China Entertainment’s rescue plan is hard to come by

Chapter 961 Whose fault is this?

When Sun Yi and Liu Yifei had a great time on the set of "When Men Fall in Love" and left to return to Beijing, it was just as the summer movie season was beginning.

"The Coffin in the Mountain," a suspenseful crime film directed by Xin Yukun and featuring a cast of talented actors including Wang Qianyuan, Ding Yongdai, and Ning Li, was released in theaters nationwide as scheduled, thanks to a well-planned word-of-mouth campaign.

Although Sun Yi and Liu Yifei missed the film's premiere due to filming in Northeast China, "The Coffin in the Mountain" still garnered considerable praise from moviegoers and critics for its ingenious non-linear narrative structure, profound exploration of the darker side of human nature, and extremely realistic filming style.

"The best domestic suspense film of the year, bar none!"

"Following in the footsteps of Sun Yi, another leading director of suspense films has emerged in the entertainment industry."

"Director Xin Yukun is incredibly steady, and the script structure is amazing!"

"The entire cast delivered excellent performances; it left a chill down my spine and had a powerful aftertaste!"

Upon its release, the film received a high score of 8.1 on Douban, with numerous film bloggers lavishing praise on it. With the support of Starry Sky's promotional channels, the word-of-mouth for "The Coffin in the Mountain" spread rapidly like a snowball, seemingly poised to become a critically acclaimed masterpiece.

However, in stark contrast to its soaring reputation, its box office performance has been lukewarm.

The box office barely broke 100 million in the first week, but it declined significantly in the second week, and subsequent growth also began to falter. The screening rate peaked at 15% and then began to decline slowly.

Insiders estimate its total box office revenue to be around 300 million.

Although the film's production cost was less than 4000 million, it almost broke even with its first week's box office revenue alone, but overall it still showed a trend of being critically acclaimed but not commercially successful.

Don't forget, this is a project produced by Starry Sky Entertainment, which inherently has higher requirements for box office performance and word-of-mouth than other film companies.

Analysis of the interior of the starry sky suggests two main reasons.

First, the film lacks big-name stars that are currently popular with moviegoers, so its promotion is inherently unfocused. Moreover, the film's genre is crime and suspense, and although the script is almost perfect in terms of logic, the number of moviegoers in China who are enthusiastic about this genre is limited. Furthermore, the film is seriously lacking in commercial appeal and entertainment value.

As for the second point, it is not a fault of war.

The reason is simple: during the same period, it encountered a phenomenal "traffic bomb" that was somewhat related to the stars—Tiny Times, starring Yang Mi and adapted from Guo Jingming's best-selling novel of the same name.

This film was released a week later than "The Coffin in the Mountain" and deliberately avoided the Starry Sky project. At the beginning of its release, it was almost universally condemned by film critics.

"Hollow plot," "distorted values," "PowerPoint-style film," and "excessive promotion of luxury goods."
Criticism poured in, and its Douban score once plummeted to 4.5, a stark contrast to "The Coffin in the Mountain." Starry Night's publicity department clearly didn't take this film seriously at all.

However, no one expected that this film, which was almost "failing" in the traditional film review system, would show amazing box office resilience.

On its opening day, thanks to the strong purchasing power and organizational ability of Yang Mi and her large and loyal fan base, "Tiny Times" raked in nearly 50 million yuan at the box office with a high screening rate of nearly 20% and almost full attendance, leaving "The Coffin in the Mountain" far behind.

What's even more astonishing is that this momentum has not diminished due to the controversy surrounding its reputation; on the contrary, it has intensified.

Fans not only frantically controlled online comments and fought back against negative publicity, but also spontaneously organized waves of "locking up" and "booking out" events offline, using real money to push the box office of "Tiny Times" to an astonishing height.

The film easily surpassed 200 million yuan in box office revenue in its first week and has shown strong momentum, seemingly poised to dominate the entire month of July.

This phenomenon of "bad money driving out good money" is rare in the entire history of the starry sky.

Yang Fan, the general manager in charge of Starry Sky Operations, came to apologize immediately after Sun Yi returned to Beijing. He admitted that he had let his guard down, failed to take "Tiny Times" seriously, and did not make the necessary adjustments to the publicity and screening schedule in the shortest possible time, which led to the missed opportunity and the situation where the critical acclaim and box office performance of "The Coffin in the Mountain" were disproportionate.

"We predict that the final box office of 'The Coffin in the Mountain' will probably not reach 3 million yuan, but will be around 2.7 million yuan. After deducting costs and marketing expenses, it will basically be a small profit."

Yang Fan sighed, his tone tinged with helplessness, and said with self-reproach:

"This time, we misjudged the market. We didn't expect the fan base of 'Tiny Times' to be so powerful, directly squeezing out the survival space of all other films released in the same period, especially films like ours that rely on word-of-mouth and slow growth."

Yang Fan was about to continue explaining when Sun Yi waved his hand, interrupting him.

"Brother Fan, it's not your fault. No one could have predicted this situation. That's just how the film industry is—full of uncertainties. No one can predict the future. Besides, the performance of 'The Coffin in the Mountain' wasn't bad. I'm actually more concerned about the reputation of our Starry Sky productions than the box office."

At this point, Sun Yi paused for a moment, then laughed.

"The market is constantly changing, and no one is always victorious. The film 'Yu Kun' is of high quality and has established a good reputation, which is its greatest success. Commercial success sometimes requires a bit of luck. There's no need to blame yourself too much; just learn from the experience."

"Even if we suffer a huge loss, let alone make a small profit now, I'm not afraid. We at Starry Sky can afford to lose!"

Sun Yi's domineering declaration immediately dispelled Yang Fan's self-blame.

To be honest, Yang Fan really can't be blamed for this. To be honest, even if it were Sun Yi, without the "later experience," he wouldn't have been optimistic about the movie "Tiny Times."

What's so great about this movie?

A few young women tearing each other apart, flaunting their wealth, and being best friends. If this were in Sun Yi's time, it probably wouldn't have passed censorship.

That is, now.
The rise of the fan economy has begun to impact the traditional film evaluation system.

This indicates that the domestic film and television industry has entered the era of traffic, and "fan support" has become one of the major considerations for the commercial success of a film.

Of course, this situation is not unavoidable.

But it just so happens that Sun Yi wasn't at the company during this time, nor did he pay attention to the domestic film and television industry.

So, if you really think about it, the blame should fall on him.

No, she should be considered a celestial being. She had to "play" instead of filming a proper movie. What should have been a two-week filming session was stretched into a whole month by her "playing".

This has caused a delay!
She has to compensate for this loss.
Speak of celestial beings, and they will appear.

Liu Yifei was standing at the door of Sun Yi's chairman's office, just raising her hand to knock, when she suddenly sneezed, startling herself.

It's almost the hottest time of the year!

Standing beside her, Yang Mi looked surprised and asked with concern:
"Sisi, are you... are you alright?"

"Uh, it's nothing, maybe the air conditioning in our company is a bit too high."

(End of this chapter)