Chinese Entertainment: Starting from 1996

Chapter 484: Chinese-language movies with box office revenue exceeding billion
The first-day box office of 13 million is not as good as "Interstellar", let alone Chen Shiren's previous "The Promise" and "Mei Lanfang".

Nowadays, if a blockbuster movie’s box office on the first day is less than 20 or 30 million, it would be embarrassing to call it a blockbuster.

Not to mention the top directors such as Liu Zhou, Zhang Yimou, Xu Ke and Feng Kuzi, even the films directed by Ning Hao, Chen Kexin and others had box office of 20 to 30 million on the first day.

Even Teng Huatao's first movie after transitioning from making TV series was a huge hit at the box office.

Poet Chen felt that he could not understand the domestic film market. He found that he could not understand this era, nor did he understand the current audience, and what kind of movies they wanted to watch.

For the first time, he fell into deep doubt about himself, because he didn't even pay attention to the box office of "Interstellar" yesterday, nor did he pay attention to the coming storm.

The first-day performance of "The Orphan of Zhao" was even worse than that of "Mei Lanfang". And you have to know that "Mei Lanfang" is a biographical film, and its audience is completely different from the former.

The reputation of "Mei Lanfang" is quite good, and it also saved a lot of impression points for poet Chen. In the end, the box office revenue exceeded 100 million yuan.

Although poet Chen did not go to see the reputation of "The Orphan of Zhao", the first day's box office can tell the story. The reputation is definitely not very good.

At the beginning, the only movie competing with "Mei Lanfang" at the same time was "Ip Man", but now "The Orphan of Zhao" has to face competition from three blockbusters: "Interstellar", "If You Are the One 2" and "Let the Bullets Fly".

Therefore, the box office of "The Orphan of Zhao" this time is likely to be lower than that of "Mei Lanfang", and it may even be difficult to break 100 million.

If things go wrong, he may become the biggest loser in this year's Lunar New Year box office!

Early the next morning, just as poet Chen had expected, various media reported on the box office comparison between "Interstellar" and "The Orphan of Zhao", and almost all of them were aimed at poet Chen.

"The Orphan of Zhao had a bad start, with only 1300 million yuan in box office on the first day, and Douban's ratings kept dropping."

"Interstellar's box office rebounded half a month after its release, earning another 32 million on Saturday, nearly three times the box office of The Orphan of Zhao."

"'The Orphan of Zhao' poses no threat at all, 'Interstellar' continues to lead the December film market and is rampaging through the Lunar New Year box office!"

"Poet Chen may once again fall from grace. The single-day revenue of 1300 million is still less than that of "Mei Lanfang" two years ago!"

"The final box office of The Orphan of Zhao may not reach 100 million yuan, and Chen Shiren's reputation as a great director is not worthy of his reputation."

……

Some media that have a good relationship with poet Chen or have cooperated with Shanghai Film Group may be more restrained in their reports and not use such sharp tones.

But other media didn't care about that and started to satirize and criticize directly.

Thirty-two million versus thirteen million. The other film has been released for half a month, while yours was a box office failure on its first day.

They certainly know that it would be difficult for "The Orphan of Zhao" to suppress "Interstellar", but at least they have to be on par with each other, so that there is something to write about in the news.

However, this result is not bad for the media, maybe even better, as the audience may prefer to read news that brings down a great director from his pedestal.

Therefore, many media outlets have directed their attacks at poet Chen and his "The Orphan of Zhao".

As highly as they praised "The Orphan of Zhao" before it was released, they are now criticizing poet Chen as harshly.

Even some online self-media have begun to belittle poet Chen in order to gain fans and increase his fame.

They didn't dare to do this before, but ever since The Promise, it's well known that poet Chen has a very narrow temper. If you don't belittle him online, even if you satirize or criticize him, he might get serious with you.

The current self-media has only recently emerged and is not as unscrupulous and arbitrarily editing news as in later generations, so people are still somewhat awed by lawyers' letters.

But now it is obvious that facing this huge amount of traffic, they can no longer hold back, even poet Chen followed suit.

As for the failure of "The Orphan of Zhao", although other producers were a little surprised, they were not too upset. There was no need to think about the grief of the rabbit's death, and they were lucky enough that they did not add insult to injury.

