Chinese Entertainment: Starting from 1996

Chapter 476 Huge Response and Sensation

In 2010, there was no online box office statistics agency, and Maoyan had not yet been born.

The original Maoyan was renamed Maoyan Movie after Meituan Movie was established by Meituan.com in 2012.

In this life, Maoyan was established by Golden Harvest at the end of last year, but it is of little use as it has only been established for a year, as the number of regions and cinemas it covers is far from enough.

It is impossible to calculate the actual box office data. It was not until the second half of 15 that Maoyan's coverage rate reached 90%, and it was able to relatively accurately calculate the real-time box office of all movies.

Currently, the main task of Maoyan, established by Golden Harvest, is to establish cooperation with more cinemas. Although it has the support of Golden Harvest Group, this is not an easy task.

Moreover, group buying has begun to emerge on the Internet, and the smoke of the war among thousands of groups has become increasingly intense. Now some people are also eyeing the online ticket purchasing business.

As we all know, during the Thousands of Groups War, money was spent intensively, and investment institutions were also very willing to invest during this period. Although Jiahe Group was wealthy and not afraid of its competitors having a lot of money, it still created certain obstacles to its own development.

Therefore, it will take at least two years for Maoyan to fully cover domestic cinemas.

In fact, the Optoelectronics Special Fund Office has been preparing for five years to be able to count the box office of theaters across the country, but it has not yet covered all regions and theaters in the country. It will take another 5 years for them to succeed.

Although it is impossible to check the real-time box office now, all major cinema chains are connected to the Internet, and as soon as a ticket is sold in each cinema, his system will record it.

Of course, using dual systems to steal box office revenue is not uncommon, especially for some franchised theaters, where it has become the norm.

Otherwise, it takes three to five years for a cinema to make back its investment. With such a long period, many people would not take such a big risk even if they can make a steady profit afterwards.

However, compared with the previous situation where individual cinemas had to count the daily box office and then compile the calculations, which took three or four hours, the situation is now much better. It takes at most half an hour to know the box office of a movie the day before.

So when all the theaters compiled the box office data of "Interstellar" to Guangdian, some well-informed large companies and media also obtained the movie's first-day box office data in advance.

In addition to the senior executives of companies in the industry who watched in amazement as "Interstellar" once again set a first-day box office record, the editorial departments of many major media outlets were also anxiously waiting.

They didn't have to wait long, as they also obtained the box office data of "Interstellar" at almost the same time.

"Fuck, 1300 million! Mr. Liu is amazing. He raised the record by million."

Sina Entertainment, an editor immediately opened his mailbox after receiving the message and exclaimed when he saw the data.

The previous record for the first-day box office of a movie was 54 million set by "The Martian" two years ago. Although the total box office of "Avatar" was high, its first-day box office was only more than 40 million.

So this first-day box office record is still held by a Chinese-language film, but the first-week box office record was taken by "Avatar", because the movie was released for four days in the first week and grossed 1.82 million yuan.

Hearing this man's exclamation, other people in the editorial department immediately came over, and when they saw the box office data of 67 million, they were all amazed.

"Okay, it has to be Mr. Liu! In this way, even if Interstellar is only released for three days in its first week, it should be no problem to regain the first week box office record.

I just don’t know if it can break the 1.3 billion box office record set by Avatar.” One of them said happily.

As a practitioner in the entertainment industry, who doesn’t want to see domestic films beat Hollywood films?

If Liu Zhou could break all the records of "Avatar", even the total box office could exceed 13 billion!
Just thinking about it makes my blood boil.

What's more, Liu Zhou is their boss, and he naturally prefers "Interstellar".

So they were very happy and even proud to see that "Interstellar" performed well at the box office on the first day.

"Let's discuss this later. Let's send the news out first, otherwise we will be late." The editor-in-chief of Sina Entertainment interrupted their conversation.

In fact, the press release has been prepared long ago, and all we have to do is fill in the box office data.

However, the sooner this kind of news is released, the better. Sina is not the only media outlet that can get movie box office data. Today's Internet media is all about racing against time.

Just as the editor-in-chief expected, several other portals and large media outlets also received the news at about the same time. The only difference was that there was not as happy an atmosphere as in the Sina Entertainment editorial department.

