The next day, Leon boarded a flight to Miami to start a one-week tour.
Since the North American weekly box office chart only calculates the total box office for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and ranks the weekly champion based on this...
A day later, the opening results of Straight Outta Compton could be officially revealed.
According to what Lionsgate learned from the three major theater chains, the film's performance exceeded everyone's expectations.
It was currently entangled with another R-rated film The Hangover Part II and X-Men: First Class.
"Looks like you're going to make big money on your first movie," Phil sat in the back row, occasionally craning his neck to strike up a conversation.
"Why do you always have so many strange ideas in your head? It seems you can succeed in anything you do."
Leon smiled and replied, "This is due to the accumulation of life..."
"Fxxk, I've lived 30 years longer than you, why don't I have so much accumulation?"
"Because your accumulation is all on women and alcohol, you have your own talent."
One sentence choked Phil so much he didn't know how to retort, so he could only resentfully ask the flight attendant for a glass of whisky.
After receiving great praise on the first day of release, the reviews quickly reversed, and a small range of smears appeared.
Nitpicking is the basic professional quality of film critics.
Leon understood tacitly and immediately used his money power to make this small part of the noise disappear completely.
On online channels, at first, many anti-fans criticized Leon for not doing his proper job by making movies.
But after walking into the cinema to watch the movie, they all obediently shut up.
In terms of music biopics, this movie can completely be called a masterpiece.
Even so, some extreme fans still made threatening behaviors similar to "sending blades," demanding Leon release new songs quickly.
Currently, Demons has completed its half-year golden sales cycle, selling a total of more than 1.6 million physical records.
It is estimated that the final sales will freeze at around 2 million copies, and then grow slowly.
There are still two songs left from the inspiration refresh.
Old Town Road and We Don't Talk Anymore, these two premium products can be directly put into the second album.
Leon fiddled with his phone, refreshing social networks while chatting with Taylor.
"Where are you now? Don't you have a sense of time?" Taylor asked.
Leon was full of question marks; in his impression, the other party's concert was tomorrow night.
"Let me get this straight, isn't your concert tomorrow night?" Leon replied.
"That's right, but the rehearsal is today. You seem to pay no attention to our cooperation at all."
Seeing the other party's reply, Leon showed an unhappy expression.
Obviously, this woman's tsundere attitude was a bit too much.
As soon as the plane landed, he had to rush to the Live House scene to start his performance, and had no time to deal with any rehearsal matters.
He replied unceremoniously: "I'm helping you, not your slave!"
After the message was sent, there was completely no movement from Taylor's side.
Bonnie on the side joked half-heartedly: "Why do I feel Miss Taylor has different thoughts about you?"
"What thoughts?" Leon sighed, "In her heart, I might be the most hateful scumbag in the world, she is completely playing me."
Taylor is love-brained and cannot tolerate sand in her eyes.
This matter is recognized in the circle.
She wrote exclusive "breakup songs" for every ex-boyfriend she dated, and some of them received more than one.
Any trivial matter in love could be written into a song by her as evidence of a scumbag's crime.
"Don't you believe it? As a woman, I see it very clearly." Bonnie spread her hands, "Cooperation might just be an excuse, she just wants more opportunities to contact you."
At first, Leon thought this interpretation was a bit nonsensical.
But thinking carefully, it seemed to make some sense.
Taylor's fan base is essentially different from his, mostly teenagers from the middle class.
Not many people care about rapper street conflicts.
Leeching off heat is pure nonsense; if anyone is leeching between the two, it can only be him leeching off Taylor.
"Diddy is going crazy on Twitter again, looks like he didn't miss this movie." Bonnie changed the subject from Taylor, fiddling with her laptop.
Diddy's reaction was completely within Leon's expectations.
In the movie Straight Outta Compton, Diddy was described as a sissy who climbed to the top by selling his butt.
Relying on being the lover of Andre Harrell, the founder of Uptown Records, to start his career and mingle into the position of an executive at Uptown Records.
In those days when N.W.A exploded, he wished he could lick Eazy-E's butt to seek cooperation and exposure.
The truth of these contents is hard to distinguish, but Leon put all these bragging stories into the movie at once.
Making Diddy lose face completely on the big screen.
Now he had a hunch that Diddy's patience had reached its limit.
There must be big moves in the coming period.
After the plane landed in Miami, Leon rushed to the Live House scene to complete the tour as soon as possible.
Immediately afterwards, he rushed to the Wicked Angel brand store in South Miami Beach without stopping.
