The Best Actor in the Vase of Meiyu

Chapter 1158: Adventure and Treasure Hunt
Roger Ebert is not a professional observer of the North American box office market, but he can clearly sense the change in the wind direction from his life experience.

Pick any time, even during work hours on a weekday, and go to a movie theater to see a special scene.

"Excuse me, what is the ending here?"

A group of people asked a similar question with joy and excitement.

A group of people appeared and then left; after waiting for a while, another group of people appeared, bought tickets and entered; the cycle continued like this.

It's like a Boy Scout completing a mission, or like young people going on an adventure to hunt for treasure.

The air is filled with a happy atmosphere——

Thanksgiving is indeed just around the corner.

Everything is simple. These people all came for "The Butterfly Effect" and are collecting the five endings of the movie like a treasure hunter.

After the premiere weekend, major cinemas will be able to apply for copies of different endings based on their own judgment and needs, and then schedule the films according to their own strategies. New Line Cinema gives the decision-making power entirely to the cinemas themselves.

These copies are numbered from Ending One to Ending Five.

And these numbers will all be reflected on the movie tickets.

In other words, if a viewer is trying to collect all the endings of a movie, they no longer need to go through trial and error, or run around asking for information. Instead, they can follow the information map provided by the cinema.

Some cinemas stick to one version of the ending to avoid confusion among the audience, and their target audience is still the general public:
An ordinary middle-aged man who has no interest in movies walks into the cinema and picks a movie at random. He doesn't care how many endings the movie has and he is not curious about what ending he is watching. He just picks any movie.

In this case, marking multiple endings may actually drive away customers.

Obviously, this is something cinemas don't want to see.

Some cinemas have all five endings ready, which not only meets the needs of enthusiasts to collect the endings, but also arranges different viewing activities:
For example, five endings are played at the same time, but when the audience buys the movie ticket, there is no ending version marked, so the audience is left waiting for the surprise in the form of a blind box.

Such activities have attracted widespread attention from the audience and received numerous praises.

Anson never expected that the "blind box" would appear now.

Some cinemas choose two or three endings based on the cinema manager's own preferences and judgment. This way, they can satisfy the hobby of fanatical movie fans who collect the endings without affecting the cinema's screening schedule.

After all, the big screen in the cinema still needs to make room for other movies. They can't play "The Butterfly Effect" 24 hours a day, right?

Moreover, the five versions of the ending are actually just different endings. There is no difference in the main content of the movie. Who wants to watch the same movie five times just for a different ending?

Definitely just a minority.

To be honest, if the director could plant different foreshadowings and details in the five versions, leading to different endings, attracting the audience's attention in the form of Easter eggs, and allowing the audience to discover the differences between the versions as the fun of adventure, cinemas would probably be more willing to screen multiple different versions.

Unfortunately, New Line Cinema has a limited budget and the two directors do not have such ability, so such a huge project remains at the imagination level.

Naturally, this crazy idea was never pushed to the extreme.

Having said that, the reality is that for the film market in 2003, the "butterfly effect" marketing strategy was enough to ignite interest.

So, there was this scene——

Young people move between cinemas in a trend-chasing manner.

Ordinary people who are a little conservative and lack enthusiasm for movies are constantly complaining. Agreeing and opposing, embracing and resisting, these two attitudes have pushed the controversy of the "butterfly effect" to a peak and become a topic of discussion for everyone.

Not only in cinemas, but also in cafes, supermarkets, bars, restaurants and streets, familiar debates and conversations can be heard in every corner.

"Butterfly effect", "butterfly effect", "butterfly effect".

The whole world is spinning at a high speed like a hurricane, and the "butterfly effect" is strongly occupying the public's vision.

Gradually, even those viewers who were not interested or even cursed at the show could not help but become curious.

So, what are the five endings of "The Butterfly Effect"?

So, can different versions of the ending of "The Butterfly Effect" turn into a flower?
In online forums, the voices against spoilers are getting louder and louder, but they still cannot stop the hideous actions of the "spoiler party".

In the end, the news was leaked and exploded the entire Internet. The heated debate evolved into a conflict, pushing the craze to its peak.

Interesting things happened:
Even those who have not watched "The Butterfly Effect" and have no interest in the movie have been caught up in this storm, talking about the movie's ending, spoilers, marketing strategies, and the movie itself.

Whether we like it or not, the "endings" still enter the public's field of vision——

This is probably the first time that the ending has been spoiled so formally and so noisily.

In the first version, when Evan was seven years old, he met Keller again. Although he was a little hesitant, he finally controlled himself and continued to move forward. He passed Keller on the road. They had never met each other and became two parallel lines. Evan completely stayed away from Keller's life.

This version of the ending caused a lot of controversy.

On the surface, Evan gave up interfering in Keller's life, but many people thought this was a selfish act, especially when Evan knew what George had done to Keller and Tommy.

But others believe that once Evan starts to interfere, history will repeat itself. Evan's letting go is actually a protection for Keller. At least Keller grew up successfully in the end.

In the second version, Evan still went to college, but this time he burned his diary, buried those fragmented memories, and gave up modifying the past.

By chance, Evan met Keller, who was working as a waiter, on the street. Evan went up to Keller to say hello and asked if Keller would like to go out for a cup of coffee.

This version of the ending is the most ordinary and did not cause much discussion. However, some fans believe that this is the true ending of the movie.

Accept the ugliness and scars of the past calmly, then seize the present and move towards the future. Don’t deny your own existence because of the darkness in your memory.

This is the most philosophical and film-appropriate ending.

Maybe Evan was unable to change the nightmare he had at the age of seven, but he accepted the pain calmly and was willing to give himself and Keller another chance.

this is life.

The seemingly ordinary and simple ending actually has the power to return to nature.

Many movie fans believe that this version of the ending should become the standard ending for the theatrical version.

What netizens didn't realize was that these discussions, these disagreements, these brainstorming sessions were exactly what the "five endings" were after, and everything that was happening before their eyes was happening exactly as Anson had envisioned.

The storm has just begun.

(End of this chapter)