Chapter 213: A Share of the Pie

Filming was suspended. Many crew members with relatives and friends in New York rushed to find their phones and make calls.

Wayne took the opportunity to announce a half-day break for the crew. After removing his makeup and returning to the car with Hannah and Monica Bellucci, he immediately took out his phone and called Marissa Mayer.

"I want to acquire a private military company!" Wayne stated his long-held plan.

With his wealth continuously growing, he had long desired to have his own armed forces. After all, in this dirty and foul-smelling Hollywood, even ten years later, underhanded tactics were still commonplace.

Moreover, his goal was to build a global entertainment empire, and how could an empire not have its own army? However, due to many concerns, he had not yet put this plan into action.

But now, the whole world knew that New York, that America, was not safe. As a billionaire with a net worth exceeding three billion dollars, it was reasonable for him to spend a hundred million or two to arm his own 'security' force, right?

"Should I involve Anne Hearst?" This thought suddenly occurred to Wayne after giving the instructions.

Originally, he wanted this armed force to belong solely to him. However, acquiring and expanding a private military company would indeed involve many troubles, and his current network of contacts was somewhat insufficient.

Secondly, as long as he continued to develop, surpassing Anne Hearst in strength was not difficult. Then, with the help of Amanda and Lydia's relationship, he could completely annex Anne Hearst's forces. In this way, this armed force would still belong to him.

However, after careful consideration, he dismissed this idea and chose to go it alone.

After all, such a force might not need to be overly powerful, and it could develop slowly, but it must be pure and absolutely loyal.

Ring! Ring! Ring! The phone rang again.

Wayne picked up the phone and answered. A moment later, a smile appeared on his face.

"Don't worry, I'm filming in Los Angeles... Los Angeles wasn't attacked... You don't need to come over, just continue filming... I'll make time to see you after I'm done filming..."

The call was from Liu Yifei. Although the young girl knew he was currently filming, she still called him as soon as she saw the news.

Wayne was very pleased with this concern.

Soon, other people called him one after another, which kept his phone busy for most of the day.

Most of the calls were to express concern for him, but a few were to seek comfort from him.

For example, Anne Hathaway and Alexandra Daddario, whose parents and relatives all lived in New York. Although they called their families immediately and knew they were safe, they still felt panicked and scared.

They wanted to rush back to New York to reunite with their families, but were refused by their parents. Coupled with the air traffic control, they had to stay in Los Angeles, so they could only seek a sense of security from Wayne.

After all, they were his women. Wayne hesitated for a moment, then after consulting with Mia and Jessica and obtaining their consent, he temporarily took the two into Wayne Manor and comforted them carefully.

However, the filming of the crew did not stop there, but resumed the next day.

Except for a small number of people with relatives and family in New York, others sighed and panicked, but life still had to go on, didn't it?

For such a large crew, the daily cost of props and location rental alone was tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars.

In addition, the filming of urban chase and racing scenes, which had already been applied to the police and fire departments, was not easy to change, otherwise it would be another large expense.

It is worth mentioning that although Wayne's physical fitness had already reached or even surpassed the limits of the human body, he did not personally perform those difficult stunt shots during filming, unlike Tom Cruise in "Mission: Impossible."

After all, he was now a real billionaire. If it weren't for the fact that this year's Forbes Rich List hadn't been released yet, he would have been on the list.

As the old saying goes, a gentleman does not stand under a dangerous wall.

He would not put himself in danger.

What's more, professional matters should be left to professionals. Otherwise, wouldn't he be taking the jobs of those professionals?

In the following period, Wayne continued as usual, going to the set to film in an orderly manner during the day, and comforting his women after work.

Except for the slight increase in the number of people he comforted each time, there was almost no change from before.

However, as he expected, due to the impact of the major events, the box office of "American Pie 2" after the rescheduling took a big dive.

Originally, it could still have a box office of more than two million dollars a day, but now it was less than one hundred thousand. The loss was at least twenty or thirty million dollars, directly wiping out the previous extra earnings.

The final box office landed back at $280 million, slightly lower than the results in his previous life.