This was his first visit since the opening.
Because the products sold are relatively special, the business hours here will continue until 3 AM.
It is the time when special industry workers have the greatest demand for products.
The store was full of young women in bikinis with different skin colors.
The weather in Miami in June is hot. Compared to the last time he came here in winter, it was obvious that the girls wore less.
Bikini swimwear, just a thin string.
Rather than covering up, it is better to say it is for teasing.
"Sometimes I feel this country has regressed to primitive society." Phil cursed while watching, extremely hypocritical.
Leon took the laptop from the duty clerk and browsed the sales flow roughly.
Currently, the daily sales of this single store alone are above 10,000 dollars, selling hundreds of thongs every day.
Excluding rent, personnel wages, and purchase costs, the profit margin is around 50%.
Excluding the share given to Cardi B, it provides Leon with an income of more than 70,000 dollars per month.
But that's all, this little money is nothing for his current net worth.
"Your attitude is very incorrect." Leon first criticized the duty clerk.
A mixed-race Latina girl, curves were standard.
That huge taillight was particularly eye-catching, a talent Latinas are proud of.
"What? Very sorry..." The clerk was startled. Being criticized by such a big shot for the first time made her very nervous.
"Of course you have to wear your own brand's clothes during work." Phil smiled and brought a set of hollow lace bodysuits, "Your body is also the company's advertising space!"
Seeing Leon didn't speak, indicating default, the girl quickly completed the change on the spot.
"I have less and less confidence in this business."
Just after the subprime mortgage crisis ended, the retail industry crisis came.
Online shopping is constantly encroaching on the share of traditional retail, and even industry leaders like Victoria's Secret in the UK inevitably fall into recession.
The Victoria's Secret fashion show held by spending money to earn shouts brought commercial returns below expectations.
Net profit is meager, and even losses often occur.
"I told you long ago, you can't be like an octopus, wanting to touch every industry." Phil said with a slightly sarcastic tone.
The dilemma Wicked Angel encounters currently is that it is difficult to continue expanding the brand territory relying on Cardi B's influence alone.
A black female rapper, no matter how capable of bringing goods, cannot compare to top models.
"Why not think from another angle, Victoria's Secret is in trouble, isn't it just our opportunity?" Bonnie reminded.
Her business advice is increasingly valued by Leon.
After all, she is also a girl who studied business at NYU, and also the person who understands internet marketing best in the whole company.
Wicked Angel's online marketing is also her responsibility.
The click rate of videos trying on underwear on YouTube remains high, and a second-hand thong sells for hundreds of dollars.
It is no exaggeration to say that no one understands underwear better than Bonnie.
"Do you have any good ideas?" Leon asked with interest.
" The market share given up by Victoria's Secret's decline happens to be an opportunity for us to take over..."
According to Bonnie's idea, Victoria's Secret's annual sales exceed 3 billion dollars, with 1,200 stores worldwide.
Selling 600 pieces of underwear every minute on average.
In comparison, the Wicked Angel brand has not yet truly exploded its potential.
Bonnie continued: "We need some new promoters to expand our visibility in the industry... those professional models."
"Just like you thought before, hold a large fashion show."
This idea was often mentioned by Leon, but no action was taken.
Holding such a large fashion show costs a lot of money.
Just the appearance fees of those supermodels, even if all profits of Wicked Angel so far are thrown out, it is far from enough.
The risk of losing money is huge.
"Aren't you on very good terms with Miss Miranda?"
Reminded by Bonnie, Leon thought of Miranda. According to media reports, this woman seemed to have just secretly given birth to a child.
Rarely appearing in the camera currently.
"Will Miranda agree?" Leon smiled bitterly.
While Victoria's Secret is bound to high-end, Wicked Angel has been inseparable from sleaze since its birth.
The same thing, rich people playing is high-end, poor people playing is sleaze.
Even if Miranda agrees, her husband Orlando Bloom may not agree.
"We need supermodels like Miranda to expand our influence in the fashion circle."
Bonnie talked endlessly introducing her business plan for more than ten minutes.
To save the cost of holding a fashion show, not every model needs to be a big name.
Adult stars are also a good choice.
"Let Victoria's Secret supermodels and adult stars walk the show on the same stage?"
This bold business plan shocked Leon, the gimmick was too sufficient.
But after careful consideration, he felt there were some feasible points.
The social atmosphere is becoming more open day by day, and the "baizuo" ideology is prevailing.
