Chinese Entertainment: Starting from 1996

Chapter 496 The final sprint
After arranging things, Liu Zhou found that there seemed to be nothing else he needed to do next.

With Gu Yongjiang and Yu Dong taking the lead and everyone reaching a consensus, there shouldn't be any problems. As for the follow-up, Liu Zhou will hand it over to Zhang Zhao.

On the evening of January 7, Liu Zhou and Zeng Li sat in front of the TV again, but this time they were not watching "The Legend of Zhen Huan", but were locking onto the news broadcast.

After a week of broadcasting, the plot of "The Legend of Zhen Huan" has gradually improved, and the ratings have been steadily increasing. It is not far from becoming a hit.

In the early and middle parts of the news broadcast program, as usual, major national affairs and overseas hot news were reported, and then some domestic hot news were reported.

"The science fiction blockbuster "Interstellar" directed by Liu Zhou, a well-known Chinese director, is currently being screened around the world. This movie promotes"

On the TV, the main image was a thousand-meter-high wave that flashed by, and finally a camp built by Fat Fan on a habitable planet, with a five-star red flag fluttering in the wind.

In the middle, there are three seconds of clips showing the film in cinemas in the United States, the United Kingdom, the United Kingdom, and France. It seems that the theaters were carefully selected during the prime time on Saturday night and had a high attendance rate.

Finally, the host mentioned that "Interstellar" has grossed 11.61 billion yuan so far, making it the first Chinese-language film in China to break the billion yuan box office record. It is only 13.2 million yuan away from the 1.6 billion yuan box office record set by the Hollywood movie "Avatar".

The report on "Interstellar" lasted nearly three minutes. CCTV was quite respectful.

And the last sentence can really be regarded as a support from CCTV or the higher-ups for himself. They could have chosen not to say such appealing words, but they still said it.

I believe that anyone who has watched the news broadcast tonight, and those who are more aware of the differences between China and the West, will most likely support "Interstellar" and do their part to break the box office record for Hollywood movies.

In this regard, Liu Zhou also kept this favor from CCTV in mind.

"The higher-ups really support you. This is a blatant way to boost the box office for Interstellar," Zeng Li said with a smile.

"I support it very much. Now it depends on whether Interstellar can live up to its potential."

“It should be fine. This time, the news broadcast gave it a full three minutes of coverage, which other movies don’t get.

And I found that your movies are often on the news broadcast. The Martian was on it, and now Interstellar is also on it, and the time is quite long. The next Aftershock will definitely be on it too.”

"Haha, this is the benefit of following the leadership. The country is also promoting heavy industry films. Interstellar is a perfect fit, and the box office results are so outstanding. Of course, the leadership will support it."

It is very rare to see the News Broadcast included in movies nowadays. After all, everyone knows what this program represents.

Since "Assembly" was first broadcast on the news broadcast in the original time and space, there were few movies that appeared on this program for several years, and even if they were, they would only appear for a dozen seconds at most, or even just mentioned briefly.

The only cases where a movie like "The Martian" and "Interstellar" can take up two or three minutes are the ones that are considered the only ones.

However, I don’t know if it’s because the ratings of the News Broadcast have dropped a lot since then, and the threshold for entertainment news to be included in this program has also been lowered a lot.

Later, Boss Zhao appeared on the show when he made a flop movie, Jay Chou appeared on the show when he played games, and Tan Weiwei, who was a Super Girl, even got an extra-long feature length of 3 minutes and 16 seconds.

But having said that, I was still a little excited to see my movie being broadcast on the news.

"Why do you look so calm and collected?"

"It's not the first time, and it has been decided long ago. There's nothing to be excited about." Liu Zhou replied with a smile.

"I don't know you yet, but you must be very excited right now." Zeng Li rolled her eyes at him and said.

"Hahaha…"

To be honest, I was a little excited just now, but after the excitement, I just felt that way.

What he is more concerned about now is the publicity effect of the news broadcast on the movie, whether it can push the box office of "Interstellar" forward and narrow the gap with "Avatar" as much as possible.

