1990: Starting from Baojia Street

In the first week of the new song "Bleeding Love" being released, as everyone expected, it directly landed on the Billboard top 100 chart and won the championship.

This week, three of the top ten songs on the top 100 list are interludes from the movie "About Time".

In addition to "Bleeding Love" which ranked first, "All of Me" sung by Celine Dion ranked second, and "How Long Will I Love You" sung by Wang Lihong ranked seventh.

Before this, there has never been a movie with three interlude songs in the top ten of the Billboard charts before it was released, and two of them have been the champion for eight weeks in total.

This is equivalent to showing a new model to Hollywood film companies, that is, movie promotion can start with an interlude.

Although this model looks good, it is not easy to achieve this effect. Over the years, only Zhou Yan has completed it.

Of course, if "About Time" is ultimately successful at the North American box office, other companies will certainly consider finding some well-known music producers to create interludes, and then find first-line singers to sing them.

However, this will greatly increase the budget for the soundtrack.

You know, if a movie wants to find Mariah Carey to sing a theme song in their movie, the money it needs to spend may be able to cover the budget of the movie soundtrack.

As for Zhou Yan, he doesn't have to give Mariah Carey a penny. On the contrary, Mariah Carey has to give Zhou Yan money. This is Zhou Yan's ability.

Originally, "How Long Will I Love You" had dropped to the tenth place last week and was about to fall out of the top ten this week. However, due to the release of "Bleeding Love", the popularity of "About Time" also increased, and the popularity of this song reversed the decline.

There is only one month left until the release of "About Time", and the promotion of the film has already begun. The soundtrack in the film will definitely remain popular for a long time.

If nothing unexpected happens, "Bleeding Love" will maintain the top spot in the following weeks. The two songs "All of Me" and "How Long Will I Love You" will still remain in the top ten. It is even possible that "How Long Will I Love You" will continue to move up, and it is not impossible for it to return to the top three.

And just one week after the release date of "About Time" in the United States was announced, Fox announced another piece of news, that is, their company would cooperate with a company called New Picture Pictures to co-produce "Titanic".

This announcement did not elaborate on the specific cooperation model between the two companies, but the public knew from this announcement that the cooperation between the two parties would definitely not be simple.

Fox has been looking for companies to increase investment in "Titanic" for some time, and everyone in the industry knows this.

Any company of a certain size knows roughly how much money Fox needs. Now that Fox has announced its cooperation with New Picture, it proves that New Picture has met Fox's needs. New Picture has invested at least 60 to 70 million US dollars in "Titanic".

As for Xintu Film and Television, although it is not well-known, many people in the industry know its origins.

When Zhou Yan invested in "The Sixth Sense" before, he used New Picture Films, which is equivalent to the American branch of Zhou Entertainment. However, there is no equity dispute between New Picture and Zhou Entertainment, and they are two independent companies.

As for how the shares of Xintu Company were divided, no one knows, but it definitely has something to do with Zhou Yan.

At this time, everyone understood why Fox wanted to release "About Time" together with Thompson Company. It turned out that Fox had reached a cooperation with Zhou Yan, and the two parties were now in the same boat.

Therefore, after this news came out, the popularity of "about time" became higher again.

In fact, not only "About Time" has become more popular, but "Titanic" has also become more popular.

Previously, because Fox had been raising money from outside, many people were not optimistic about the movie "Titanic".

But now that the news of Xintu Company's investment came out, everyone suddenly became full of confidence in this movie.

It's not just because Fox raised the funds, but also because Zhou Yan was involved.

Although Zhou Yan has not developed much in the American film industry, he is still relatively well known in the industry.

Zhou Yan’s previous films achieved good box office in North America, but the so-called good box office is only compared with other Chinese-language films.

"The Sixth Sense" won the title of the highest-grossing Chinese-language film in the United States, but the box office was only 13 million US dollars, and it was not even ranked on the North American box office rankings that year.

However, although the original version had average box office, the adapted version, "The Sixth Sense," had very impressive box office.