Some small and medium-sized media outlets are not as well-informed, but if you just read the news from major media outlets, you will know the news and it won’t be much later.

There are more and more news reports about the box office. In this early morning period, the Internet is flooded with news about "Interstellar" breaking the record.

"Interstellar grossed 1300 million on its first day, breaking the first-day box office record in film history and raising the record by million!"

"The strong word-of-mouth of the movie led to a huge box office success on the first day of Interstellar!"

"Interstellar debuted as the single-day box office champion on November 11, interrupting Love Is Not Blind's 30-day streak as the single-day box office champion in mainland China!"

"With a first-day box office of 2010 million, Interstellar has completely set off the Lunar New Year market. December 12 will usher in the biggest box office peak of the year!"

"Who can stop Liu Zhou from dominating the Lunar New Year box office?"

"Liu Zhou strongly defends his position as the top commercial director in China, sweeping the Lunar New Year box office with "Interstellar"!"

……

For the media, they all like to see a movie break records. Once a record is broken, they can brag about it however they want and no one can refute it.

However, no matter how much Liu Zhou brags, it will be the same. It will be big news when he fails.

The reason why a great director is called a great director is that he must have achieved a lot of achievements. A box office hit for a movie should be a routine operation, so for them a movie flop is more important news than a box office hit.

If anyone among Chen Shishi, Jiang Wen, or Feng Kuzi loses the most miserably next, he or she will probably be blackmailed into ashes by the media.

"Interstellar", which has taken the lead in the Lunar New Year box office, is destined to be a success. Not only did it set a new record at the box office on the first day, but its reputation was also extremely good.

Next, it’s Feng Kuazi, Chen Shishi and Jiang Wen’s turn.

However, it is impossible for Feng Kuzi to fail. In comedy films, he is still the face of the country. Even the strong up-and-coming star Ning Hao cannot match him in the field of comedy.

What's more, the first part of "If You Are the One" was a huge box office hit and accumulated a lot of fans. As long as the second part is not too bad, the box office will not be too bad. Moreover, comedy movies are naturally suitable for the Lunar New Year period.

The second is poet Chen, whose performance of "The Orphan of Zhao" seems to have the least chance of winning.

Although the publicity said that a city was built for the filming of this movie, did poet Chen build less cities? To this day, the Ring-in-Ring Royal City is still deserted.

So even with Ge You's participation, costume movies are no longer popular nowadays.

If Chen Shishi fails again this time, he will probably fall from the altar, and only three of the top four domestic directors will be left.

Although Jiang Wen is used to failure, the cast of "Let the Bullets Fly" is unprecedented. There are two superstars, Chow Yun-fat and Ge You, plus himself, which makes three, and there are also a large number of first-line stars such as Chen Kun and Liu Jialing. If it fails again, Jiang Wen's situation will be really difficult.

Jiang Wen is quite talented, but if he cannot make money for the capital, no matter how talented he is, it will be useless and he will be discarded.

So no matter who among the four directors is the biggest loser, it will be enough for the media to make a fuss about it.

The media couldn't help but feel a little regretful when thinking about this. If Zhang Yimou had also participated in this Lunar New Year movie, it would have been a big fight among the five top and best directors in mainland China.

That would be really exciting. Among the top five directors, the final winner could really be deified, without a doubt.

That night, except Liu Zhou who fell asleep peacefully, many people in the circle actually couldn't sleep.

Wang Changtian, chairman of Enlight Media, was reading financial statements in his study room late at night with a cigarette in his hand.

The listing is just around the corner, and nothing can go wrong at this time, otherwise not only will the listing be delayed, but the entire company's brand will be affected.

Shortly after 12 o'clock, the cell phone next to me suddenly rang.

When the text message came, Wang Changtian immediately opened his mailbox.

Sixty-seven million!
Although he had expected the result to be high, it was still somewhat beyond his expectations.

Judging from the current reputation of "Interstellar" and the high screening schedule, if nothing unexpected happens, there will be no problem for the movie to break the 1 billion box office.

It may even break the movie record set by "Avatar". The only thing left to see is whether "Interstellar" can last.

Thinking of this, Wang Changtian couldn't help but feel a sense of urgency. Now the gap between Jiahe Group and Light Media is getting bigger and bigger. The only way to change this situation is for Light Media to successfully go public.

