America gains both fame and fortune

Chapter 320: North American Box Office Winner
Before the film festival ended, the crew of The Departed left Toronto and started a promotional tour in major cities across the United States. Wherever the four main creators of the crew went, they attracted great attention in the local area.

During the period, they also went to Scorsese's farm in Massachusetts and took another photo with the old cow.

The video of the Bastard Trio presenting a cow to the director was widely circulated on the Internet, attracting the attention of many young people.

Scorsese's gangster films have the least impact on the youth group.

Martin has good appeal among this group.

On Thursday afternoon, in front of the Bay Theater in Mallory Square in Miami, people wearing red Coca-Cola Cult T-shirts lined up for several hundred meters.

Martin is signing tickets here tonight.

All five theaters showing "The Departed" in the cinema were packed.

Young audiences continued to queue up to buy tickets, so the theater manager made a temporary decision to vacate two theaters for additional screenings.

In Los Angeles, Rachel and Phoebe led a large group of Martin fans, wearing red Coke cult T-shirts, and marched through Hollywood Boulevard to the Chief Rock Cinema.

A giant poster of three characters from The Departed hangs above the main entrance of the theater.

"Martin has finally become a big star!" said Rachel.

Phoebe shouted to the back: "Line up, don't mess around, we're about to enter."

In just over ten minutes, the place had turned into a sea of ​​red, completely occupied by the followers of the Coke Cult and Martin's fans.

The two received a small sponsorship from Coca-Cola and the crew, and raised some funds to book the entire Chief Rock Cinema to watch the advance screening of "The Departed".

Of course, media reporters are also present.

"I have been a fan of Martin since he only starred in 'Zombie Gigolo'." Rachel talked freely in front of the camera. As the leader of Martin's largest fan club, she is no longer the naive fan back then.

She smiled and said: "I have witnessed Martin's growth along the way. He has finally come to the center of the Hollywood stage. It is really exciting to work with a top director like Scorsese..."

Before he finished speaking, a figure in a red T-shirt suddenly jumped in and shouted to the camera: "I love Martin!"

Another fan flashed into the shot, raised his Coke and toasted the camera: "The leader is mighty!"

The time was almost up, and Rachel said nothing more as she led her fans into the theater in an orderly manner.

The Chief Rock Cinema was packed.

Although influenced by the gangster film genre, Martin's fans and followers of the Coke Cult, especially the latter, will not buy tickets in droves, but in every theater showing The Departed in the United States, you can find people wearing red T-shirts.

Correspondingly, fans who like Leonardo and Scorsese will also come to the theater to buy tickets.

With 3000 advance screenings on Thursday, The Departed took in $512 million.

This is extremely rare for a gangster film.

By Friday, the film had expanded to 3290 theaters for a full North American release.

The only movie released at the same time was "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning", which was not even on the same level as the other films.

The four main creative members of the crew, including Martin, are still on a promotional tour across the United States signing and selling tickets, and all kinds of advertising and publicity have never stopped.

The production investment of The Departed is as high as 9000 million US dollars, which means that the film cannot be released through a distribution model where it is screened in single digits, then slowly accumulates word of mouth, and then gradually expands the scale of screening.

Its distribution model is completely commercial.

On its first day in North America, The Departed took in $1305 million, setting a new record for Scorsese’s best single-day box office performance in his 40 years in the film industry.

Of the four great Hollywood directors of the 1980s, Lucas, Coppola and Spielberg have all created miraculous box office results, but Scorsese has always been relatively lackluster.

In a bar in Houston, Scorsese treated Martin, Leonardo and Nicholson to a drink to celebrate.

"Cheers!" Scorsese picked up his beer glass and clinked it with the three bastards at the same time.

Nicholson drank it all in one gulp and said, "You old fellow are almost retiring, but I didn't expect you could still have a new success at the box office."

Scorsese was in a very good mood: "What you three did attracted a lot of attention. Warner originally expected a maximum of $3000 million in the first weekend. Now it seems that $4000 million is not impossible."

"Now the first weekend box office takes advance screenings into account." Martin is getting more and more familiar with the North American film market: "Our film has a strong reputation, so it shouldn't be difficult to get over $4000 million."

Nicholson responded: "The first-week box office of movies nowadays is getting more and more scary."

Leonardo DiCaprio continued, "If it's a popular adaptation or sequel, with just us, we might be able to make hundreds of millions in the first weekend."

He further analyzed: "Although this film is an adaptation, the original work has basically no influence in North America, and it is not much different from the original film. The original is not a sequel, and this result can be said to be a box office explosion."

