The Wind of China Entertainment 2005

Chapter 526 Reversal
At this time, discussions on the Internet about stealing box office revenue were in full swing.

The explosion of this topic attracted the attention of the entire entertainment industry.

Since Valentine's Day on February 2, the box office of "Time Raiders" has been far ahead, with an unstoppable momentum and is about to write a new box office record.

As a result, on February 2, the crew of "The Banquet" complained on Weibo, saying that their box office revenue had been stolen, which quickly sparked heated discussions and won sympathy.

When the box office data on February 2 was announced, the box office of "The Banquet" miraculously rebounded and once again crossed the 17 million threshold, making the storm even more confusing.

But things did not end there.

The next day, February 2, a video shot by a netizen with the nickname "Eat Lemons Without Spitting the Peel" went viral on the Internet.

The incident happened in a movie studio in Hefei, Anhui Province. A man wanted to buy a ticket for the movie "The Banquet", but the ticket seller gave him a ticket for "Time Raiders".

This time the criticism was directed at "Time Raiders", and the fuse of public opinion was completely ignited.

Regarding the box office theft of "The Banquet", one thing after another slowly triggered public opinion, as if it was carefully planned.

Regardless of the truth behind the incident, a heated debate has already occurred on the Internet.

The lion rushed forward: "It's really funny. Is it worthy for "Time Raiders" to steal the box office of such a rubbish gangster movie like "The Feast"? "Time Raiders" made 5000 million in a single day, while it didn't even make million. It was completely beaten in all aspects. I think it's probably the film company who directed and acted in it themselves, just for hype.

Those directors and companies in Hong Kong are thicker-skinned than city walls. Seeing the poor box office, they shamelessly shifted the blame to the actors. If I were Liu Yifei, I would rush up and slap him. I'd rather not stay in the Hong Kong circle."

Please call me a reasonable person: "I haven't seen "The Banquet", but this movie cost hundreds of millions to make, and the box office barely exceeded 10 million on its first day. The next day, it dropped sharply, directly falling to 10 million. It is indeed a bit unreasonable. The cast is not bad, so how could the box office be so low?"

Coffee Beans: "I hate people like you the most. Since you haven't read "The Feast at Hongmen", what nonsense are you talking about here? You are so shameless. Is this how a reasonable person should be?
Let me tell you, the crew of "The Feast of Hongmen" spoke out yesterday. I bought a ticket to watch it out of curiosity, but was greatly disappointed. This kind of rubbish movie doesn't even deserve 10 million for its premiere."

Lu Yuan dressed in black: "There is video evidence, the evidence is solid, the location, the incident, everything is crystal clear, I don't know what everyone is arguing about, it's stolen, @Lu Yuan, hurry up and apologize, it's time to stand up and give the public an explanation."

Little Lion: "The video can't be fake? Do you have a pig brain? If things turn out to be the opposite, will you feel guilty about your words and not be responsible on the Internet? I really want to stab you to death with one punch."

Poetry and Distance: "Calm down, be civilized, pay attention to your image, watch me, ************."

Little black fan: "."

When netizens were arguing, Li Guoxin, the director of "The Banquet at Hongmen", stepped forward immediately and responded in a dignified manner on Weibo.

Li Guoxin V: "The movie "The Feast of Hongmen" is currently being screened in major theaters. We have received a lot of support and encouragement from the audience. Thank you very much.

We also thank the netizens who posted the video. If the film industry wants to develop in the long term, integrity is the top priority. We have formed a special team to investigate this matter.

We are currently collecting and organizing relevant evidence. If the situation is true, we will submit a report to the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, the Film Bureau, and the Distribution and Exhibition Association. "

The real owner of the incident came to an end, and public opinion became increasingly intense.

Faraway Media.

In the conference room, Lu Yuan, Wu Lang, Zhang Wenbo, Chen Zhixi, Jiang Qiuyun, Lu Jing and others took their seats.

