Chinese Entertainment

Chapter 334 Promotional Expenses
The trailer for "2012" has generated more and more attention, especially in North America, where more and more people believe in the Mayan prophecy of the end of the world in 2012.

According to media statistics, there are millions of comments on the topic of the end of the world on major websites, and a considerable number of people are building underground homes, which has boosted the popularity of this movie.

A doomsday trend is slowly approaching various regions around the world.

Some merchants in North America have already put the doomsday life capsule on sale, priced at US$100 million each, and quite a few people have bought it.

Domestically, China Film Group cooperated with North America to launch large-scale pre-promotion across the country. Interestingly, among the private film distribution giants, Huayi Film Group started out by making films, Bona expanded its distribution, Guangguang established itself with entertainment information, and Wanda became a rising star because of its cinema chain.

Because the circle is so small, there is a coexistence of competition and cooperation among the major publishing giants.

For example, the first film that Guangguang made when it entered the film industry a few years ago, "City of Sadness", was co-released with Bona.

This time, "2012" is jointly released by China Film, Star Film, Light Media, Emperor Entertainment Group, and Wanda, and several companies are involved in the promotion.

For this promotion, Xingchen Film and Television Company specially brought together several companies to discuss countermeasures.

The meeting was chaired by Song Ge. Looking at the representatives of various companies below the stage, Song Ge felt a little emotional at this moment, as if Xingchen Film and Television had already achieved the grand occasion of dominating the entertainment industry in his hands.

Seeing everyone sitting down, Song Ge smiled and said, "The tone of the joint release has been set. China Film and Xingchen Film and Television will be the main companies, with Guangxian, Emperor Entertainment Group, and Wanda as the auxiliary companies. The publicity and distribution costs will be 6% for us two companies, and the remaining % will be paid by your three companies."

The reason why Song Ge said this is because the budget for the publicity and promotion expenses is not based on the production cost, but on the expected box office.

The reason is simple. Even if the movie costs hundreds of millions, if the market performance is not good, you can't throw money into it. If the box office is expected to be a big hit, you will naturally have to promote it as much as possible.

I want to say a little more that publicity and promotion is perhaps the most complicated part of the film industry. It is said that except for a small number of domestic cinema films that make a profit, most of them cannot even recover their publicity and promotion costs.

Because after the producer shows the film to the publicity and distribution company, those with moral integrity and bottom line may refuse to distribute the film due to poor market expectations.

However, there are still some distribution companies in the market that are only concerned with making money. For example, I have seen a film that cost 30 million to produce, but the box office was only estimated to be 40 or 50 million.

Assuming the publicity and distribution company wants to do this, they will "fool" the producer into saying that they will advance 10 million yuan for publicity and distribution, and then list some projects with a cost of 40 million yuan and a box office of 200 to 300 million yuan. At the same time, they will promise to do some patch ads for some big movies, guarantee a certain number of screenings, and a certain number of roadshows.

However, when the film is released, the producers may find that there are no in-film advertisements at all, the roadshows are cancelled, the screening rate is terrible, and the final box office is only 40 to 50 million.

What's even worse is that we have no idea where the 10 million yuan paid for publicity and promotion was spent. Even if we ask for it, there is only a summary form without details, and there is basically no need to think about invoices.

People can say with confidence, who do you think, the cinema or the media, can issue you an invoice after receiving the money?

Even if the film does not make a lot of money at the box office, the publicity and promotion expenses paid by the distribution company will be recovered first from the shareable box office. As for whether the production company makes a profit, they don't consider it.

Therefore, newcomers with no background who enter the industry and risk everything to make a movie, except for those who are reborn and have the aura of the protagonist, will most likely be cheated and cry to death in the toilet.

Of course, if the film is good enough, the distribution company will still be more careful and even spend money to distribute it, at least in the future it can fool people, no, it should be said that it will be favored by more producers.

"2012" is undoubtedly a high-quality blockbuster, which can be seen from the released trailer alone. Although it is only a 2D version, the special effects are still amazing.

"Everyone, Xingchen Films expects the box office of this movie to be 1.5 billion yuan. According to the proportion, the publicity and promotion expenses should not be less than 150 million yuan,"

After Song Ge finished speaking, he tapped the handle of the chair with his index finger, waiting for the reactions of others in the meeting room.

The person who came from China Film Group was a vice president of the group. He was not excited about the 1.5 billion box office forecast. After all, the company had discussed it internally before coming. He smiled and said, "Well, in fact, China Film estimates the box office of the film to be around 1.2 billion. I think the box office data for this film should be "Avatar".

Besides, "2012" is a 3D movie, so we shouldn't just consider the domestic box office, the global box office is the biggest part."

This stunned everyone present. What's the matter? China Film Group is still considering global publicity and promotion. Everyone unconsciously turned their eyes to Song Ge who was presiding over the meeting.

"The publicity and promotion in North America and overseas will be handled by Tomorrow's Star Films, Warner Bros., and Universal Studios. Otherwise, based on the global box office of 1 billion U.S. dollars, the publicity and promotion will not be less than 100 million U.S. dollars, which is 600 to 700 million RMB. Can everyone still pay according to the proportion?"