The next day, with the operation of Golden Harvest and China Film, and some spontaneous reports from the media, the news that "Interstellar" was featured on the News Broadcast was widely reported.

The titles vary in content, but they all end with a mention of Interstellar's box office and how the film is striving to break the domestic box office record set by Hollywood films.

Although it felt a bit bad, Liu Zhou had to take advantage of everyone's patriotic feelings this time because such propaganda would have the best effect.

Seeing this situation, some people in the circle couldn't help but admire Liu Zhou's methods.

I thought that with the current box office of "Interstellar" only being a few million per day, and it is still more than 100 million away from the box office record of "Avatar", it would be difficult to break the record.

Unexpectedly, Liu Zhou went directly through the above route, because if it was a spontaneous report by the News Broadcast, it should have been reported when the movie became a box office hit a few days after its release.

And now that the movie has been released for more than a month and the box office has completely weakened, you are only reporting it now. This is obviously helping others to reap the box office.

While they envy the support for Liu Zhou from above, they are also waiting to see how much box office "Interstellar" can earn with the promotion of the News Broadcast.

The day was Monday, January 8th, and over the past two weekends, "Interstellar" had grossed five and six million respectively.

This also pushed the total box office of "Interstellar" to 11.67 billion.

"Let the Bullets Fly" grossed nearly 1.7 million yuan in two days over the weekend, and its weekly box office reached 4.6 million yuan, with a total box office of million yuan.

"If You Are the One 2" barely earned 3.34 million in box office in two days, only half of "Let the Bullets Fly", but also increased the total box office of the film to million.

With "Interstellar" appearing on the news broadcast, and with the mediation of Golden Harvest and China Film, the theaters once again increased the film's screening schedule, reaching three floors on January 8, the same as "Let the Bullets Fly".

If the box office performance on that day is good, the theater company will continue to increase the screening schedule.

"Interstellar" did not disappoint. With the strong promotion of Golden Harvest and China Film, it still grossed 13 million on Monday, the 8th, even though it was a weekday.

The next day, the movie box office rose again, earning 15 million. The most rare thing was that the box office on that day was higher than that of "Let the Bullets Fly".

Although "Let the Bullets Fly" received rave reviews, its box office was inevitably cut in half by the third week of screening.

On the 8th, it earned 15 million, but on the 9th, it only earned 12 million, which was obviously affected by "Interstellar".

In the following three days, "Interstellar" took in 10.3 million, 9 million, and 12 million respectively.

Over the two days of the weekend, the total box office revenue was nearly 30 million.

In the seven days of this week, "Interstellar" grossed a total of 89 million.

More than a month after its release, "Interstellar" still managed to gross nearly 90 million yuan at the box office, which shocked everyone.

Neither the professional media nor the peers in the industry had expected that the publicity effect of the News Broadcast would be so good.

I thought it would be great if the box office could increase by 12.56- million, but it doubled. In this case, the total box office of Interstellar has reached billion, which is less than million away from Avatar.

It is already January 14th, and because January has the 31st, this means the movie can still be shown for seventeen days.

Seventeen days and a box office of 64 million, this is also not an easy task. It depends on whether the publicity effect of the News Broadcast can continue to be so good in the next week.

Liu Zhou and Han Shanping were also extremely happy to see the result, and Han Shanping even laughed excitedly.

"I didn't expect the publicity effect of the News Broadcast was so good. It would be great if we could go on it again." Han Shanping said with a little regret.

Liu Zhou looked at Han Shanping, who was licking his lips, and looked a bit greedy, and couldn't help but laugh:

"Boss Han, don't even think about this. CCTV is not owned by China Film Group."

"Haha, that's a bit too greedy."

“But I think that although the publicity of the news broadcast is important, our publicity is equally important. The box office of Interstellar may return to the previous level, or even be worse than before.

This week has actually overdrawn some of the box office potential, so we need to invest more in publicity to ensure that the box office does not fall too much."

Han Shanping heard Liu Zhou's words, hesitated for a while, gritted his teeth and said:

"Interstellar still has 17 days of screening time left. We'll spend another 30 million on publicity!"

"no problem!"

