Made In Hollywood

"It won't be very high. I'm mentally prepared for that."

Sunlight filtered through the window, falling into the dining room. Jeff Robbinov took the glasses from his daughter's hand and sat at the dining table. "After all, it's an R-rated film, so the audience is relatively limited."

"It's such a pity, Dad, that you didn't go to the premiere last night."

Amanda Robbinov put down the newspaper with a look of regret. "You know how intense the audience's reaction was, right? My classmate, the one who came over to our house, Miley, she almost went crazy."

Jeff Robbinov picked up his coffee cup and looked at his daughter.

Amanda continued, "It wasn't just her. All the young people at the premiere were freaking out. I never thought a film could be so cool, so stylish, and so fun."

"Darling, don't read the newspaper during breakfast."

A middle-aged woman walked in. Amanda cheekily stuck out her tongue. "Mom, I'm already done with breakfast."

"Lise, hasn't Doug Walter called yet?" Jeff Robbinov asked his wife.

Lise Robbinov sat down next to him and shook her head. "Doug Walter just called. The statistics company ran into a small issue, so the box office data might take a little longer to arrive."

"Are you talking about The Matrix midnight show box office?" Amanda asked curiously.

"Yeah."

When she heard her father's words, Amanda's eyes lit up. "Dad, what's your expectation for the midnight show box office?"

Jeff Robbinov put down his coffee cup and replied, "I said it won't be very high. Warner and I expected around 5 million dollars."

"What about the opening weekend?"

"35 million dollars."

Amanda pursed her lips. "You guys are too conservative! You don't know how popular Duke's films are among young people!"

"Darling, don't forget, this is an R-rated film…"

Before Jeff Robbinov could finish his sentence, a servant came into the dining room holding a fax. Lise Robbinov took it and placed it in front of her husband.

"The statistics are here," she said.

"How much?" Amanda asked curiously.

"Looks like I was indeed a bit too conservative."

Adjusting his glasses, Jeff Robbinov said, "7.85 million dollars! If I remember correctly, this is the highest box office for an R-rated midnight show."

"Yes!"

Amanda raised her fist in excitement. "That's awesome!"

Seeing her parents look at her, she shrugged playfully. "I'm just happy for the movie I love!"

Then, she picked up her bag from the other side. "I'm going, Dad. Mom, I made plans with my classmates last night."

"Where are you going?" Lise Robbinov asked.

Amanda turned around and said, "We're going to watch The Matrix. We plan to stay in the theater all day."

After the girl left, the dining room returned to silence, with only the sound of Jeff and Lise chewing their food. It wasn't until breakfast was finished and Jeff Robbinov was preparing to leave for work that the sound of conversation returned to the room.

"Congratulations, dear," Lise Robbinov said to her husband. "Warner has another film that's going to be a big hit."

"Just the midnight show, though. We'll have to see the opening weekend to judge the North American trend."

The Santa Clara Cinema is a chain theater under the Emperor Entertainment group. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it's close to Silicon Valley and Stanford University, making it one of the top five cinemas in terms of foot traffic in the entire San Francisco area.

Zhou Xin works at this cinema, handling the concessions counter. Although he is a first-generation immigrant, he is gradually blending into the local society, both linguistically and in terms of living habits.

After parking his car and walking to the cinema entrance, Zhou Xin noticed the cinema wasn't open yet, but there were already people waiting outside. What's even more exaggerated is that San Francisco's May weather is rarely cool, yet some people were wearing long black coats…

However, when he thought about the film that was going to be widely released today, Zhou Xin understood what was going on.

"It's just a knockoff, still different from Neo's version."

He shook his head and entered the cinema. After completing the usual attendance check, he went straight to the warehouse and brought out boxes of merchandise to be displayed in the concession stands, including coats, sunglasses, figurines, keychains…

"Why are there phones?"

A colleague walked by and curiously glanced at the items. "George, when did we start selling phones with our merchandise? Do you think they'll sell?"

"Who knows?"

Zhou Xin shrugged and, aside from displaying two sample phones, placed the remaining 50 Nokia flip phones at the bottom of the container.

When the clock hit 9:00 AM, the cinema officially opened. Although it was a Friday in the summer, the morning crowd was usually not large. However, as soon as the doors opened, nearly a hundred young people rushed in. Most of them didn't even look at the posters of other films; they went straight to the ticket counter.

