Chinese Entertainment: Starting from 1996

Chapter 467: Ambition for Interstellar
It’s November now, and there’s still a month left before the release of “Interstellar,” and Golden Harvest has begun promoting the film in full swing.

Both Liu Zhou and Han Shanping have high hopes for the movie "Interstellar".

It may be a bit difficult to achieve a box office of 1.3 billion for "Avatar", but achieving a box office of 1 billion is the common goal of both of them.

However, for Liu Zhou, he still wants to try to regain the domestic movie box office record.

So this time, Liu Zhou also worked very hard in promoting "Interstellar", which was unusual.

Ever since he acquired Golden Harvest and became a big player in the industry, even if Liu Zhou had his own movies released, he only picked a few programs in the early stages to promote the movies, and he never participated in the entire promotion process like when his first movie "My Sassy Girl" was released.

Even during the time of "The Martian", most of the promotional activities were arranged for the actors to participate.

However, this time for "Interstellar", Liu Zhou felt it necessary to work harder.

"Avatar" put too much pressure on domestic filmmakers, even greater than "Titanic".

When "Titanic" grossed 3.6 million at the box office, although people were stunned for a while, some people still wanted to break the record it set.

But when it comes to "Avatar", except Liu Zhou, everyone else really feels powerless at this time.

The box office of 1 billion RMB directly raised the level, and it is much larger than the gap between 100 million and 10 million.

People in the industry know very well that the higher the box office, the more difficult it will be to increase it exponentially.

Now "Avatar" has not only reached the billion level, but also earned another 300 million at the box office on the basis of the billion, so everyone feels that this record is almost impossible to break. Even if it can be broken, it may take at least ten years until the mainland film market is large enough.

At that time, people were not as used to watching domestic movies with box office of 500 million to 600 million or 700 million to 800 million as they were later. So people still had a little hope for a box office of 1 billion.

The highest box office for a domestic film so far was created by "The Martian" two years ago, reaching 700 million yuan.

But this movie is leading by a huge margin, only lagging behind "Founding of a Republic" which made over 500 million yuan, so "The Martian" is not universal, and it also took away the glory of being the first domestic science fiction blockbuster.

And this is only because of the existence of Liu Zhou, otherwise domestic filmmakers in the original time and space would be even more desperate.

This is why "Lost in Thailand" breaking the record of "Avatar" caused such a sensation, directly pushing Xu Zheng to the ranks of the top male actors in the country, and even directly promoting him to capital.

At that time, "Lost in Thailand" was really a bolt from the blue, and no one expected that this comedy would be such a hit.

It was after this movie that Xu Zheng and later Shen Teng became the representatives of comedy movies, while Feng Kuzi's Feng-style comedy was gradually marginalized after reaching its peak in "If You Are the One 2".

In this life, Liu Zhou didn’t want to make everyone wait for another three years. He wanted to get the record back in just one year.

Moreover, Liu Zhou feels that "Interstellar" is not without a chance, and even has considerable hope.

The current domestic film market is not much worse than that of 2012. Everyone has the desire to watch movies now, but there is no movie that most people in the country want to watch.

And "Interstellar" undoubtedly meets the requirements of being a movie that most people in the country want to see.

The plot and special effects of this movie are both first-rate, coupled with the gimmick of hardcore science fiction, the appeal of Liu Zhou and others, and the joint promotion by Golden Harvest and China Film, two of the top two domestic film and television companies.

"Interstellar" can definitely become a movie that breaks through the circle and then attract most of the people in the country who have the habit of watching movies into the cinema.

In order to achieve this goal, Liu Zhou even went to CCTV to communicate with them, hoping that the movie could be included in the news broadcast.

Fortunately, Liu Zhou still had some face. Although CCTV did not completely guarantee that the film would be broadcast, they promised that if "Interstellar" had a good box office, they could arrange a news broadcast.

Although the other party used the word "considerable", no matter how flexible he was, Liu Zhou felt that "Interstellar" could definitely meet this requirement.

Therefore, he felt that there shouldn't be much of a problem in promoting "Interstellar" on the Xinwen Broadcast platform.

Now all that's left is the regular promotion. In order to achieve his goal, Liu Zhou even took out time to lead the team in promoting the movie throughout the whole process.

