Many turning points in the world often stem from some unintended minor incidents.
After a week of exhausting countermeasures, though they'd successfully muddied the media waters into a murky pool, Simon understood that his upcoming clarification on NBC's The Tonight Show couldn't fully shake the doubts—he'd still need time to wash them away.
Yet, the video that suddenly appeared on ABC completely reversed the entire affair.
The previous doubts had mostly centered on whether Simon possessed professional skills in cinematography, editing, scoring, and the like. But after watching that video, anyone with even a modicum of independent thought no longer questioned Simon's personal musical prowess.
Obviously, if Simon was a guitarist who'd practically mastered the craft, how could he possibly fail to handle the mere scoring of a film?
Since Simon could manage the score, he could naturally handle cinematography and editing—tasks that seemed somewhat easier to ordinary people. So, was there really anything left to doubt about him ultimately creating Run Lola Run?
Of course, the skeptical voices wouldn't quiet down so easily.
Soon, media pointed out that in the video, Janet Johnston and Kathryn Bigelow were clearly present, and Simon Westeros was using a collector's edition Gibson acoustic guitar likely worth around $1,000.
These details were enough to prove the video was probably staged recently, not footage from Simon Westeros busking on Venice Beach before his rise.
The reasoning was obvious.
How could a penniless kid afford an expensive brand guitar for street performing?
By this logic, Simon Westeros's performance of Flight of the Bumblebee was likely hastily learned recently, just to counter the current situation. Of course, the boy might have some talent on guitar, but it still proved nothing.
However, these doubts were slapped down in minutes.
Local Los Angeles media quickly investigated Venice Beach; the tourists from back then were long gone, but many nearby vendors and shop owners vividly remembered the mini-miracle Simon had created.
Then, the Spanish old man who ran the motel appeared on a local L.A. TV talk show, cradling his own acoustic guitar, detailing the whole incident and pounding his chest as he vouched firmly for Simon.
On the new Monday, amid widespread anticipation, Simon officially guested on The Tonight Show.
With the media tide turned, Simon's presentation on NBC's flagship late-night talk show—of a series of handwritten scripts, storyboards, and even his personal work notes from Run Lola Run's production—basically settled the week-long uproar.
Originally, Simon figured emerging unscathed from this media storm would be good enough.
But no one anticipated—perhaps due to the ABC video reigniting massive buzz—that, beyond rumors of soaring guitar sales across North American instrument stores, Run Lola Run's box office data the following week took an utterly unexpected turn.
With Run Lola Run already fully expanded nationwide the previous week, per typical film box office curves, its fifth-week take should've dipped. Influenced by the doubt storm, Orion even predicted a drop of over 30%.
But in reality, from March 13th to 15th—the weekend three days—compared to the prior week, Run Lola Run's box office not only didn't fall but rebounded about 6%, pulling in another $19.65 million.
And that wasn't all.
Ultimately, for the full week of March 13th to 19th, Run Lola Run's overall gross reversed with an even wider 10% uptick, hitting a new weekly high of $28.16 million.
Thus, in five weeks of release, Run Lola Run's total box office reached $85.87 million.
Then.
Unexpected by all, yet somehow inevitable.
Entering its sixth week, Run Lola Run added another $16.35 million over the weekend three days, pushing its cumulative gross officially past the $100 million mark to $102.22 million.
Due to market size and distribution limits, throughout the eighties—at least before 1987—films breaking $100 million in six weeks were exceedingly rare.
Per Orion's original projections, even in the best case, Run Lola Run would've needed the full sixth week to hit nine figures, with the likeliest being the seventh week for the hundred-million club.
But in fact, Run Lola Run achieved it in just five and a half weeks.
Moreover, Run Lola Run breaking $100 million early wasn't the key point. Since release, everyone knew hitting that milestone was a cakewalk box-office-wise.
But.
Hollywood's original North American total projections for Run Lola Run were just $150-200 million.
Now, after the media storm, the film's waning buzz had recoalesced, and its drop-off slowed markedly.
The fifth week's expected decline had flipped into an anomalous reverse, resulting in an overall upward shift in the subsequent box office curve.
Thus, after recalculating, many were stunned to find that after breaking $100 million in five and a half weeks, Run Lola Run's ultimate potential had clearly surpassed the $200 million threshold.
As for exactly how much, too many were unwilling to predict.
Yet, while some shied from reality, plenty of sensationalist media directly compared films with similar trajectories from recent years—one being 1985's North American champ, Back to the Future.
Robert Zemeckis's hit sci-fi flick also broke $100 million in its sixth week. But Back to the Future did so after the full sixth week, tallying $100.92 million to just scrape over the threshold.
Yet even so, Back to the Future's final North American gross reached $210 million.
So.
Looking at Run Lola Run—how much could it do?!
Contemplating the film's ensuing box office potential, in some deep Hollywood offices, certain folks who'd recently pulled strings to curb this movie's earnings even felt a surge of regret.
They'd meant to suppress Run Lola Run's box office a bit—never expecting to propel it over an even more miraculous threshold.
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