The atmosphere was not so solemn.

The conference table was a long table, and Zhang Wenbo was sitting the farthest away.

He coughed dryly, spoke first, and flattered lightly: "Thanks to the boss for seeing through the small details and discovering Li Guoxin's ill intentions in advance, so we can be prepared."

Wu Lang, Chen Zhixi, and Jiang Qiuyun were checking the documents on the table. Upon hearing his words, they all looked at him at the same time.

Zhang Wenbo looked straight ahead.

Lu Yuan glanced at him and asked, "How is the investigation going?"

Zhang Wenbo said seriously, "I contacted the cinema in Anhui. The cinema manager's explanation was vague. He said that two new halls had been opened, the ticket seller was a new employee, and many things were unclear. It was an accident, and the employee had already been fired."

"This reason is only enough to fool a three-year-old child. It would be better to just say that the ticket seller can't read." Wu Lang looked angry.

"Uh," Zhang Wenbo replied, "He said the other person has an IQ deficiency."

Wu Lang: "."

Lu Yuan curled his lips: "What do the people at Pacific Cinemas say?"

There are eight major cinema chains in China, namely Wanda, Shanghai United, Shinkansen, Guangzhou Jinyi, Guangdong Dadi, New Film Association, Zhejiang Times, and Liaoning North.

Going further down, there are Star Media, Pacific Cinemas and the like. The cinema involved belongs to Pacific Cinemas Chain.

"It was very official. They said they were investigating and would notify us when the results were out. As for when..." Zhang Wenbo shrugged: "He didn't give a precise answer."

Lu Yuan nodded, not surprised at all. There was no way he could find out the answer. This was no different from someone suing him in court.

Chen Zhixi was speechless and said, "Anhui is a second-tier market after all. It is understandable that they steal box office revenue in third-tier cities, but when something like this happens in a second-tier provincial capital city, don't the cinemas themselves want to stop doing it?"

Generally speaking, there are only four first-tier cities in the domestic film market, namely Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen.

The second-tier cities include some box office powerhouses such as Chongqing, Wuhan, Hangzhou, Chengdu and provincial capitals.

The markets in other cities are third-tier or fourth-tier.

These third- and fourth-tier cities are precisely the areas hardest hit by box office theft.

In comparison, theater supervision in first- and second-tier cities is relatively strict. Although box office theft incidents occur occasionally, they are generally rare.

For third- and fourth-tier cinemas, the total annual box office revenue of each theater may only be a few hundred thousand, but they can still survive comfortably.

why?
The secret behind this is that they usually adopt more direct and crude means to intercept the ticket money paid by the audience, resulting in the film producers being unable to obtain their due box office share.

The simplest and most common way to steal box office revenue is to sell handwritten tickets or package deals.

Chen Zhixi added: "If they really wanted to steal the box office, they wouldn't have to go to such great lengths to transfer the box office revenue of "The Feast of Hongmen" to "Time and Space". They still have to pay us a share, and our share ratio hasn't changed. Isn't this a thankless task?"

"That requires asking what agreement Li Guoxin has reached with the cinema." Lu Yuan picked up the cup on the table, took a sip of tea, and turned his gaze to Wu Lang.

"Tell me about the investigation of Out of Time."

"Yesterday afternoon, we urgently recruited 1000 supervisors in several third-tier cities. Based on the feedback we have received so far, we found that there are many examples of the box office of "Out of Time" being stolen." Wu Lang said as he tapped the laptop keyboard in front of him to send the relevant information to everyone.

As the name suggests, a box office supervisor is a person hired by film distributors to monitor ticket sales in cinemas.

After the film is released, the distributor will send staff to theaters in major cities to monitor ticket sales.

Verify whether the number of movie tickets sold for each show is equal to the actual number of people entering the theater.

If the number of movie tickets sold is less than the number of admissions, he will report it to the film company and distributor.