The AVN Awards, known as the Adult Oscars, can even occupy a full 90 minutes of airtime on Showtime TV.
And famous singers are invited to perform every year.
The moral barriers of traditional values in the public mind are gradually collapsing.
"I will seriously consider your proposal..."
The next day, the opening weekend box office of Straight Outta Compton was fresh out of the oven.
In the restaurant of the InterContinental Miami, Leon refreshed the information on the internet while drinking coffee.
The smile spread all the way to his ears.
The first week box office of Straight Outta Compton reached an astonishing figure of 64 million dollars, surpassing the famous R-rated film American Pie 2.
Even on the chart of June 5th, it surpassed X-Men: First Class's 56 million dollars to reach the top.
Even the boldest film review agencies didn't expect this result.
Last weekend, The Hangover Part II just broke the R-rated film box office record of Austin Powers in Goldmember with an opening result of 86 million dollars.
But the budget of this movie was fully four times that of Straight Outta Compton.
James Wan once again continued his myth of box office return rate.
2011 surprisingly became a big year for R-rated films.
Leon's phone rang non-stop, almost every film industry worker he knew called to congratulate.
Lionsgate was extremely annoyed by the terrible decision at the beginning.
"Congratulations Leon, you created a box office miracle, you are simply a missionary for the black community..." On the other end of the phone, Miles used all his skills to flatter tirelessly.
The purpose was only one, hoping Leon's next movie could have a share for Lionsgate.
The company executives were extremely annoyed by the initial decision.
But they were obviously out of the competition.
Leon's movies didn't lack interested investors, and the wealthy Netflix was the number one suitor.
"What a pity... if you were in New York, I would have wanted to hold a grand celebration banquet for you." Stuber said.
"Very sorry, we will have many opportunities in the future." Leon responded casually, now his head was full of money numbers.
With a first week box office of 64 million dollars, the cinema chains took 30%, and the distributor Lionsgate took 5%.
Plus the 5% promised to James Wan, and the box office share of cooperative promotion agencies.
The final number falling into Leon's pocket was around 50%.
Of course, this money had to be shared 30% with investor Robinson.
Roughly estimated, the number truly in hand should be around 20 million dollars.
This was just the number for the first week of release.
Robinson had serious doubts about his nearly thirty years of criminal career; making money in the entertainment industry was much more efficient than drug trafficking.
With such a huge sum of money, he had begun to consider completely withdrawing from the black industry.
Leon lounged on the sofa, eyes spacing out.
This money was enough for him to do anything he wanted to do.
"Truly incredible..." Phil, who always loved to pour cold water, had nothing to say about this result, "This movie actually suppressed X-Men..."
A low-budget black movie with a budget of 10 million dollars defeated the big IP X-Men: First Class with a budget of 160 million dollars.
Such a result directly led the distributor 20th Century Fox to hold an emergency meeting to hold the executives of this project accountable.
It also sounded the alarm for the fanatical superhero movie market.
"Suppressing X-Men is an overstatement." Leon said: "Superhero movies have a huge overseas market, unfortunately the overseas box office of my movie is negligible."
The Versailles-style speech invited Phil's eye-roll.
Professional film review agencies have raised the final box office expectation of Straight Outta Compton to 200 million dollars.
If this movie could still eat the bonus of the huge overseas market, how much money it could eventually make was unimaginable.
The changes brought by money were enough to completely reverse Leon's situation on the contract renewal issue.
Both JAY-Z and Leonard should be very clear that 30 million dollars was no longer a number hard for Leon to refuse.
Either add money or let him go.
Besides this, only the third path of solving with violent means could be chosen.
A few minutes later, Taylor called.
Leon answered with joy, thinking the other party also came to congratulate him.
Taylor's scolding came from the other end of the phone: "Do you really have no sense of time, guy? The concert starts in two hours!"
"I understand." Leon hung up the phone, "We should go."
The hotel bellboy carried Leon's belongings and respectfully sent the group to the business car.
In the expectant eyes of the bellboy, he took out a 5-dollar bill as a tip and stuffed it into the other's jacket pocket.
"Shxt, your stinginess terrifies me." Phil couldn't bear to look at this scene, shaking his head repeatedly.
"Stingy? This is all my hard-earned money." Leon showed a serious expression: "To create such a script, every frame killed a lot of my brain cells."
"No one can succeed casually."
Phil rolled his eyes, secretly complaining, "This kid was born in the wrong era, what a pity he didn't become a plantation owner..."