Chapter 156 If You Love Me, Please Kill Me
'If you love me, please kill me. Pure and simple, profound and real, Million Dollar Baby is a black reality that is different from inspirational movies!'

"Fate plays hard to get, giving you a little sweetness before pushing you into the bottomless abyss, leaving you no time to savor it—"Million Dollar Baby"!"

'When fate strikes, and I can't even control my own death, then please kill me - Million Dollar Baby!'

The screening of the film was very successful and received much praise from many media outlets.

It also cannot hide the reality that this is a low-budget release, and the performance of the film being shown in a total of 12 theaters will not be very good.

Its performance in one week was even worse than Li An's "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", which only grossed 76 US dollars.

It is understandable that they were initially shown in theaters that specialize in showing art film festivals.

However, it was very popular among rating websites, and the score on the imdb website was as high as 8.9 points.

In its second week, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon expanded to 31 theaters and saw its box office increase again, earning $177 million in its second week.

Although both movies had good attendance, they both ranked last on the weekly box office charts.

On October 22, Tom Hanks' "Cast Away" was officially released.

It was basically a one-man show, but it reaped a horrific result of 6965 million in its first week and topped the weekly box office chart!
Chen An's "Million Dollar Baby" also increased its box office by 59% in its second week, earning 120 million.

There was no impact from the release of "Cast Away". The same was true for Li An's "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon". In its third week, with the number of theaters increasing to 143, the box office directly increased to 608 million!
Warner also began to increase the number of theaters showing "Million Dollar Baby", increasing the original 12 theaters to 109.

The movie did not disappoint Warner, and its box office performance in the third week reached 314 million US dollars!

Tom Hanks' "Cast Away" continued to top the list with a box office of 4983 million US dollars.

"Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" continued its momentum and earned another US$613 million. Together with Chen An's film, it became the only two films that continued to grow their box office despite the impact of "Cast Away"!
Similarly, three weeks after Chen An’s film was released, the nominations for the 58th Golden Globe Awards for American Film and Television were announced.

It just so happens that "Cast Away", "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and "Million Dollar Baby" are all among them.

The three films are rivals not only in terms of box office schedule, but also in terms of awards, and if something unexpected happens, the same will be true for the Oscars.

"Chen, the movie was successfully nominated for the Golden Globe Awards. The company plans to continue to increase the number of theaters, and both of our movies have been nominated!"

"How many theaters Jerry Warner plans to upgrade, the Golden Globe doesn't matter, if it's nominated for an Oscar that's about right."

"Don't think so. The Golden Globe Awards are known as the vane of the Oscars. It's a bit of boasting, but it still has some effect. The company plans to expand to 122 theaters, although it's not a lot."

Chen An listened to Jerry's answer and sighed, "Well, it's better than nothing." Then he hung up the phone.

Both of Chen An's films were nominated for this year's Golden Globe Awards.

"District 9" was nominated for Best Screenplay in a Motion Picture, which is also the Best Screenplay. The Golden Globe Awards do not have this distinction, and only the Oscars have two screenplay awards: original and adapted.

And "Million Dollar Baby" is coming in strong, winning four major awards: Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Director!
Two films were shortlisted at the same time, and both crews were going. Chen An held his head and felt it was so familiar.

Thinking about the time when Naomi and Charlize Theron would meet, Chen An felt a bit of a headache.

Fortunately it happened openly, in front of the media. If it happened in private, I would be in trouble.

In its fourth week, box office grew 3.9% to $326 million with the addition of theaters.

"Wild" continued to top the list with 2849 million US dollars. Its current three-week domestic box office performance has reached 1.4 million. It is possible to recover the million production cost domestically.

Relying on Tom Hanks' name to sell the film in the global market would also achieve good results. The fact was just as they expected. In the end, the global box office reached 4.3 million, ranking among the top ten of the annual box office list.

I have seen this movie in my previous life, so Chen An did not go to help the enemy to contribute to the box office in this life. What Chen An needs most now is Nutri-Express. During this period of time, he has been running back and forth between the two women, and his nutrition has been seriously lost.

The two of them were getting better and better at juicing, and Chen An felt like he really didn't have a drop left.

With 25 more theaters added in the fifth week, the movie box office did not fluctuate much and continued to maintain a box office of 326 million US dollars.

However, Li An, who is considered to be a fellow villager of Chen An, ushered in a huge hit. In the sixth week of its release, the number of screenings in 693 theaters exceeded 1121 million at the box office for the first time, and it took in million US dollars, ranking seventh on the weekly box office list!
The total box office reached 31 million US dollars, and the production cost was 17 million US dollars, but this has nothing to do with Li An. He had already sold the copyright to Sony to recover the cost in advance.

The evening of March 2001, 1.

The 58th American Film and Television Golden Globe Awards was officially held.

Originally, Chen An didn’t want to attend as the Chinese New Year was just two days away and he planned to return home directly.

But after Jerry's repeated persuasion, he finally came.

Of course, the main reason is that they feel the situation will be difficult to handle at that time, for example, now the crews of "District 9" and "Million Dollar Baby" are walking on the red carpet together.

Sean Penn, the male lead of "District 9", did not come, but the female leads of both movies were present.

When entering the venue, both sides hugged Chen An's arms, one on the left and one on the right. Chen An felt like he was being carried into the venue by two people.

Chen An felt that it was difficult to deal with, but the media were as happy as if it was Christmas. They were filming with a smile on their faces and kept shouting:

"Oh Chen, I envy your good fortune. Can you turn around and take a picture with these two beautiful ladies?"

"Hahaha, beautiful Charlize Theron, congratulations on your nomination for Best Actress. Can you bring Chen over to take a photo?"

"Chen, look here, can you be interviewed? There are two beautiful ladies here!"

Everyone was watching the fun with a smile, not minding the trouble, and looking at Chen An enviously as he was held by Charlize Theron and Naomi, adding fuel to the fire.

As Chen An's movies in Hollywood became a big hit, his popularity continued to rise, and the media paid more attention to Chen An.

Even on the Internet, there are many netizens who know each other discussing the relationship between Chen An, Naomi and Charlize Theron.

People in every country like to read gossip, especially those about love.

Of course, the incident was not a big deal. Compared with the gossip about Brad Pitt and Angelina that later stirred up a storm around the world, it was nothing.

The Golden Globe Awards production team was also very good at planning, arranging the seats of the two crews together.

When Chen An walked into the venue, he saw the crew of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" who had already entered the venue. It was full of people.

Among them, Zhang Ziyi also saw Chen An enter and waved to him to say hello. Chen An also smiled and nodded in response.

Looking at Chen An who was hugged by men on both sides, Zhang Ziyi wondered whether he should talk to Li Zi about it when he got home or try it himself?
"Chen, is that your friend?" Charlize asked when she saw Chen An greeting and communicating with an Asian girl.

Chen An nodded and said, "I guess so. We knew each other before, but we weren't that close."

"So you're not as good as Naomi?" Charlize Theron said without caring about Naomi who was standing next to Chen An.

Naomi frowned, but then she relaxed and said with a smile, "Is it the same as Miss Theron?"

Chen An sat upright, oblivious to what was happening outside, and looked at the stage with his mind focused on reading the books of sages.

(End of this chapter)