Not only that, Golden Harvest and China Film Group together put out 100 million yuan as the film's publicity budget, and this is only the publicity fund used in mainland China and Hong Kong.

The 100 million yuan publicity fund is also the highest film publicity budget in the country to date.

Movies like If You Are the One 2 and Let the Bullets Fly avoided the limelight of Interstellar, partly because they were scared by the publicity budget of Interstellar.

They also saw the confidence and importance that Golden Harvest and China Film Group had for this film, so no one was willing to touch the movie "Interstellar".

If it weren't for the huge amount of investment they have already made, the film and television companies behind them would have thought of withdrawing their films and looking for another schedule.

In fact, for Liu Zhou, he feels that the only obstacles for "Interstellar" to break the box office record of "Avatar" are these three movies.

Especially "If You Are the One 2" and "Let the Bullets Fly", both of these movies are box office hits.

Although these two movies were released more than half a month apart from "Interstellar", "Interstellar" is not the kind of movie that relies on an early burst to reap most of the box office.

If "Interstellar" wants to break the record of "Avatar", it must be screened for a long time. In this case, the two movies will definitely have an impact on the box office of "Interstellar".

This is inevitable. What China Film and Golden Harvest can do is to minimize the impact in this regard. They have allocated such a large publicity budget and also have plans to spend money on publicity again after the movie's box office is weak.

However, despite this, one hundred million yuan is indeed a bit too much to be used entirely for the promotion of the film.

The publicity departments of China Film Group and Golden Harvest have been scratching their heads for some time, thinking about how to spend all the money.

In addition to other promotional activities, another way is to extend the promotion period of the film.

So in fact, the promotion of "Interstellar" has already begun in October, and in November, the full-scale promotion is about to start.

Generally, the comprehensive promotion period for a movie is about half a month before its release, but for "Interstellar" it was extended to a month.

Liu Zhou is not worried that excessive publicity will make people bored, because this movie itself is a movie that everyone is looking forward to. The large-scale publicity now will only let more people who don’t pay much attention to movies know that the movie is going to be released.

Although "Interstellar" began large-scale promotion after entering November, another movie produced by Golden Harvest, "Love Is Not Blind", will also be officially released on November 11.

However, Love Is Not Blind did not receive as good treatment as Interstellar, nor did it have such a sufficient publicity budget. However, due to Liu Zhou's attention, 15 million yuan of publicity funds were also approved. This budget was considered very good a few years ago, but in fact, it is only slightly inferior to those blockbusters even now.

"Love Is Not Blind" should also be the first movie in mainland China whose production cost and publicity cost are the same.

However, even if Liu Zhou attaches great importance to "33 Broken Hearts", it is impossible for this movie to delay the promotion plan of "Interstellar".

Therefore, "Love Is Not Blind" had to be promoted under the large-scale publicity of "Interstellar".

Fortunately, Golden Harvest is in charge of the promotion of both films, so it can minimize the promotional impact of "Love Is Not Blind" as much as possible.

However, Liu Zhou knew in advance that "Love Is Not Blind" would be a dark horse, so when the conventional publicity was suppressed by "Interstellar", he also mobilized his connections to promote the film in a different way.

Double Eleven is not only Singles’ Day, but also a shopping festival, so Liu Zhou arranged for Love Is Not Blind to collaborate with Ali in promotion.

Ali and Taobao held their first Double Eleven event last year, and the results were very good, so they attached great importance to this event for the second time this year.

They were also happy to see the cooperation with Golden Harvest, and finally the two sides reached a cooperation agreement after nearly a week of negotiations.

According to the agreement, Taobao needs to advertise "Love Is Not Blind" on its homepage. At the same time, Taobao needs to work with some stores to organize an event. If the order exceeds a certain amount on Double Eleven Day, a movie ticket voucher will be given.

Nowadays, with the gradual popularization of smart phones, Taobao client has been online for a long time. Taobao has given a splash screen recommendation for a week, and there is a 5-second movie poster when it is opened.

Golden Harvest will also put an advertisement for Taobao in the opening credits of the movie, and advertisements for Double Eleven and Taobao are also embedded in the movie.

According to Taobao’s estimates, at least 15 million users will participate in the shopping spree on Double Eleven Day.

