Chapter 101
On 11th March 2016, [Black Saints] was released, and on the day of the release, articles and reviews about the movie filled social media sites, especially Sparrow. These articles were from reporters and critics who had attended the movie's previews.
Many also tweeted about it, with some prominent critics' tweets becoming the centre of attention.
They were even used as headlines for some articles.
<A gangster flick that nearly went the wrong way, but the climax saved the whole movie. Filled with great characters and good performance, the movie is something that might make you leave your home this weekend -US monthly.>
<Went for Ray Hardy and Graham Rude, stayed for climax and a potential new stock -Vanity Magazine.>
<A plot that became repetitive in the middle with action scenes that we have seen a lot of times. Nothing unique but the grey nature of the characters makes the movie a good watch. The plot twist at the end and the interrogation scene are the standing points -Betacritic.>
<A gritty crime thriller that went too boring in the middle. Though there are a lot of standing points for the movie, it shines in parts, but unfortunately, they killed off the best character of the movie too soon -Rotten Apples.>
<Just go and watch the movie. Even if you don't like it for the first one and a half hours, the climax will make up for it. I don't want to say a lot, but I'm hoping for a prequel focused on the background of my favourite character -@Criticye.>
Most of the critics gave mixed reviews, but the positive point was that none of the reviews was primarily negative, but there were indeed several highly positive reviews for the movie.
The negative points were just the action scenes, which were mainly scenes that many other movies had already executed. Still, both Zavier Lamb, the director and Anthony McCarthy, the producer, were not bothered by this.
First, [Black Saints] was promoted as more of a gangster drama than anything and the scenes between characters were praised well.
But undoubtedly, the thing that every critic praised was the climax. It was truly a spectacle for most of them, and no one really anticipated it, making people leave the theatres with amazed faces.
Though, there were also arguments against it. Marko Rodriguez, one of the critics from Hollywood Weekly, said this at the end of the review, "A lot of my friends have praised the climax a lot, but for me, it was something that lacked a lot. I couldn't make much sense of it because they never explained how it happened. Before you know it, the climax is over, and no explanation is given in any way, which makes the movie a bad one for me."
The audience who had watched the movie on the first day didn't agree, saying that the movie was just trying to leave it to the viewers to interpret everything.
When the marketing team of Granite films saw that audiences were arguing with critics about the movie, they felt it was going to soon spread through word of mouth, and their strategy was going to be successful.
But their biggest problem wasn't the opinions of critics but the movie they were competing against.
[The Lost Wolf] was released on the same day as [Black Saints]. Compared to mainly positive to mixed reviews of the latter, the former got roasted by the critics and anyone involved in the business of movies.
It was actually a sort of tradition as only the first movie had gotten decent reviews. The two after that were trolled heavily by the critics who even labelled it as 'The worst franchise in Hollywood'.
One of the famous Metubers and movie critics on Sparrow @BeeTheMovieCritic wrote, "If you are into porn with a plot, with supernatural powers added into it, make your way to the theatre to watch [The Last Wolf]. You won't be disappointed as the only scenes that make sense are the sex scenes."
Another critic, Lisa Liyanage, from Movie Mania, wrote, "My teenage daughter loves the wolf series and to write the review I asked her why she likes it. She answered hot, pretty shirtless boys and mushy, overdramatic romance. So that might give you the answer to why the movie has so many die-hard teen fans."
Another critic, Bobby Atkinson, wrote a detailed review of the movie saying, "Look, no matter how popular it is, the plot is very sexist, logic-less and problematic. But in the past few years, we have seen tons of movies like this directed at the teen audience and are just a way to make a lot of money with low effort."
Despite most critics giving it 1 and 2 stars out of 5, just on its first day, the movie earned over 20 million dollars, giving a good idea to everyone of the popularity of this particular franchise.
Even if it was bad, teenage fans would still go and watch it.
Compared to that, [Black Saints] earned just 7 million dollars. The difference was so much that people were already saying both movies didn't even have any competition at the box office.
The difference continued on the second and third day too.
Seeing this, Anthony McCarthy and Zavier Lamb felt depressed each day, and the investors were very noisy. Everyone felt that even with it being a decent movie, it would get overstepped by [The Last Wolf].
Anthony was worried that the movie wouldn't recover its budget like this, and they would need to look for other platforms and ways not to make a loss.
Although the competition at the box office had just started, [Black Saints] was in a critical condition.
***
[The Last Wolf] was the fourth movie of the wolf franchise, and all of them were produced by Ferox pictures. Again, it was a mid-sized studio, kind of like Granite films, but a few years ago, they adapted the books of wolf series that were very popular among female teens and had gotten a gold mine.
Since then, they have earned a lot of money through the series, as each movie has made a lot of profit at the box office.
It was to the point that they have decided to produce three-four more movies in the same franchise. After all, no one likes to stop digging if the mine still gives out gold.
Currently, some company executives, including the CEO, Jordan Walsh, were at a club, drinking and talking about the fourth part, which was on the brink of a huge success.
In three days, the movie had earned around 40 million, and they were very confident in getting back the investment of 120 million dollars that they poured into the movie.
"Hahaha, like this, we will get all the investments back in two weeks."
One of the executives, a bald guy, said as a girl snuggled to him. They were sitting in a premium lounge in a club, drinking alcohol with strippers Jordan had arranged for.
"I was pretty scared at first due to the barrage of bad reviews, but I realised that reviews don't matter until we can make those stupid teens feel like this is a masterpiece."
Another executive said, chugging a glass of wine. His eyes vision felt a bit blurry due to drinking too much, but this was the night to enjoy, and he didn't care.
"Reviews and those critics are a fucking joke. They really think people watch movies because of them." Jordan muttered, one of his hands fondling the breast of a stripper next to him. "People don't care if we are trying to make a good movie or not until we project that the movie is good. Those teens are too easy to fool anyway."
Over 65 percent of the audience that had come to watch [The Last Wolf] were teens. The numbers were way higher for the previous movies in the franchise.
Jordan's formula of success was to aim for the age bracket that has a lot of time in their hands and is easy to satisfy. For example, teenage fans always come to watch movies in groups or on a date. Sometimes they would even take their parents to watch the movie with them.
He had used this point well to sell the wolf franchise.
"I think we should announce the fifth part as soon as the movie becomes a hit. Then, it would automatically get momentum."
The bald executive said, and others nodded. But suddenly, one of the executives, who was a bit sober, opened his mouth.
"Will we be able to get the actors back for the next movie? This time, they already created too much trouble in the sets and promotions."
"They will come back. They need to." Jordan muttered. "They don't have an identity other than the wolf franchise. No other Hollywood movie would cast them as leads as they are nothing more than pretty faces. They should thank us for a career in the first place."
The cast of [The Last Wolf] had gotten famous as teenagers, but even they knew that the franchise was getting worse and worse with every movie, and this time, some of them even wanted to quit.
It was only due to Ferox pictures giving them more money than they agreed to be in the movie.
Otherwise, most of them wanted to break away from the tag of a pretty face in a bad supernatural teen drama.
"Yeah, those dumb bitches would be auditioning for roles daily without any success without Ferox movies giving them a chance."
"Even if they want to break away from the franchise, the stigma is already there. The Academy isn't known to like commercial actors anyway."
"But they can live rich lives by working in the wolf movies."
Other executives agreed with Jordan and drank, enjoying the night thoroughly. In their eyes, their movie was already a big success.
...
