Strictly speaking, the story of "saw 2" is not strongly related to the first film; at least, in terms of plot, it is relatively independent.
The only connection is that the mastermind behind it all is still the Jigsaw Killer, as without him, the audience would be halved.
Another connection point is Amanda, the survivor from the first film. In this installment, she has converted to the Jigsaw Killer's side, and her mental state is somewhat similar to Stockholm Syndrome, but not entirely.
Eric did not participate in the scriptwriting for the second film, only providing the story outline and general direction. Everything else was completed independently by Leigh Whannell.
His screenwriting skills are far superior to his still-developing directing skills, and the plot is still excellent. For the third film, James Wan will still serve as a supervisor. After one more collaboration between this old duo, James Wan's directing abilities should mature, allowing him to direct independently.
With the major failure of "dead silence," all market attention shifted to "saw 2."
Lionsgate certainly hoped "saw 2" would also fail, and those envious of MGM and hostile to Chinese Americans also wished for its failure, making it easier for them to mock James Wan.
However, as the feedback from the first batch of viewers came out, reality dealt a harsh blow to these people.
Fox News: "'saw 2' continues the tension, excitement, and exploration of human nature from the first film. Compared to the first, the second film shows innovation and progress in both technical aspects and storytelling."
"But it still retains the core elements of the series, including highly intelligent killing mechanisms, complex interpersonal relationships, and profound thematic exploration. It is a masterpiece worth watching."
Los Angeles Times: "'saw 2' is still a very cleverly conceived film, continuing the pattern of foreshadowing, unexpected yet within reason."
"Watching this film can unravel a mystery from the first one: why the Jigsaw Killer left survivors. It's a must-see for horror fans."
Salt Lake City Entertainment News: "You all know I like to recommend good movies to fans, but I rarely recommend sequels, because no more than 10% of sequels are done well."
"But without a doubt, 'saw 2' belongs to that 10%. It's still an ingenious killing game, with terrifying traps and cruel plots that make your adrenaline surge. Horror fans will find everything they want here."
Similar to the largely positive reviews from film critics, online fan comments were also predominantly positive.
Die-hard fans used even more effusive praise, with terms like 'highest praise,' 'highest honor,' and 'best of the year' appearing.
Rotten Tomatoes' fresh rating reached 82% at its opening on IMDb. It will surely drop later, but for a horror film, it's already quite high, placing it in the category of a masterpiece.
The most direct manifestation of the positive reviews was at the box office. Released on Friday, it grossed $37 million in its opening three-day weekend, $4 million more than the first film.
The cost, however, remained the same as the first film: $5 million for production and $10 million for marketing.
Meanwhile, "dead silence" had been released for 6 days and had only garnered over $7 million at the box office.
While it's true that Lionsgate's operational capabilities were inferior to MGM's, only releasing it in a thousand cinemas, the film's quality and reputation collapse were the root cause.
There was no imagined evenly matched contest, no battle of wits, and certainly no protracted struggle. The competition between the two films was already over, with "dead silence" suffering a complete defeat.
Now, the most distressed, besides Lionsgate, was James Wan. The outside world was simultaneously scolding and praising him, almost causing him to develop a split personality.
Eric and Leigh Whannell naturally stepped forward to speak up for him.
Eric: "Every director will have failed works; this is not uncommon. Even Hitchcock and Kurosawa couldn't guarantee that every one of their films would be a success."
"A film's success is the result of many contributing factors, such as creativity, the general market environment, the behind-the-scenes team, actor performances, and so on."
"When a film succeeds, we don't just praise the director, just as for the Oscar for Best Picture, everyone from the crew goes on stage to accept the award together."
"Similarly, when a film fails, the blame cannot be entirely placed on the director. I have always firmly believed that James Wan is a good director, and he will certainly become a successful great director in the future."
James Wan: "'saw 2' was completed by James and me. Although my name is listed as director, he helped me a lot. In fact, it's a work by both of us."
"I've known him for many years, and I never believe that one failure can defeat him. I believe he will quickly get back on his feet and bring everyone even better works."
"In fact, I heard that MGM is already in talks with James for new projects. James is not one to stay idle; he will prove himself again."
The firm support from the two deeply moved James Wan. Since "dead silence" had already turned out so poorly that Lionsgate was too embarrassed to promote it further, James Wan simply dedicated himself wholeheartedly to the promotion of "saw 2."