The movies that were originally scheduled to be released during this period, those that had not been released and could still be rescheduled, were all rescheduled one after another.

Those that had already been released or could not be rescheduled suffered the same fate as "American Pie 2," with their box offices plummeting.

As a result of this major event, not only was New York affected, but Hollywood also saw seven or eight small and medium-sized production companies and film investors lose almost all their money.

However, as the saying goes, extremes meet.

It was precisely because of the depression brought about by the major events that three of the top five global box office hits of the year were born in November and December, when the impact of the events had slightly subsided.

Among them, "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" almost broke the $1 billion box office mark.

This time, Wayne would also get a share of the pie.

At the end of September, at the screening of "The Intern," Wayne met Alan Horn again.

After a brief greeting, Alan Horn couldn't help but pull him aside and quietly inquire about the release of "Wedding Crashers."

Originally, he planned to release "Wedding Crashers" around September 20th, after "American Pie 2" was off the shelves.

After all, it cost two hundred million dollars to buy the copyright, and he certainly hoped to recoup his investment as soon as possible.

Unfortunately, he had to postpone the release due to the major events.

The entire Universal distribution department had been arguing endlessly about when to release it.

An investment of two hundred million dollars! Plus publicity expenses, it would be almost $230 million.

Let alone losing money, even a slight loss at the box office would definitely require someone to be thrown out to take the blame and bear the responsibility.

If things went wrong, even Alan Horn, the president, would be affected. So, taking advantage of this opportunity to meet Wayne at the screening, he had to ask for Wayne's opinion.

However, Wayne's suggestion was somewhat unexpected.

"I remember 'Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone' is scheduled to be released in November, right?"

"That's right. It was originally scheduled to be released on November 4th, but it may be rescheduled depending on the situation."

"I think in two months, the impact of the major events will almost be over, and people who have been depressed for a long time will need a comedy to regain their joy, so I think October 15th would be a good release date."

"October 15th? Isn't that... a bit too risky?" Alan Horn frowned and fell into deep thought.

After the screening, he rushed back to the company and began to look through the information on the movies that were going to be released in October.

After two full hours, he finally made a decision and called his trusted vice president.

Then, at the impromptu meeting that afternoon, the release date of "Wedding Crashers" was finally set, and it was October 15th, as Wayne had suggested.

At this time, there were only half a month left before this date.

However, Alan Horn did not start to publicize it widely now, but waited until October 11th, one month after the major events, to start small-scale and low-key publicity in North America.

As for overseas, it was publicized normally according to the original plan.

As a result, until the movie was released on October 15th, in North America, except for those who happened to plan to go to the cinema during this period to see what good movies were available and found that Wayne had a new movie released, many people didn't know about the release of this movie.

The North American box office of $7.23 million on the first day also set the lowest record for the first day box office of all the movies starring Wayne since his debut.

But in contrast, the overseas first-day box office, under Universal's overwhelming publicity, directly took $39.97 million.

Compared to the $32.05 million overseas first-day box office of "The Notebook," it was nearly $8 million higher!

At the same time, the ratings and word-of-mouth of "Wedding Crashers" were also quite good.

Therefore, with the overseas popularity, good word-of-mouth, and Wayne's fans' spontaneous promotion, the North American box office of "Wedding Crashers" began to rise rapidly like a rocket.

The box office doubled on the second day, rising to $15.08 million, and on the third day, it reached $26.21 million.

In this way, even with a bad start, "Wedding Crashers" still took a North American opening weekend box office of $48.52 million.

The overseas three-day box office easily exceeded $100 million.

At this time, Universal's publicity finally began to really exert its strength.

Coupled with the fact that there was no movie with a production cost of more than 10 million dollars released at this time, "Wedding Crashers" was completely in a class of its own.

And just as Wayne predicted, people who had been depressed by the major events for a month really needed a light-hearted and humorous comedy to release their stress and make themselves happy.

This made "Wedding Crashers," which was released at this time, almost occupy all the favorable conditions, and the box office grew at a speed that no one expected.

(End of chapter)