In China, distributors of large-scale films usually hire box office supervisors. For example, China Film Corporation has more than 500 box office supervisors across the country.

However, it is completely impossible to cover the entire national market with this number.

A box office supervisor usually needs to be responsible for several cinemas at the same time, and 500 can only take care of the main areas in first-tier and second-tier cities.

The box office supervisors in Beijing earn about 200 yuan a day. They are not full-time employees of the film companies but part-time workers. They only need to match the number of movie tickets sold with the number of people in the cinema.

Because the incident happened suddenly, Yuanfang Media spent 500 yuan to hire 50 supervisors to conduct open and secret investigations, paying them 1000 yuan a day.

Including but not limited to secretly taking photos to collect evidence.

The personnel selection range is wide, some are from fans, and some are from major recruitment websites.

Lu Yuan clicked on the video sent by Wu Lang. The video showed a cinema with slightly outdated equipment. The camera was shaky and the ticket seller occasionally took out a few handwritten tickets for the movie "Out of Time" from the ticket box.

He clicked on the next video.

The facilities inside this cinema are relatively new. When a customer wanted to buy a ticket for "Out of Time", the ticket seller replaced it with a ticket for "The Banquet".

Well, it turns out that in “The Banquet at Hongmen” the thief is crying “Stop thief”.

As dozens of subsequent videos were played, various tricks of stealing box office revenue were revealed, which was jaw-dropping.

For example, movie tickets and some additional services of the cinema, such as popcorn, drinks, etc., are bundled together and sold.

In this way, when reporting the box office, the ticket price can be kept to the lowest level, the theater's service fee can be increased, and most of the money will go into the theater's pocket.

Or selling "Out of Time" together with a niche movie can artificially lower the ticket price of the popular movie and raise the ticket price of the niche movie.

Compared with "Out of Time", those niche movies may agree to give theaters a high share of the profits in order to get more screenings.

Such an operation also means that cinemas will pocket more profits.

All this was discovered in just one day.

It’s hard to imagine how huge the amount of money that is secretly undiscovered is.

Lu Yuan now really wants to learn to roar like Jiajing, played by Mr. Chen Baoguo in "The Ming Dynasty".

He called out to his cousin who had her head bowed.

"Xiao Jing."

Lu Jing stared at the laptop screen, craning his neck and his eyes widened.

Lu Yuan coughed.

Chen Zhixi nudged her with his elbow as a reminder.

Lu Jing suddenly realized that everyone was staring at him, especially his cousin, who had a hint of murderous intent in his eyes. His bonus was about to be lost, so he said hurriedly, "Wang Sicong and Li Guoxin had a quarrel on Weibo, saying that The Feast at Hongmen was a terrible movie and that they would use any dirty tricks to hype it up."

"Brother." Lu Jing called out subconsciously, and then changed his address: "Mr. Lu, why did this person suddenly stand up and speak, do you know him?"

Chen Zhixi also looked over curiously, because Wang Sicong is the successor of Wanda.

"We're not that familiar with each other, we've played games together." Lu Yuan didn't explain much.

Liu Shishi likes to drag Lin Gengxin to play League of Legends. She is a good friend of Lin Gengxin and they have played several games together. Her level is similar to Lin Gengxin's. They are both pretty new but very tough.

"Oh." Lu Jing nodded.

"Oh what?" Lu Yuan glared at her and said, "Use the company's account to post on Weibo and follow the plan."

"Oh."

As the internet was abuzz with discussion, Faraway Media released a statement:
To all the viewers who care about "Time Raiders".

The movie "Out of Time" took several years from preparation to release. The main creative team and all the staff were always sincere about the film and tried their best to bring laughter to everyone.

Recently, a number of comments have appeared online saying that "Out of Time" stole the box office, which made all the staff involved in the creation, production and distribution of this film deeply saddened and angry.

We cannot tolerate or condone such malicious and arbitrary rumor-mongering and slander.

