Chinese Entertainment: Starting from 1996

Chapter 481 North American Box Office
Back to a week ago, on the morning of December 1st, Los Angeles time, Zhang Zhao and his team arrived at Los Angeles International Airport.

Out of the importance of the release of "Interstellar" in the United States, Zhang Zhao personally went to North America to take charge.

He boarded the flight at 1 a.m. on the 10st, Beijing time, and arrived in Los Angeles at 22 p.m.

But due to the time difference, it was still 7 o'clock in the morning in Los Angeles.

Summit Entertainment President Anthony Edwards and Lionsgate Vice President Joseph Rudiger came to the airport with their people to pick them up.

Zhang Zhaohe and Anthony Edwards are no strangers to each other, needless to say. Although Summit Entertainment is relatively independent, it still belongs to the Golden Harvest Group.

As Edwards' immediate superior, he also needs to report to the group's president, Zhang Zhao, and he usually communicates directly with Zhang Zhao.

Joseph Rudiger is similar. He is the senior vice president of overseas distribution at Lionsgate. The cooperation between them is coordinated by him, Zhang Zhao and the president of Golden Harvest International.

It was natural for Anthony Edwards to come to the airport to pick up the guests, and Joseph Rudiger also came in person. It can be seen that Lionsgate is really thoughtful and attaches great importance to the cooperation with Golden Harvest Group.

After exchanging pleasantries, the three of them headed to Summit Entertainment's headquarters.

Zhang Zhao had a nap on the plane and was not very sleepy, so he immediately got down to work.

He didn't come here to take over the specific work directly this time. Edwards and others are still in charge of the publicity and promotion.

He came here to see with his own eyes the release of "Interstellar" in North America. If everything goes well, it would be good. If there is an emergency, he will be able to handle it better and summarize the experience and lessons.

In the morning, Zhang Zhao listened to Summit Entertainment’s distribution department talk about the film’s publicity and promotion plan, and then in the afternoon he also learned about the publicity and promotion methods there in detail.

In fact, it is similar to the situation in China. It is mainly based on posters, print media, television media and the increasingly important online promotion recently. At the same time, the main creators of the film will also participate in the roadshow, but it is not as popular as in China.

However, because "Interstellar" is a Chinese-language film, the male and female leading actors are not well-known in North America, so there is no roadshow.

Originally Liu Zhou had some fame in North America, but after weighing the pros and cons, he felt that the focus should still be placed on the domestic market, and he felt that the promotional effect would not be particularly significant if he alone was involved in North America.

Although the North American market is important, it is relatively more important to break the box office record of "Avatar" in the mainland.

Therefore, the promotion of "Interstellar" in North America is mainly based on posters, print media and online promotion, and there are relatively few television media with the best promotional effect.

The larger TV stations in North America are all owned by large media groups, almost all of which own one of the Hollywood Big Seven.

Now Summit Entertainment and Lionsgate are both suffering from suppression from the seven major Hollywood companies. Their suppression is all-round, and it is normal for them to strangle them in publicity.

DreamWorks, which was once the most powerful company, gradually declined and even fell apart under the all-round suppression of the Hollywood Big Seven, especially in terms of overseas distribution, which was even more devastating.

The situation of Summit Entertainment and Lionsgate is even better. The channels for overseas distribution can be said to be basically opened up, and they have limited means over the two companies.

Moreover, as the Internet becomes more and more developed, the effect of online publicity is getting better and better, and there will not be any serious bottleneck in publicity channels.

At this time, "Interstellar" has been fully released in North America, and today is also the first day of its large-scale release.

After returning to the hotel in the afternoon, Zhang Zhao took a brief rest, but because he was still thinking about the release of "Interstellar", he couldn't help but go to a larger cinema to watch the movie in person.

He wanted to see the audience's reaction, to get a glimpse of the whole picture. The reaction of the audience in one cinema could probably show how well North American audiences would accept the film.

Zhang Zhao arrived at the cinema and took a quick look when the movie was about to start. This medium-to-large screening room with nearly 500 seats was about eight times full.

This attendance rate is considered very good, considering that this is a purely Chinese film. From the story to the main creators, it has nothing to do with the United States.

The attendance rate of the eighth floor is comparable to that of some Hollywood blockbusters. Although it is now a prime time show in the evening, it seems that the publicity of Lionsgate and Summit Entertainment is quite effective.

