Box Office Exceeds Expectations

April 8, Monday.

10:00 AM.

The opening weekend box office results for Run Lola Run have been released.

As Zucker expected, the number one film at the North American box office this weekend was Paramount's Primal Fear, which grossed $23.8 million in its opening weekend.

Columbia Pictures' Monkey Trouble took second place with $18.2 million, while Paulie and A Man's Day ranked third and fourth, bringing in $14.903 million and $10.8 million respectively over the three-day weekend.

No other films managed to exceed $10 million in box office revenue over the three-day weekend.

Run Lola Run brought in $1.82 million over the three days, ranking twelfth.

"Well, well, our film's box office isn't too bad at all." Zucker was in a fantastic mood.

A box office total of $1.82 million is certainly not a huge sum, but compared to its production cost of only $800,000, it was already quite stunning.

The costs have already been recouped, what more could you ask for?!

"Boss, good news!"

"Just this morning, I received several calls from theater chains."

At this moment, Victor walked into the office with a look of joy on his face.

"Are they looking to expand the number of screens for Run Lola Run?" Zucker asked.

"That's right."

Victor said excitedly, "Although it's not the three major North American theater chains—AMC, Regal Entertainment Group, and Cinemark—the chains that contacted us are still quite significant. They can provide us with an estimated 300 additional screens."

300 movie screens, added to the original 355, would bring the total to over 650.

"That is indeed good news."

That's right, for Zucker, this was certainly good news. It meant that Run Lola Run could harvest even more box office revenue.

Over 650 screens cannot compare to the 3,000 or 4,000 screens that films like Jurassic Park, X-Men, and The Avengers typically open with, but that is because those are high-budget blockbusters backed by major Hollywood studios like Universal Pictures, 20th Century Fox, and Disney.

What is Wald Pictures, anyway?

Among the hundreds of film production companies in Hollywood, it belongs to the bottom tier and is completely unremarkable. Being able to secure over 650 screens is already a quite remarkable achievement.

"Boss, it looks like we need to raise our box office expectations for Run Lola Run."

For a moment, Victor became full of confidence.

His confidence didn't just stem from the opening weekend box office, but from the high praise Run Lola Run was receiving.

Yes, the word-of-mouth for Run Lola Run was quite good!

On IMDb, it had a rating of 8.4;

The popcorn index was 75%;

The Rotten Tomatoes freshness rating was 92%.

Although the number of internet users in North America in 1996 cannot be compared to the 21st century, it still exceeded 40 million, and such high praise would inevitably attract a portion of that audience.

Of course, you can't expect too many people to go to the cinema specifically for Run Lola Run; after all, the illiterates and roughnecks of America are famous worldwide. For the vast majority of them, their first choice for viewing is the same as the audience in China—they all love watching blockbusters!

"Victor, since our film has good word-of-mouth, let's work harder and try to secure even more screens."

Zucker waved his arms excitedly in the air.

The box office performance of Run Lola Run had exceeded Zucker's expectations.

"I remember in the original timeline, Run Lola Run only grossed a little over $7.5 million in North America."

"Besides, the original Run Lola Run was a German film, which naturally makes it unpopular in America as a non-English film. If it could gross $7.5 million, there's no reason why the English version I filmed can't surpass that at the North American box office."

Although the original Run Lola Run had average box office performance in North America, it was hailed as the "savior of European cinema" in Europe, with particularly impressive results in countries like Germany, France, and Italy. Across Europe, it raked in over $100 million.

In the blink of an eye, a few days passed, and it was Friday again.

Run Lola Run grossed $690,000 on Monday, and $730,000, $520,000, and $490,000 on the following days respectively. Adding these four days to the opening weekend, the cumulative seven-day box office reached $4.25 million.

The North American box office for Run Lola Run is expected to land between $13 million and $15 million.

Even though this box office result isn't enough to break into the top 50 of this year's North American box office rankings, for the newly started Wald Pictures, it is already enough to be proud of.

"I, Zucker, am truly a directing genius, a director with a ten-million-dollar box office hit. Hmm, that title sounds pretty good."

Zucker was proud.

He was inflated.

He felt like he was about to explode!

Of course, this wasn't just because of the box office of Run Lola Run, but because today, Yahoo went public!

In 1994, David Filo and Jerry Yang founded Yahoo in America.

On April 12, 1996, it officially listed on Wall Street. The total value of its stock on the first day of trading reached $500 million, even though Yahoo's 1995 revenue was only $1.3 million, with an actual loss of $630,000, and it only earned a mere $90,000 by the end of 1996.

But who cares?!

Investors in America during this period said: "The internet isn't about current earnings, but future ones. As long as there is a sufficient number of users, you are bound to make a fortune!"

Investors and stockholders were crazy;

Zucker was also crazy, or perhaps, utterly insane!

Zucker invested all of his liquid capital at once, including the dollars obtained by mortgaging a building in Silicon Valley, totaling 10 million dollars invested today.

And it was with ten times leverage!

Having burned his bridges, Zucker reaped a profit of 8.2 million dollars after the stock market closed and settled. Even if the returns weren't as insane as when Pixar went public, it could still be called terrifying, with a total wealth of over 18 million dollars deposited into Zucker's personal account.

Of course, the funds exceeding ten million dollars did not stay in the account for long.

After the weekend passed, once the stock market opened on Monday, Zucker invested in Yahoo stock again, pouring in a full 10 million dollars.

This operation did not use leverage because Zucker intended to hold it long-term. After all, this was Yahoo! Once January 2000 arrived, before Yahoo's stock price reached its peak of 475 dollars, Zucker would sell all the shares and reap at least 130 to 140 million dollars in wealth.

A return of over ten times—only the crazy internet era of the 90s could achieve such a terrifying profit ratio.

Good news always followed one after another!

Over the next three-day weekend, Run Lola Run, having expanded its number of screening screens, reported a box office of 2.127 million dollars, surpassing the box office of its opening three-day weekend.

The total box office reached 6.377 million dollars!

The reason it was said that good news followed one after another was because good news had also arrived from the UK.

Currently, the BBC and Ragdoll Productions were determined to secure the copyright for Teletubbies; the only issue now was the price.

And so, Zucker, along with CEO Victor and the negotiation expert Candy, smilingly boarded a flight to London.

On the plane, a crazy thought suddenly popped into Zucker's mind: "J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter novel series seems to have been completed around '96-'97. If the opportunity is right, I could dig up another gold mine."