The crew has now entrusted a third-party law firm to collect evidence and preserve it, and is ready to take legal action at any time to resolutely safeguard the dignity and normal legal rights and interests that a film deserves.

At the same time, thanks to netizen @吃冰淇淋不吐皮, he discovered and released a video that seemed to show that "Over the Top" stole the box office revenue of "The Banquet."

After learning about this incident, we immediately sent someone to contact the cinema.

The cinema manager said that the ticket seller had an IQ defect and has now been fired. We are still waiting for the cinema’s response for the specific situation.

If possible, I hope netizen @吃冰淇淋 can contact us or call the police directly.

In addition, we call on the majority of netizens to supervise together. If you have any evidence, you can contact us or post it in the comment area.

"."

Meiya Entertainment.

Li Guoxin looked at the feeble statement of "Super Time and Space" on Weibo and smiled contemptuously.

He also called on netizens to supervise together, which is a nice idea.

No matter how hard Lu Yuan investigated, he could not find any substantial evidence, because the manager of the cinema had been bribed by him with a large sum of money, and even the ticket sellers were all his people.

Besides, there is not much time left for "Out of Time". By the time public opinion has fermented thoroughly, regardless of whether the other party can produce evidence or not, "The Banquet" will have firmly occupied the moral high ground and attracted a large number of audiences to the theaters. Victory is in sight!
"We ordinary people are so, so happy today." He put his legs on the desk, rested his head on the chair, and hummed a tune.

However, as he was humming leisurely.

A statement from Yuanfang Media was like thunder and quickly spread across the Internet.

And within a short period of time, dozens of video clips of theaters from third-tier cities stealing the box office of "Out of Time" emerged like mushrooms after rain.

Netizens were overwhelmed and exclaimed in excitement.

"Fuck, this is too fierce. So many explosions happened at once. Why does it feel like "Overtime" is the biggest victim?"

"Fuck, this is the cinema downstairs from my house. This kind of thing has always happened, but no one cares."

"Wow, there's something even more outrageous. The actual evidence that The Feast at Hongmen stole the box office revenue of The Time Traveler has been released. There are several of them in a row. @The Feast at Hongmen @Li Guoxin, what do you think this time? It's your turn. Can you come up with new evidence?"

Of course Li Guoxin couldn't do that. How could he prepare so many videos? It was just for hype. He was just cooperating with a cinema, not a theater chain.

Faced with this sudden reversal, he was shocked and murmured: "How is this possible? Why did so many videos suddenly appear?"

He had originally planned to catch the other party off guard and make public opinion one-sided, but why did the other party react so quickly?

As a result, despite the repeated calls from netizens, the "Hongmen Banquet" side has been slow to come out and explain the situation.

Voices online questioning whether "The Banquet at Hongmen" was deliberately hyped began to gain the upper hand.

Wang Sicong V: "I've said it before, who would steal his box office for such a crappy movie? The hype is disgusting."

Lin Gengxin V: "Play games at night."

At this time, the producer of "Out of Time" Yuanfang Media and the distributor China Film Group posted on Weibo again.

"China Film Group and Faraway Media have jointly issued a reward. If anyone finds that "Time Travel" has stolen the box office of "The Feast of Hongmen", please contact us. We will give a reward of 10,000 yuan and call the police at the same time."

Damn, are you kidding me? He’s so tough that he even put a bounty on himself.

Don’t worry about the theater performing it themselves. Oh, people will call the police, and the gain will outweigh the loss.

This is undoubtedly a resounding slap in the face to "The Banquet at Hongmen" and the mastermind behind it.

PS: The previous chapter was closed. I found out about it when I got off work. I asked the editor and he was told that it was outrageous because it involved negative content from a public figure and is now under review.

I would also like to thank the book friends who pointed out the mistakes in the previous chapter about "The Laughing Jianghu". When I was writing it, I was thinking of "Three Shots Surprise".

(End of this chapter)