At the same time, listening to some of the audience's discussions, Zhang Zhao also heard that some people came for Liu Zhou, while others were curious about China's first hard-core science fiction film and wanted to see what a science fiction film made by the Chinese would look like.

Although "The Martian" was also released in North America, its box office was not very high, only over 8 million US dollars.

Therefore, this movie does not have much influence in North America, and a lot of people have not seen "The Martian". Therefore, the widely promoted "Interstellar" is also considered by many to be the first Chinese science fiction movie.

As soon as the movie started, North American audiences who walked into the cinema to watch "Interstellar" with various ideas of killing time and being curious saw the first half hour of the plot telling the daily life of the male protagonist.

Some people were a little impatient, some complained, some were silent, and some were obviously concentrating on watching the movie and staring at the big screen.

But overall, there are more people who are restless. They thought that if a Chinese science fiction movie dared to be released on a large scale in North America, it would definitely make a big splash and have more big scenes or special effects shots.

I didn't expect that nearly half an hour would be filled with daily plots, but then the movie began to enter the space stage, and everyone finally perked up and immersed themselves in the movie.

Especially when the thousand-meter-high waves appeared on the big screen, exclamatory words such as "F**K" and "Amazing" came out of the mouths of the audience one after another.

The movie was still playing, and Zhang Zhao, who was sitting in the middle back seat, finally relaxed his tense nerves a little.

He didn't relax until the movie was over and the 400 or so audience members in the theater left in groups of three or four, discussing the plot of the movie.

It seems that North American audiences are still able to watch "Interstellar", so the film's performance should be much better than "The Martian".

Zhang Zhaogang stood up after letting out a long sigh, and unexpectedly saw a familiar face among the people in the two rows in front of him.

"Mr. Yu, are you watching a movie here too?"

Yu Dong suddenly heard a sentence in Chinese and turned his head to look back. Unexpectedly, it was Zhang Zhao.

"Mr. Zhang, what a coincidence, we are watching a movie in the same cinema." Yu Dong said with a smile after being surprised.

"Yes, it is indeed a coincidence. When did Mr. Yu come to Los Angeles?" Zhang Zhao also asked with a smile.

"I came here yesterday. I happened to have nothing to do today. I didn't have time to watch Director Liu's movie in China. Now that I have time, I can come and watch it."

"It seems like we came here at the same time. I just arrived today. What do you think of this movie, Mr. Yu?"

"It must be outstanding. Before I came here, I heard that Interstellar broke the domestic first-day box office record again. Just seeing the reactions of those audiences, the box office of this movie in North America should not be bad either. I really have to admire Director Liu. And judging from the publicity campaign of the movie here, you, Golden Harvest, should be preparing to promote this movie to the world this time."

"I have this idea, but I don't know if it will succeed, haha."

Looking at Zhang Zhao's slightly confident smile, Director Yu couldn't help but sigh in his heart.

Before, Yu Dong thought that he could catch up with Golden Harvest Group after Bona went public, but after coming to the United States, he realized the influence of Golden Harvest Group in North America.

Not to mention waiting for Bona to go public, even if we wait another ten years, it may not be possible for Bona Film Group's influence to penetrate Hollywood, which is more exclusive than any other region's film market.

Moreover, the xenophobia here is not caused by policy reasons, but is caused by the fact that most audiences spontaneously dislike watching overseas films. They are already accustomed to watching Hollywood films.

Therefore, if you want to have influence in Hollywood, you can only use your money to acquire a Hollywood company like Golden Harvest and Wanda.

But the cost of doing so is getting higher and higher. There is no point in acquiring small companies. If Bona acquires companies of a certain size, the funds raised from its IPO will not be enough to invest in them.

What's more, it is impossible for Yu Dong to invest all the money as domestic development still requires a lot of funds.

Therefore, the current market value of Golden Harvest Group of nearly 100 billion yuan is not achieved casually, but their business and influence in North America are of great value.

And more importantly, Bona’s listing on Nasdaq is not going smoothly.

Things were fine during the first two rounds of financing, but the situation changed as the roadshow in North America went wrong.

Shareholders such as Sequoia Capital, Matrix Partners, and Haina Capital also began to be pessimistic about Bona's prospects for listing on the Nasdaq, and all of them wanted to sell part of their shares.