Martin said: "Hopefully the final North American box office will be twice the cost."

A director of Scorsese's level must have profit-sharing clauses in his contracts. He couldn't help but say: "If that's the case, I can rest assured to have a seventh child.

Nicholson knows his old friend: "Test tube technology is very advanced."

Scorsese said with emotion: "The more decisive and carefree you are when you are young, the harder you have to work when you are old."

Leonardo said naturally: "So, I have never thought about getting married." Martin fully agreed: "After all, so many beautiful women like us, we have to be responsible for them and can't let them bear the stigma of destroying marriages."

Scorsese and Nicholson were both shocked by the man's shamelessness.

Leonardo asked, "What have you been through to become like this?"

"Just like you." Martin said casually, "I just walked a little too much into the canyon abyss."

The main creative quartet moved from Texas to Louisiana, and The Departed took in another $1489 million in North America on Saturday.

Scorsese's personal single-day box office record was broken after only one day.

The Departed topped the North American box office chart for two consecutive days, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was nowhere to be seen.

As everyone expected, The Departed topped the North American box office chart with $4282 million this Sunday.

The second-ranked film "Germany", even though its IP has a huge influence, was still completely crushed and did not even earn 2000 million US dollars.

Accordingly, Scorsese created the best opening box office in his directorial career.

In terms of word of mouth, "The Departed" has been extremely popular in North America.

The Rotten Tomatoes freshness remains at 93%, the MTC average score is 87, and the IMDB score is 8.6, all of which are guarantees of a stable box office performance.

Most importantly, based on the on-site cinemascore ratings given by theater audiences, The Departed received an average score of A, and its North American box office is expected to be around $1.8 million.

Many North American media praised the film, believing that it has become a masterpiece of Martin Scorsese, just like "Taxi Driver", "Raging Bull" and "Goodfellas".

This big-budget, heavily promoted film is guaranteed to be a success.

The producers and distributors saw the hope of recovering their costs through box office alone, and stepped up efforts to promote the film's overseas release, finalizing its release in multiple markets including Asia, Europe and Latin America this week.

During this week, the main creative team is still busy running around the United States for promotional announcements.

The film sold well and received rave reviews, and they were the most direct beneficiaries.

Even Nicholson, a semi-retired old man, can add a substantial sum to his pension.

If you want to be a qualified bastard, how can you do anything without money?

People who are struggling to make a living every day have neither the time nor the energy to do anything.

While Martin was in Chicago, he received a call from Thomas.

"I have good news for you. Ali held a special award-winning meeting for you on Monday." Thomas' voice was full of joy. "The company has selected two other people, together with Natasha and me, to form a public relations team. All expenses and costs of the team will be covered by the company."

Martin asked, "How's the PR push going with the Los Angeles critics?"

Thomas replied: "Los Angeles film critics, led by Kenneth Turan and Todd McCarthy, praised your performance in The Departed and wrote articles in their columns."

He did not forget to take credit: "Of course, our targeted public relations also played a role."

Martin reminded: "Don't forget to contact for the interview."

"I've made an appointment with your neighbor Gillian Flynn at Entertainment Weekly," Thomas said quickly. "Interviews with The Hollywood Reporter and Vanity Fair are both moving forward. It shouldn't be a problem."

During award season, maximizing exposure can be said to be the basis for winning awards.

Thomas also reminded Martin: "Your famous friends should also mobilize as much as possible."

Martin said: "I have contacted them. Let's wait a little longer. It won't be too late for them to speak out in December."

The two sides quickly hung up the phone, and Martin continued to devote himself to the roadshow.

Large-scale publicity and strong word of mouth allowed The Departed to maintain an extremely stable box office trend. The North American box office only fell by 40% in the second weekend, reaching 8678 million US dollars.

The film also achieved consecutive box office championship in North America.

North America is very close to breaking 100 million.

Similarly, films that are big hits at the North American box office will not perform too badly overseas. The Departed took in $3278 million in its first overseas week.

However, the box office revenue mainly came from the Latin American and European markets. The film suffered a box office and reputation failure in the East Asian and Southeast Asian markets where it was released at the same time.

This is also where Infernal Affairs had the greatest influence.

With this high-quality film that is more in line with local aesthetics, "The Departed" naturally becomes a poor imitation, vulgar and dirty talk movie.

There are endless negative reviews. Just like "Infernal Affairs" has no market in North America, "The Departed" also has very little box office in the East Asian market.

Even in South Korea, the backyard of Hollywood movies, the box office in the first week was less than 100 million US dollars.

The situation in several other markets was even worse.

(End of this chapter)