Last year, the most watched movie in the global film industry was not "Independence Day", which won the annual box office champion, but "The Sixth Sense", a remake of "The Sixth Sense".

"The Sixth Sense" was a huge hit in North America last year, grossing $270 billion at the box office and sitting on the throne of the annual champion for a while.

There were two other films that were the strongest contenders for the box office champion last year, one was "Independence Day" and the other was "Twister."

"Twister" ultimately grossed only $240 million, falling behind "The Sixth Sense." However, "Independence Day" later surpassed "The Sixth Sense" with a box office of $300 million to win the annual championship, while "The Sixth Sense" ranked second.

In terms of global box office, "The Sixth Sense" surpassed "Independence Day" in some countries and regions, but it still lost in overall box office and still ranked second.

"The Sixth Sense" has already been released in most valuable box office locations, and the box office is basically set at more than 500 million US dollars.

There are still some smaller box office revenues that have not been released, but the total box office revenue of these box office revenues will probably not exceed 30 million US dollars, so it will not affect the overall situation at all.

Although "The Sixth Sense" lags behind "Independence Day" both in North American and global box office, people pay more attention to "The Sixth Sense" because it is considered a "dark horse".

Compared to "Independence Day", "The Sixth Sense" can be said to be a low-budget movie.

The cost of "The Sixth Sense" was 20 million US dollars, but the cost of "Independence Day" was more than 70 million US dollars, which is almost four times the cost of the former, but the box office gap between the two films is very small.

In addition to "The Sixth Sense", Zhou Yan's debut work "The Piano Boy Who Wants to Fly" was adapted into "Flying Piano Boy", which also won a global box office of 40 to 50 million US dollars, while the cost of "Flying Piano Boy" was only a few million US dollars.

Anyone who knows Zhou Yan a little bit knows that over the years since his debut, every project Zhou Yan has invested in has basically made a lot of money, whether it is a movie he shot himself or a movie he invested in, without exception.

Zhou Yan’s record is so brilliant, so could his investment in “Titanic” this time be an accident?

Perhaps, Zhou Yan made a mistake this time and will suffer losses in the "Titanic" project, but people are more willing to believe in past experience.

Therefore, everyone also followed suit and looked forward to "Titanic".

There were even a few companies that, after seeing the news, took the initiative to contact Fox to ask if there was any possibility of cooperation, but they were all rejected by Fox.

Now that Fox has received the money and public opinion is strong, it can be said that they have the right time, place and people, and they will not let others get a share of the pie.

……

June 1993th was exactly one month since the release of "Time Traveler" in Hong Kong, and the box office of the movie reached million Hong Kong dollars. Interestingly, the record set by "Jurassic Park" in was million, and "Time Traveler" only had left to reach it.

Because of its good box office and because it coincided with Hong Kong's return to China, the release of "Time Traveler" in Hong Kong was delayed to eight weeks, more than twice as long as the average movie.

This means that "A Time Traveler" still has one month left before its release, and it is basically certain to surpass "Jurassic Park".

Moreover, the box office is unlikely to be stuck at this data. If there is no time later, Tang Chen will definitely take action. The box office of only 500,000 Hong Kong dollars is just a waste of money.

The cost of raising the box office revenue of 500,000 Hong Kong dollars is not high.

Don't even waste time watching the movie. Before the movie is released, you can do some activities in conjunction with Zhou Yan's music album. For example, if you buy Zhou Yan's album, you will have a chance to get movie tickets. This will stimulate the album's sales.

Or vice versa, if you go to the cinema and watch "Time Traveler", you can use your ticket stub to enter a draw to win Zhou Yan's music album.

No matter which method is used, the five hundred thousand will not be wasted, and you may even be able to make some money.

Because the film has been released for a month, the screening schedule has actually been reduced a lot.

Movies released in Hong Kong are usually scheduled for the first two weeks, and there are very few screenings after that, unless the movie performs particularly well in the later stages.