Finally, the two parties agreed that as long as the box office of "Love Is Not Blind" reached 1.5 million, or 500 million moviegoers, neither party would have to pay the other party advertising fees.

If it is less than 1.5 million, the advertising fees will be paid in tiers, and the same applies if it is more than 1.5 million.

If the box office can reach 3 million, Taobao will need to pay 800 million in advertising fees to Golden Harvest. The highest tier of 1500 million and above will require million in advertising fees.

If the movie flopped, Golden Harvest would have to pay Ali.

This agreement seems to be relatively equal, but in fact, Golden Harvest got a great advantage.

Apart from other things, the fact that the movie could take over the homepage and splash screen advertising space of Taobao means huge profit. The current traffic of Taobao is still very considerable.

In fact, even being able to cooperate with Taobao is a profit. If there is no Liu Zhou's face and Golden Harvest's brand, any company that goes to Taobao for cooperation may not pay attention to you, and they may not necessarily accept paid advertising.

Even if Huayi, in which Jack Ma has invested, came to seek cooperation, it might be difficult to get conditions like those from Golden Harvest.

Today, Ali is even more powerful than Penguin, and is secretly regarded as the number one Internet company in the circle.

In addition to cooperating with Taobao, Golden Harvest also held a premiere ceremony for "Love Is Not Blind".

As a film director, Teng Huatao was of course extremely delighted about this.

Even now, not every movie holds a premiere ceremony. In the past, only blockbusters had this treatment, but now only some films with famous directors or big stars have this treatment.

"Love Is Not Blind" barely meets the standard of having a big star participate. At first, Teng Huatao didn't even think about holding a premiere ceremony for the movie.

Now that the surprise came too suddenly, Teng Huatao also made full use of his connections.

After all, this movie is the key to whether he can transform into a film director, and the most direct criterion for judgment is the box office, so he also attaches great importance to it.

Teng Huatao's network of contacts should not be underestimated. Many people from the film, television, music, advertising and fashion circles have come to him.

And his father, Teng Wenjie, the fourth-generation director who made the classic TV series "Blood Romance", is older than Zhang Yimou.

Don’t underestimate these people because they are just older and have more seniority. In fact, each of them was active in the top positions of major film studios and film academies in the 1970s and 1980s. They are definitely powerful people.

Wu Yigong, also a fourth-generation director, served as general manager of the Magic City Film Company, director of the Magic City Film Studio, and director of the Magic City Film Bureau in the 1980s.

If it were today, that would be a big shot like Ren Zhonglun, chairman of the Magic Shadow Group.

Wu Tianming was in charge of the Xi'an Film Studio and created a western legend. At its peak, it was no less than the current China Film Group.

There are also many who have served as vice presidents and professors at the Beijing Film Academy and as directors of other film studios.

Although Teng Wenji did not hold any official position, his connections were there, otherwise Teng Huatao would not have been able to direct TV series on his own in his early 30s, especially at the turn of the century when film and television resources were relatively scarce.

Not to mention the past, even now if you want to be successful in the directing industry, you either need to have a background or be able to cheat.

Unlike the later development of online dramas and online movies, this provides a lot of opportunities for new directors, and those with ability will always come out.

The threshold for online dramas and online movies is very low. They don’t need to be broadcast on satellite TV or in theaters. They can just be put on video websites.

Later, there was a high-return online movie that cost 28 yuan and earned 5000 million yuan at the box office.

This return on investment ratio is something that theaters can never achieve. No matter how dark a dark horse is, it cannot exceed this return on investment ratio.

And the cycle is fast, it only takes more than half a month to prepare and half a month to shoot, and you can go online and make money in one or two months.

Nowadays, it is very difficult to succeed without any background, cheats, or incredible luck.

In addition to the people invited by Teng Huatao, Golden Harvest also invited many people to attend the premiere of "33: Broken Love".

The quality of the guests invited by Golden Harvest is obviously not comparable to Teng Huatao's connections. They are either CEOs of film and television companies or famous directors.

In addition, Liu Zhou also took time out to attend the premiere ceremony, which makes the premiere of this low-budget romantic comedy movie no less than the premiere of a blockbuster movie.

After all, the protagonist this time was not Liu Zhou, so he chatted with some acquaintances and then waited for the movie to begin.

(End of this chapter)