On February 10th, "saw 2" had been playing for 10 days in over 2,700 cinemas, already raking in nearly $60 million at the box office. Surpassing $100 million in North America was not an issue.
Overseas, it was only simultaneously released in some European countries. After a wider release in a few days, it was expected to easily surpass $200 million globally.
As for Lionsgate's "dead silence," no one cared about it; it had already been swept into the trash bin.
However, Eric's focus was not on films at the moment, because today was the launch day for YouTube.
Silicon Valley. He hadn't been to the company for a month. As a decision-maker, he only needed to set the general direction and manage people and money.
Facebook's development was booming, especially last month when new customer additions saw a small peak, and most of the new users were adults.
Registered users had already reached 50 million, accounting for nearly a quarter of the United States population.
Active users also exceeded 42 million, a truly astonishing figure.
These were the actual figures; the publicly announced data was even more exaggerated, making competitor MySpace constantly nervous and trying to catch up, pushing the boundaries more and more aggressively.
And likely due to internal pressure from Fox, MySpace recently started running advertisements.
Advertisements significantly impact user experience. The most obvious effect is the longer time it takes to load the homepage, which has led to many user complaints.
Last month, Facebook also updated a new feature: the message in a bottle.
As for the message in a bottle, probably all Chinese people know what it's for: it can contain text, voice messages, and pictures.
Whether the pictures and voice messages sent by users are inappropriate or violate rules is temporarily hard to control.
Moreover, Facebook is not as stingy as WeChat, which limits the number of bottles you can throw and retrieve each day.
We have such powerful servers; shouldn't we put them to good use?
No limits, absolutely no limits. Send as many as you want. So, within days of the feature's launch, various unconventional uses were developed.
Some of the old perverts who couldn't stand MySpace's lag naturally migrated to Facebook.
Fitz was somewhat concerned that this feature would affect Facebook's reputation, but Eric knew better.
The message in a bottle feature is like a chamber pot; use it when needed, and once MySpace is defeated and Facebook dominates, just kick it under the bed.
Furthermore, unlike MySpace, which launched with softcore pornography as a selling point, Facebook's overall focus is still on normal social networking, with the message in a bottle serving as an embellishment.
Those old perverts attracted by the message in a bottle feature would not leave if the feature were removed, because Facebook has other appealing points to retain users.
With Facebook as a pioneer, YouTube's promotion became much simpler.
Major TV stations, portals, forums, and chat rooms conducted saturation advertising campaigns.
All Facebook users received an open letter, allowing them to log in directly to YouTube with their Facebook accounts, without needing to re-register, making it quick and convenient.
Hundreds of celebrities, big and small, also helped promote it on their social media accounts, then opened YouTube accounts and uploaded a few short videos to attract fans.
Eric watched them and noted that everyone lacked experience. It was their first time doing something like this, and the video content was very simple.
It was just the camera pointed at them, then self-introductions, welcoming everyone to open accounts on YouTube, and hoping to become friends with them.
Eric shook his head. After experiencing the bombardment of short and long videos in later generations, seeing everyone's current stiffness made him feel like he had returned to the Stone Age.
In addition to these conventional promotional methods, Eric also prepared a big killer: a substantial financial incentive.
Unlike Facebook's dynamic updates of editing text with an image, creating videos on YouTube is significantly more difficult.
At the very least, you need a DV camera, otherwise, videos can't be shot. To produce high-quality videos, you also need editing and other technical skills, and the cost alone restricts many people.
Even though YouTube has various built-in editing plugins, the learning curve will still deter a large number of people.
So, the most direct way to quickly accumulate creators is to give them money.
As long as creators can earn revenue through videos, people will naturally join in.
However, at the initial stage of the website, advertising certainly cannot be placed. Without advertising revenue, this money would have to come from Eric.
Fortunately, he is not short of money now. Even if MGM's shares cannot be touched for the time being, he still has a considerable amount of personal liquid funds.
First, he would allocate $300 million as an incentive. If that wasn't enough, he would add more. If his personal liquid funds were still insufficient, he would borrow money from MGM, effectively moving money from one pocket to another.
Revenue is mainly calculated based on the video's completion rate, with likes and shares also contributing a portion. Prices are then set in tiers based on the creator's video length, similar to pricing for short-form, mid-form, and long-form videos.
There is only one standard: the more you work, the more you earn. The more engaging the video, the higher the revenue received.