Song Ge said with a smile that this is also the common practice of co-production films. After all, most of the box office sharing of several domestic companies depends on the domestic box office, while the overseas box office sharing is dominated by companies such as Warner.

You have to know that in North America, a high-quality special effects blockbuster can easily have a box office of over 10 billion US dollars, and people there will not agree to share the cost equally.

In the meeting room, everyone was discussing the matter as if they were buying vegetables in the market. Gu Wei also handed over all the authority to Song Ge and did not attend the meeting.

Finally, the cost issue of publicity and promotion was determined. The initial plan was 3 million yuan, and the external announcement was million yuan. The box office target was billion yuan. The film was known as the world's first D disaster epic blockbuster, with pictures comparable to or even better than "Avatar".

Although "Avatar" is a 3D movie, the promotion of this kind of thing is always to find a selling point and hype it up. As long as the audience is deceived into the theater, it is considered a success. Anyway, the service tenet has always been no refunds!
After discussing the publicity and promotion costs, the next question naturally comes to the issue of the film’s release schedule.

"This is the easiest to solve. We can directly set the domestic release date as December 12st. As Bona's Flying Swords of Dragon Gate and New Picture's The Flowers of War have both changed their release dates, I believe that films from other companies in the industry will not dare to compete head-on with us." The speaker is Li Xiaoping, a representative of Light Media, a middle-aged woman in her late 1s who is well-known in the industry for her abilities.

"Haha, we have the exclusive rights to this Lunar New Year movie season."

……

The next day, after confirming the specific release date, China Film announced that "2012" will be officially released on December 2011, 12.

Many filmmakers still remember vividly the scene when the Hollywood 3D special effects blockbuster "Avatar" swept the Lunar New Year box office last year and slaughtered all kinds of domestic blockbusters.

At that time, the movie "October Besieged" produced by Bona had a box office of 80 million in the first week and exceeded 200 million in twelve days. After that, it encountered "Avatar" and nothing happened.

It can be said that because of the movie "Avatar", most of the domestic films in the 09/10 Lunar New Year period became cannon fodder and suffered heavy losses.

Today's domestic filmmakers are terrified at the mention of "Hollywood 3D blockbusters", let alone "3", a Sino-US co-production with an investment of up to 2012 million US dollars.

"Alas, there is no other way. Let's change the schedule."

"Hurry up and go to China Film to adjust the schedule. Didn't you see that even two films from Bona and New Picture have withdrawn from the Lunar New Year schedule? How can we compete?"

For a moment, wailing sounds were heard throughout the circle.

"The timing is perfect. I'm looking forward to it."

"Fuck, it's going to take another half a year to be released. That's a bit overwhelming."

Unlike major companies in the industry, netizens are looking forward to the early release of the movie.

At the same time, after Christian Bale, who won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, came to Jinling, the crew held a celebration banquet for him, hosted by Zhang Yimou himself.

Zhang Weiping took this opportunity to start promoting it again.

"The Flowers of War is expected to add an additional 5000 million yuan in investment costs just to create a better epic blockbuster."

Zhang Weiping said: "In "The Flowers of War", the war scenes are very important. We demanded that they meet international standards and invited a first-class team. Their requirements were also very high. In order to meet the blasting team's requirements for excellence, the investment has been increased by more than 5000 million yuan, and the filming period of the film will be extended by two weeks."

As soon as these words were spoken, the audience immediately became more excited. What else can be said about this attitude of striving for perfection? Moreover, the investment has increased to 6.5 million, which is definitely a blockbuster.

The popularity of "2012" and "The Flowers of War" has set the entertainment industry on fire.

On the other hand, Huang Bo, who became famous for Ning Hao's two crazy trilogies and became popular in the circle for his acting skills, publicly published a blog post on Sina Weibo titled "Apology to all the viewers who were deceived by me."

The article stated that the movie "Fatal Invitation" used Huang Bo for publicity and distribution, and used him to deceive the audience.

"Huang Bo has really become famous." Ning Hao sighed after seeing the news. He didn't expect that Huang Bo, who was the least attractive and the oldest student in Class 02, has completely made it out of the limelight.

"But this movie is shameless, it's just nonsense."

"Fame brings trouble, so be careful next time!"

This kind of promotional method that doesn't play by the rules is really speechless. It's just forced nonsense.

It's not just "Fatal Invitation" that has false advertising. "Legend of White Snake", which was claimed to be starring Huang Shengyi, has also been releasing various stills, posters and trailers recently after it was completed before the New Year.

But what is puzzling is why in all the movies starring Huang Shengyi, whether it is the posters or the trailers, Li Lianjie always appears in the center?

This also led to a large number of viewers who did not know the reason to think that Li Lianjie was the lead actor, and they all expressed their expectations:

"We will definitely support the movie starring Li Lianjie," said one netizen.

"The Legend of the White Snake was supposed to be filmed as The Legend of Fahai, didn't it?"

"The content of the promotion is seriously inconsistent with the film's project establishment."

Some netizens also joked.

(End of this chapter)