At the same time, Yu Dong also got the first day's data at the same time, which made his brows frown even deeper.

After thinking about it, I picked up my phone and called my assistant.

"Book me a flight to New York tomorrow."

Bona's listing has not been very smooth so far. Domestic stocks rely on deceiving investors, but there are very few retail investors in the U.S. stock market, and those involved are all various Wall Street funds and investment companies.

For those on Wall Street, Chinese film companies are obviously not worth investing in. After all, Hollywood is the world's largest film industry base.

This also meant that Yu Dong had to spend more energy and money to convince those speculators on Wall Street so that Bona could be successfully listed on NASDAQ and gain a foothold.

In the Huayi office, the Wang brothers also received the first-day box office data of "Interstellar" at the first time. After watching it, they looked up at each other and saw the disappointment in each other's eyes.

As Liu Zhou's opponents, several other directors are of course also anxiously waiting for the first day's box office.

Feng Kuazi and Jiang Wen were fine, after all, they were still far away from each other. The one who was most worried was of course Chen the Poet.

When seeing the figure of 67 million, poet Chen clenched his fists tightly, and it was obvious that he was definitely not calm.

"Why aren't you sleeping yet?"

At this time Chen Hong also woke up. Seeing him looking at something on his mobile phone, she immediately knew why.

"How much?" Chen Hong walked over and asked.

"6700."

"So high?" Chen Hong was a little shocked. Currently, 90% of the domestic movies' final box office cannot reach this figure.

However, seeing the expression on her husband's face, as someone who has lived with him for more than ten years, she knows his character very well.

If we say that poet Chen used to be arrogant and unbridled, then after the disastrous failure of “The Promise” and the plummeting reputation, poet Chen remains arrogant, but he is no longer as free and easy as before. Instead, he has become much more sensitive.

Especially since Liu Zhou and Zhang Yimou were doing better and better, their reputation and influence far surpassed his, which made him seem a little inferior. He would be in a bad mood for any good results achieved by the two.

What's more, this time Liu Zhou and he are direct competitors and will pay closer attention to everything about "Interstellar".

Now that "Interstellar" has exploded at the box office on its first day, one can imagine how poet Chen feels at this moment: angry, resentful, a little worried, and even a hint of fear deep in his heart that even Chen Hong is not aware of.

"Don't worry. The release date of The Orphan of Zhao is still half a month away. By then, the box office of Interstellar should have weakened, and it will definitely not affect the box office of our movie."

"I understand. Go to bed early."

He actually understood the truth, but he still couldn't help but worry, and he had no other choice. Now he could only hope that "The Orphan of Zhao" could help and get more box office revenue.

"Aren't you going to sleep?"

"You go first. I'll check in the study to see if there are any loopholes in the publicity plan."

Hearing what poet Chen said, Chen Hong couldn't help but feel some resentment in her eyes, but she still left the study.

Watching Chen Hong's graceful back disappear, poet Chen put down the documents in his hand and couldn't help but let out a long sigh.

By now, he was no longer able to do it, while Chen Hong was able to breathe in and out while sitting on the ground, so he was spending more and more time in the study.

The next day, Liu Zhou was not surprised to see the media's overwhelming coverage of the event. Some of the reports were spontaneous, while others were the result of operations by Golden Harvest and China Film.

After all, this was only the first day of its release. Even if it set a new record, it wouldn't cause such a big fuss.

The purpose of Golden Harvest and China Film Group doing this is to attract people who rarely watch movies into the cinema.

After listening to it many times, it will naturally leave a deeper impression in their minds, and many people will spend dozens of dollars to go to the cinema to see if the movie is really that good.

If we want to break the box office record of "Avatar", the box office contribution of this group of people is crucial.

Liu Zhou believes that "Interstellar" is not inferior to "Avatar" in terms of viewing effects, but there are too few film IMAX screens in China, and even digital IMAX screens are not many.

If other screens are used, the light and shadow effects of "Interstellar" will be greatly reduced, which will also cause the audience's enthusiasm for watching the movie a second, third, and fourth time to wane.

When "Avatar" was released, people who didn't get 3D movie tickets at first would go to watch the 3D version later. Those who watched the 3D version were immediately amazed, and many people watched it four, five, or even six times.

(End of this chapter)