Including the 100 million yuan in publicity funds invested when the movie was released, plus the 10 million yuan spent last week, and finally adding these 30 million yuan, the total publicity funds for "Interstellar" have reached 140 million yuan.

This is enough to make another blockbuster movie.

But now, at this last moment, they are so close to breaking the record of "Avatar", and Liu Zhou and Han Shanping do not want to give up at all.

At this point, the 30 million yuan invested in publicity will definitely only have half the result with twice the effort.

However, there was no other choice for "Interstellar". The publicity effect of the News Broadcast was unexpectedly good, and it was already very good if the effect could be maintained for a week. In the end, it could only rely on larger-scale publicity to maintain the box office of the movie as much as possible.

At this point, both of them have put profit second, and the most important goal is to break the record.

The next propaganda can only be rigid and can no longer take advantage of everyone’s patriotic feelings.

The reason why the box office this week was so high was that, in addition to a small number of fans who really liked the movie "Interstellar" and watched it twice or three times, as well as the support of some hardcore fans of Liu Zhou, Fan Xiaopang, Liu Ye and others, most of the rest were infected by the propaganda slogan of defeating the Americans and regaining the record and went into the cinema.

Some people in the industry couldn't figure out why the box office was so high this week, but they could tell by looking at the comments from netizens on the film and television sections of Douban and Weibo.

"Support domestic films. Domestic box office records should be held by Chinese-language films."

"Among China, Japan and South Korea, only our domestic box office records are created by Hollywood movies, while the box office records in Japan and South Korea are both held by domestic films."

“The record is within reach, let’s help together.”

"Defeat the Americans. Chinese-language movies are the coolest."

“The quality of the movie Interstellar is worth it, I will support it by watching it three times!”

……

There are countless similar comments and messages, all because everyone is inspired by their patriotic sentiments.

This feeling is very precious, and it is enough for Liu Zhou to use it once.

If you continue to exploit it without restraint, you will definitely suffer backlash.

Some of his peers and competitors will certainly take action to market him and take advantage of the patriotic sentiments of mass consumption.

When Wu Jing's movie "Wolf Warrior 2" raked in billion yuan at the box office, all his colleagues' eyes were red and swollen.

It was also due to their marketing that the news that Wu Jing used the public's patriotic sentiment to reap box office revenue became rampant, which also made quite a number of people hate him and his movies.

But at that time he was just taking a new track and was very successful. The country was advocating cultural confidence at that time, so he also received recognition and support from the country.

The Chinese film industry at that time also needed such a person to hold up the banner of cultural confidence.

Those film and television companies behind the scenes are slandering others behind the scenes while also shooting those mainstream movies.

If a competitor were to slander him like this, with the current strength of Liu Zhou and Jiahe, they would definitely not be slandered as badly as Wu Jing, but he did not want to bear such a stigma at all.

So instead of being annoying, it’s better to spend more money to promote in the traditional way.

On January 15, the box office of "Interstellar" returned to its previous level as Liu Zhou had expected, and only earned five million that day.

If the publicity efforts had not been intensified, the box office might have been even lower.

Seeing this, Liu Zhou and Han Shanping couldn't help but look a little heavy, without any of the joy they had yesterday.

Even if he could earn 5 million every day in the future, that would only be 65 million in 17 days, which might just break the record of "Avatar".

However, the box office revenue will definitely not be able to maintain 5 million per day. It is inevitable that it will drop, and the box office revenue on the second day may even be less than 5 million.

So in order to get enough box office, the two finally had to talk to the theaters and add some screenings.

But obviously this is not so easy to do. After all, they did this once when "Interstellar" was first released.

But even if it is not easy, they have to try. Now the screenings of "Let the Bullets Fly" and "If You Are the One 2" are coming to an end, so the impact is relatively small.

While Han Shanping and Liu Zhou were going to communicate with the theater chain, "Interstellar" was still being shown.

From January 15th to January 21st, the movie earned a total of 29 million in box office revenue in just one week, with an average daily box office of only 4 million. It may be even lower in the future.

At this time, the total box office of the movie reached 12.84 billion, and the screening time was only ten days.

(End of this chapter)