This is also the reason why Yu Dong rushed here in a hurry. In addition to appeasing those shareholders and giving them confidence, he also wanted to see if he could find new investors.

Today he personally visited the headquarters of News Corporation, one of the world's largest media groups, located in Delaware, United States.

Yu Dong has some friendship with Gao Qunyao, global vice president of News Corporation and CEO of China Strategy and Strategic Development, and wants to use him to see if News Corporation can invest in Bona Group.

But the final result was not good. After Gao Qunyao mentioned this matter to Murdoch, the other party refused without much consideration.

Although he is the vice president of News Corporation, Murdoch has the final say in the entire group. Anything he vetoes is almost a death sentence for News Corporation.

It can also be seen that Murdoch is not optimistic about Bona's listing on NASDAQ. In fact, Gao Qunyao is also not optimistic. He even can't understand why Yu Dong chose to list Bona in North America instead of choosing the mainland or Hong Kong.

Yu Dong was mentally prepared for rejection, but he was still a little frustrated when he heard the unsatisfactory result.

Now he actually felt a little regretful. He shouldn't have been blinded by the gimmick of Chinese film and television being the first stock in North America. Now it was too late even if he wanted to retreat.

There are still more than twenty days left, and Bona will be listed on the Nasdaq regardless of the situation.

Seeing Zhang Zhao smiling and talking at this time, Yu Dong couldn't help but think of Liu Zhou's advice to him, and he couldn't help but feel even more regretful.

Liu Zhou should have seen the drawbacks of Bona's listing in North America a long time ago, and told me about it. But at that time, my mind was full of the false reputation of operating Bona's listing in North America, so I couldn't listen at all.

Now, it is in a dilemma. Originally, going public should have been an opportunity for Bona to achieve a leap in development, but now, not to mention development, it may even affect the company's development.

But Yu Dong is not someone who gives up easily. Although Bona’s listing on NASDAQ is not optimistic, he still wants to try his best to see if he can attract a few influential shareholders.

After being rejected by News Corporation, he planned to ask Sequoia Capital to help him visit Disney, Viacom and Time Warner.

Zhang Zhao and Yu Dong chatted for a while and then left. Everyone had things to do and it was not the right time to reminisce.

In fact, Zhang Zhao also roughly understood why Yu Donglai came to the United States. Not only him, but most of the bosses of some domestic film and television companies knew that Bona’s roadshow in North America was not well received.

The more pretentious Yu Dong was in the past, the more happily everyone laughs at him behind his back now.

However, Zhang Zhao didn't pay much attention to it and just treated it as a topic of conversation after dinner.

He is so busy with his own company's affairs that he doesn't have the time to worry about other companies' affairs.

It was already past eleven o'clock when he returned to the hotel. Zhang Zhao waited anxiously until after twelve o'clock before he received an email from Summit Entertainment.

Zhang Zhao opened his phone with some nervousness and anticipation, his fingers pressing the screen quickly, and then his tense face suddenly broke into a smile.

"Three million and two hundred thousand! Three million US dollars in box office on the first day!"

yeah!
Zhang Zhao waved his hand heavily, without caring about his image at all.

The first-day box office of 3.2 million US dollars is a very good result for a Chinese-language film, and it can be said that it exceeded his expectations.

As long as the word of mouth doesn't collapse, the subsequent box office should not be bad.

Then Zhang Zhao scrolled down to see what the audience thought of "Interstellar".

Summit Entertainment sampled more than 100 cinemas across the United States, with more than 4000 viewers participating in the questionnaire survey. 33% of the viewers gave an A+ rating, 38% gave an A rating, and less than 10% gave a C or below rating.
Zhang Zhaokuai looked at the data one by one, including the ratings on professional websites, Rotten Tomatoes, etc. For a science fiction blockbuster, they were all above the passing line.

Even though many domestic films have a very high reputation in North America, their reputation is much better than that of "Interstellar", which is just barely passing.

For example, the original "Ip Man 2" had a very high reputation in North America among Chinese-language films, but its box office was only 22 US dollars, which is completely worth no reference.

A similar situation is also seen in Feng Kuzi's version of "Aftershock".

However, "Interstellar" was shown in mainstream theaters in the North American film market, and its screening schedule in 1800 theaters was ranked th during the same period.

There were 1800 screens for the opening, nearly 4000 screens, and more than 20 moviegoers. These statistics are of great reference value.

(End of this chapter)