively worse while the box office gradually shrank…
At its height, Pirates of the Caribbean was still one of the most powerful commercial film IPs in existence, surpassed only by monstrous franchises like the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
To have The Garden of Sinners clash head-on with Pirates of the Caribbean?
Honestly speaking, Shinji felt a bit nervous inside.
However, it wasn't as if Shinji had no advantage at all.
Because in this world's version of Pirates of the Caribbean, the actor playing Captain Jack Sparrow was not Johnny Depp.
And that alone was enough.
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