On the contrary, I am more shocked that the box office of "Interstellar" can still increase, and because the filming volume has been reduced, the attendance rate has increased instead.

The most anxious among them are the Wang brothers of Huayi, because "If You Are the One 2" will be officially released on the th.

If the box office of "Interstellar" is as strong as that of "Avatar", and when "If You Are the One 2" is released, it can still make more than million yuan in a week, the impact will be huge.

I thought that after giving Interstellar half a month, the movie’s box office wouldn’t have much explosive power, and its next competitor would probably be Chen Shiren’s The Orphan of Zhao.

But now it seems that "The Orphan of Zhao" has flopped, while the box office of "Interstellar" is still so strong.

At this time, "If You Are the One 2" has also entered its final promotion period. In order to minimize the impact of "Interstellar" on the box office, Huayi has also increased the scale and intensity of the film's promotion.

They even hired internet trolls, and continued to do the damage even though they knew the results would be minimal.

"If You Are the One 2" earned to million yuan just from advertising placements. The film has already recovered its costs long ago, making money almost without doing anything. Wang Zhongjun is not afraid of spending money, as he can make back all the money he spends.

What he cares most about now is the box office of the movie. Huayi is also a listed company, and it also needs high-grossing movies to drive up the stock price. This is where the big money is made.

On Sunday, December 16, "Interstellar" earned another 34 million at the box office, while "The Orphan of Zhao" was indeed affected by public opinion. The box office on the second day of its release was only 10.3 million, almost falling below 10 million.

Combined with the 1.2 million yuan it earned in five working days, "Interstellar" earned a total of 1.8 million yuan in box office revenue in its third week.

At this point, "Interstellar" is no longer limited to being released in China and North America. Lionsgate and Golden Harvest Group have already distributed it to Asia, Europe and Australia.

This week, the film grossed $18 million in North America, which was lower than the previous week.

This is normal. After all, "Interstellar" is still a Chinese-language movie. It is considered good that the box office only dropped after three weeks of large-scale release, and the drop was not much.

At the same time, this also shows that it is almost impossible for "Interstellar" to break the North American box office record of Chinese-language films held by "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", and even the box office revenue of over 100 million is unlikely.

"Interstellar" earned $1210 million in its first three days, $2160 million in its second week, and $1800 million in its third week. It was released in North America for a total of sixteen days and earned nearly $ million.

It may be difficult for the film to break 100 million US dollars at the box office, but it is obviously more than the 60 million US dollars previously predicted by professional organizations.

After this result came out, those agencies have raised the film's final box office estimate to 80 million US dollars.

But no matter how much, "Interstellar" will become the second highest-grossing Chinese-language film in North America, surpassing "Hero" for sure.

This week, in addition to 1.8 million RMB (equivalent to million US dollars) in the mainland and million US dollars in North America, the total is million US dollars.

Then $250 million per copy.

South Korea: $150 million. United Kingdom: $190 million.

Lion City US$160 million.

Polar bear: $130 million.

France: US$110 million.

Australia $70.

Mexico $60.

Hong Kong and Taiwan cost US$1.2 million.

Malaysia, India, Indonesia, Thailand and other Southeast Asian countries add up to 130 million US dollars.

The rest of Europe adds up to $160 million.

In the end, the film grossed a total of 30 million U.S. dollars in box office revenue in more than 5430 countries and regions around the world this week!

Although the film was screened in more countries and regions this week, the weekly box office decreased by nearly 30 million US dollars. Obviously, while the North American box office did not decrease too much, the biggest impact was on the mainland box office.

The most important film market for "Interstellar" is still the mainland.

The weekly box office of 5430 million US dollars also missed the global weekly box office champion that week, which is a pity that it did not achieve three consecutive championships.

Because this week not only did "Harry Potter 7" also begin its large-scale release overseas, the little wizard is a top star in the world. In history, this movie has grossed nearly $ billion worldwide.

Therefore, "Harry Potter 7" set off a viewing craze overseas. Although the North American weekly box office was less than 1.08 million US dollars, it earned 1.28 million US dollars overseas and won the global weekly box office championship with a weekly box office of million US dollars.

The second place is not "Interstellar", but another Hollywood blockbuster "Tron".

This Hollywood blockbuster hit theaters in North America this week and grossed $6000 million in the first three days. Combined with the box office revenue from some overseas territories currently in theaters, the first week totaled $ million.