Currently, upon opening YouTube, one can find that the entire website is divided into a general section and a music section.
The music section primarily features songs and music videos from all artists under Sony Music, directly licensed to YouTube by Michael at a relatively low price.
There are also some contributions from other companies that Michael helped negotiate.
"Boss, we got one! We got one!"
"What?"
"The first video, the first video uploaded by a user, not by those celebrities!" Howard Hughes shouted excitedly.
Eric walked over and saw on the computer screen a user named 'Diablo' who had uploaded a video of himself playing a game.
The video was not long, only a few tens of seconds.
Under the camera, the young man, with an exaggerated expression, pointed at his game screen: "Immortal King! I finally collected the Immortal King set!"
The young man jumped up and hugged the person filming, and the video ended there.
Eric nodded after watching it. Although there wasn't much to see, and it was more similar to later short videos, he had already earned the exclusive title of the first video uploader.
"It's decent. At least his exaggerated expression will attract some users to click and watch. A good start."
A moment later, another moderator nearby shouted, "Boss, the second user video has appeared."
Eric clicked to watch. This time it was a female user, filming her cat exercising at home.
"Hahahaha, I've been looking for this guy for ages! Turns out he went to the neighbor's house and got together with that female cat."
"Last night I kept hearing that female cat meowing. You naughty thing!"
Next came the third, fourth, fifth...
By 3 PM, YouTube's user views had already surpassed 100 million.
Registered users easily exceeded one million, given the existing Facebook user base.
However, the vast majority of views in the general section were contributed to celebrity videos, with fewer going to ordinary users.
Overall, the music section accounted for more than half of the views, with most users flocking to listen to songs and watch music videos.
Michael's music video for "Rolling in the Deep" garnered 730,000 views in a single day, with likes exceeding 50,000.
This result was within expectations. The number of videos in the general section was currently relatively small, with only over 400 uploaded in a day.
They were all short videos, and the quality wasn't high either.
Users quickly finished watching what interested them, and after that, they naturally moved to the music section or exited YouTube.
This situation continued for a week, but there was still no significant improvement, which differed somewhat from Eric's expectations.
"Howard, how are things?"
Howard Hughes shook his head and nodded simultaneously: "Boss, strictly based on the data, as a nascent website, YouTube can be said to be developing rapidly."
"But the traffic all comes from the music section, which accounts for the majority. Our main focus, user-generated personal videos, has been pushed into a corner."
"If it continues to develop this way, YouTube will transform from a video website into a music website, which goes against our original intention."
Eric grunted: "Where do you think the problem lies?"
"Clearly, because the video quality isn't high enough, the appeal is naturally insufficient."
"Boss, YouTube is a very novel operating model, allowing ordinary people to shoot their own videos, but most people simply don't have experience in this area."
"Even the home video bloopers that were popular last century were selected from across the country and then professionally edited and broadcast by TV stations."
"We can't expect users to quickly learn how to create. Perhaps if we give everyone some time, a couple of months, the situation might improve."
Fitz Heisenburg shook his head: "I don't think that's a good idea, because people have personalities, and websites also have their own labels."
"Once a website is branded with its own label, users who are not interested in that label will ignore it."
"Boss, you're in the film business. Audiences who like horror films won't watch comedies, right?"
"Go on," Eric nodded.
"If the music section truly dominates the general section for an extended period, YouTube will be branded as a music website."
"The users it attracts will mostly be music enthusiasts, and its video attribute will be greatly weakened."
"If a competitor suddenly emerges, like MySpace, and that competitor only promotes its video attribute, it will be a huge challenge."
"So my suggestion is not to give it two or three months, but to take all measures as soon as possible to stimulate users' creativity and autonomy."
"But the general public isn't professional talent! They can't make amazing videos in a short time, or rather, they don't even know how to do it!" Howard said, pounding the table in frustration.
"Then teach them how to do it!"
"What?"
"What they lack are teachers. As long as good teachers provide demonstrations, this process can be greatly accelerated."
Saying this, Fitz looked at Eric: "And we clearly have ready-made teachers. Boss, the concept of YouTube was proposed by you. I don't think anyone in this world understands how to do it better than you."
"And MGM has so many professionals, why not lead them to do it together? First, produce a batch of high-quality videos. Once the reach goes up, the visibility of the general section will instantly open up."
Eric slowly nodded: "It seems it's time to set an example for you all!"