When "The Piano Boy Who Wants to Fly" was released in Hong Kong, there were relatively few screenings in the early stages. Later, because the attendance rate was really good, the cinema adjusted the screening schedule upwards in the later stages.

This time, the screening schedule of "Time Traveler" was quite good from the beginning. After the first weekend, all major cinemas filled up their screening schedules for this movie.

Therefore, in the first two weeks or so, "Time Traveler" earned more than 50 million Hong Kong dollars at the box office. In the next half month, the movie only earned 10 million Hong Kong dollars at the box office.

In this case, the number of films will definitely continue to decline.

However, it is a bit of a coincidence that the movie box office has reached this data at this time, because according to this situation, tomorrow, July 1st, the box office of the movie will exceed "Jurassic Park" and truly become the box office champion in Hong Kong film history.

On the day Hong Kong returned to China, the number one box office in Hong Kong's film history was taken by a mainland film, which naturally had extraordinary significance.

……

On July 1st, when everyone was paying attention to the news of Hong Kong's return, the latest box office data of "Time Traveler" was also announced.

In just one day, the box office of "Time Traveler" increased by more than 2 million, directly reaching 63.8 million Hong Kong dollars, exceeding "Jurassic Park" by 1.5 million.

In fact, in the last period of time, the box office of "Time Traveler" is not much every day, basically only 200,000 or 300,000 Hong Kong dollars. It is a little higher on weekends, but not much higher.

The reason why there are suddenly two million Hong Kong dollars more today is that many movie fans know that the box office of "Time Traveler" is still hundreds of thousands behind that of "Jurassic Park". They are afraid that the box office today will not exceed that of "Jurassic Park", so they went to the cinema to support it.

……

"Breaking news, breaking news! 'Time Traveler' grossed 63.8 million Hong Kong dollars in Hong Kong, becoming the No. 1 box office hit in Hong Kong's film history."

Inside the campus of the Central Conservatory of Music, a boy was running and shouting at the door of the piano room.

The students passing by heard this and started talking about it.

"Is it the movie that Teacher Zhou made? I remember it was called this."

"Yeah, didn't you go to the cinema?"

"I was too busy at that time and didn't have the chance to watch it."

"What a shame! It's a good movie and it broke the mainland box office record."

"This breaks Hong Kong's record again. It's amazing."

"Well, what a coincidence, Xiangjiang just happened to return today."

"Yes, what a coincidence. When I think of this day in the future, in addition to my return to Hong Kong, I may also remember Mr. Zhou's record-breaking movie."

"Yes, it is of great significance. Even if this record is broken by other movies in the future, it will not affect its significance."

"I'm going to buy a disc to watch later."

"First-year violin student Zhou Ke has a disc with very clear images. You can borrow it to watch later."

“Although I haven’t watched the movie, I have listened to the music in it many times.”

"Who isn't? Those interludes from the movies are played every day in Wangfujing."

"Not only Wangfujing plays it every day, but my roommate Liu Fang plays it every day too."

……

The news of "Time Traveler" breaking the record quickly spread in mainland China. Starting at 10:30 in the morning, Zhou Yan's phone never stopped ringing, and a lot of people called to congratulate him.

Zhou Yan was a little confused by the speed of the spread. Wasn't the data released today? Hong Kong had just reported it, but how come it felt like everyone in the mainland knew about it?

Zhou Yan suspected that for the news to spread so quickly, there must be someone behind it.

However, neither Tang Chen nor Zhou Entertainment has such ability, so there is someone else behind the scenes.

Perhaps the national team is involved in this matter. After all, this news is of great significance to Hong Kong's return.

The fact was just as Zhou Yan guessed. That afternoon, CCTV-2's afternoon news reported the news and spent more than two minutes introducing the movie "Time Traveler".

With the report from CCTV-2, the news spread even more widely.

On a day like today, all news related to Hong Kong's return will receive the public's attention. "Time Traveler" won the first place in Hong Kong's film history and will definitely receive a lot of attention. (End of this chapter)