However, "Interstellar" was released for three weeks, which is only seventeen days strictly speaking. The total box office in mainland China was 9.48 million yuan, which is 1.82 million short of breaking billion yuan. The North American box office was million US dollars, and the global total box office was as high as million US dollars.

Due to the large-scale publicity of "The Orphan of Zhao" and "If You Are the One 2", the popularity of "Interstellar" inevitably decreased.

However, once this result came out, the popularity of "Interstellar" rose again, which made the Wang brothers depressed and helpless.

The main reason is that the hype about "Interstellar" box office breaking 1 billion is too strong.

This is the first Chinese-language film in China to have a box office revenue of over ten digits, which is very memorable.

And at the current situation, the box office of "Interstellar" is about to break the 1 billion mark in less than three weeks after its release, and the movie still has more than a month to go.

Although there are two blockbusters "If You Are the One 2" and "Let the Bullets Fly" about to be released, more and more media and audiences feel that they can break the billion box office record of "Avatar".

Everyone thought that the box office record of "Avatar" would remain in the mainland film industry for many years, but no one expected that a Chinese-language film would break this record in just one year.

So everyone can't help but pay more attention to "Interstellar".

At this point, Golden Harvest and China Film Group no longer needed to do any publicity; the crazy media and movie fans all spontaneously promoted the film.

While the media was reporting extensively and netizens were discussing the film enthusiastically, Liu Zhou also returned to Beijing with the film's creative team.

For a full seventeen days, everyone kept running non-stop, from one city to another.

Even though there were constant good results to stimulate everyone, after working non-stop for so long, everyone was inevitably exhausted.

This was also the first time in China that there was such a crazy roadshow. In the first seven days, Liu Zhou led people to run together. In the next ten days, he led a group, and Liu Ye and Fan Xiaopang led a group to run separately.

Therefore, the fact that "Interstellar" was able to achieve such a high box office is also closely related to the crazy roadshows by Liu Zhou and others.

Generally, wherever they go on a roadshow, the box office in that city will see a significant increase.

With such a high box office, "Interstellar" will definitely be carefully studied by peers and even some professional media. Liu Zhou's crazy roadshow has also long been noticed by some interested people.

In fact, Liu Zhou could also guess that after he did this, future crews would definitely follow suit and the roadshow would be completely rolled out.

But he no longer cared about it, nor did he have the energy to care. It had been a long time since he had run around like this, and Liu Zhou was a little overwhelmed. What he wanted to do most now was to rest.

Time gradually came to December 2th. At o'clock in the evening, "If You Are the One " held its premiere ceremony at Wanda International Cinema in Beijing.

The movie opens with a divorce farce. Sun Honglei and Yao Chen hold a divorce wedding, with Ge You acting as the master of ceremonies.

"Today we are here to witness our mutual good friends, Mango and Xiangshan, ending their 5-year marriage and going from husband and wife to acquaintances again. Please swear to Qian that the following commitments you make are honest, trustworthy, well-thought-out and unswerving."

A funny line instantly piqued the audience's interest.

Holding a farewell party for a living person and the lines in the show seriously satirized the TV dating show "If You Are the One".

Feng Kuzi's acting skills are still as good as they were in the past. He handles the plot very well and knows how to make the audience laugh.

Perhaps the only flaw is that for a comedy like this, which was released during the Lunar New Year holiday, the film does make a fuss about death and has long conversations about life insights, which is somewhat inappropriate.

The second half of the movie almost becomes Sun Honglei's personal performance, with too much narration, just like "Under the Hawthorn Tree" which relied on subtitles in the original time and space, but the excessive narration was not handled well.

But overall, "If You Are the One 2" is still an excellent comedy movie. Coupled with Feng Kuzi's appeal and the reputation of the previous work, the box office of this movie will definitely not be too bad.

After the premiere, the media arranged by Huayi immediately started a new round of publicity, and "If You Are the One 2" was officially released at midnight on the th.

On the first day of its release, it grossed 34 million at the box office, and also ended Interstellar's 18-day streak as the single-day box office champion.

The first-day box office of 34 million is undoubtedly very good, and this is a figure achieved under the pressure of two blockbusters.

The Wang brothers and Feng Kuzi were also quite satisfied with this result.

But the news that came afterwards made them unhappy.

(End of this chapter)