"I want The Matrix…"

"I'll take a ticket for The Matrix!"

Similar voices echoed, as if everyone was here specifically for this film, which was being widely released today.

Since few people asked about the concessions, and because his position faced the hallway leading into the theaters, Zhou Xin idly estimated the number of people walking into different screening rooms.

Taxi had about three viewers in its first showing.

Deep Impact, although it had been playing for a week, had six viewers for its first morning screening.

Cold Blooded Soldiers didn't sell a single ticket, and it probably wouldn't even be shown anymore.

The Matrix, well, forget about it, there were just too many people to count.

Generally, a small theater with about six viewers can cover its screening costs, but for today's first screenings, the cinema could only hope for The Matrix to make a profit.

On the other side, a colleague at the popcorn counter asked, "George, is the show open yet?"

"No!"

Zhou Xin shrugged and looked enviously at the ticketing section, where more and more people were walking into the screening rooms. Words like 'cool,' 'explosive time,' 'Neo and Trinity,' and 'illusion vs. reality' echoed through the halls.

Watching the new The Matrix merchandise on display, Zhou Xin sighed. His income was closely tied to sales performance, and it wasn't a good sign that there had been no sales yet.

"Maybe things will change after The Matrix finishes?"

After nearly two hours of waiting, Zhou Xin finally saw the crowd of men and women coming out of the first showing of The Matrix. They didn't look tired like usual moviegoers but were instead excited! No, they were ecstatic! To use his pre-immigration words, it was like they had been injected with adrenaline!

The crowd chattered loudly, and every sentence seemed to have the word 'cool' in it. It seemed like that was the only word they could use.

"Where did you get that coat?"

Adam asked his companion, "It's still very different from Neo's, but when you were outside the cinema, Roman, I thought you looked cool. After watching the movie…"

He shook his head.

"This was made by my sister based on the poster using my dad's old coat," Roman replied, scratching the back of his head in embarrassment.

But Adam didn't pay attention to his words and hurried forward, his eyes gleaming as he spotted Neo's black coat hanging on the display.

The placement of the merchandise counter in front of the theater hall entrance wasn't without reason.

"Hey, I want that coat!"

Like many others, Adam came to the merchandise counter, squeezed to the front, and shouted loudly, "Do you have the sunglasses? Do you have Neo's boots? If you do, I'll take a pair, my size is…"

In just a few minutes, Zhou Xin, who had previously had nothing to do, was suddenly overwhelmed with customers. There were over 20 people crowding the counter, most of them buying coats and sunglasses, and some girls even picked out Trinity's leather jacket and boots. Even the limited edition coat, priced at $999, sold out twice.

With the coat and sunglasses in hand, Adam immediately tried them on and felt like the savior. When he was about to pay, he heard the sales assistant mention, "We also have Neo's phone."

"Is it the Nokia flip phone?" Adam eagerly asked.

"Yes!" Zhou Xin immediately pulled out a sample. "Genuine Nokia flip phones, first day of sale!"

Never mind, I'll just live on bread for the next month! Thinking this, Adam gritted his teeth and said, "Give me one, I've been wanting a phone!"

When they arrived, they wore different outfits, but when they left, they were all dressed as Neo and Trinity.

This was basically the day in a nutshell. After sending off this group of customers, Zhou Xin was no longer idle. As more people watched The Matrix, merchandise sales surged. By the time he was almost done with his shift, not only had the cheaper items like coats and sunglasses sold out, but all 50 Nokia phones were gone as well!

"Boss, we need to restock as quickly as possible."

He dialed the cinema manager's number and briefly said, "We need more sunglasses, keychains, coats, and phones... Otherwise, there will be no merchandise to sell tomorrow!"

After hanging up, Zhou Xin let out a sigh of relief and started tallying his sales. When he finished counting, his eyes widened. He had sold $58,950 worth of The Matrix merchandise that day!

This was nearly the same as a typical workday's box office revenue during the off-season!

Because he wasn't working at the ticketing counter, Zhou Xin had no idea how many tickets for The Matrix had been sold, but he was certain that with the merchandise selling so well, the box office performance wouldn't be bad either!

...

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