Chinese Entertainment: Starting from 1996

Chapter 497 surpasses "Avatar" and tops the list of film history
On January 22, when "The Legend of Zhen Huan" began to become popular, the box office of "Interstellar" was already very close to the box office record set by "Avatar".

The popularity of "The Legend of Zhen Huan" on the Internet is extremely high, but almost everyone in the film and television industry is paying close attention to "Interstellar".

"Interstellar" still has ten days left in its release, and its box office has already reached 12.84 billion, only million away from the record of "Avatar".

When "Interstellar" was first released, 36 million was less than its box office revenue in half a day. But for "Interstellar", which has been released for more than a month now, it seems extremely difficult to get a box office revenue of 36 million in ten days.

After the movie was featured on the Xinhua News, the box office rebounded for a while, but last week, it began to weaken again. Even with a large amount of publicity funds invested, there was not much change.

In the new week, if no measures are taken, the daily box office of "Interstellar" will continue to decline, and it will not be able to get 36 million in ten days, and the purpose of breaking the box office record will ultimately fail.

But if "Interstellar" can really break the record created by "Avatar" which was thought to be unbreakable within ten years, then both Liu Zhou and the movie "Interstellar" will go down in film history.

Some colleagues may feel jealous and wish Liu Zhou to fail, but the Film Bureau and even higher-ups as well as most people working in the industry still hope that Liu Zhou can succeed.

Therefore, when Liu Zhou and Han Shanping lobbied the theater chain to increase the screening of "Interstellar", the higher-ups remained silent. Even when someone protested against it, they did not say a word.

Apparently, the higher-ups are also prepared to give Interstellar one last push. After all, it’s already very close to the record. If the box office gap is still large, they might not help.

Seeing this, some people were jealous but they said nothing and could only remain silent.

Without the interference of other factors, relying on the powerful influence of Liu Zhou and Han Shanping, the theater chain company once again agreed to cooperate.

However, it is impossible to schedule eight or nine levels of screening for "Interstellar" as we did at the beginning. After all, "Let the Bullets Fly" and "If You Are the One 2" still have considerable box office potential.

If the theater chain dares to do this, it will definitely cause strong backlash from the production companies behind the two films.

In order to avoid complications, the cinema chain maintained a certain number of screenings for the two films and freed up nearly five floors of screenings for "Interstellar".

Among them, the theater chains that China Film Group Corporation has full control over and Golden Harvest Theater Chain can make their own decisions. They scheduled "Interstellar" on as many as nine floors, leaving only midnight and morning slots for other movies.

Although doing this might make people hate them, neither of them can care too much about it now.

To this end, Liu Zhou and Han Shanping discussed and decided to invest another 10 million yuan in publicity funds.

There are more than 20 million left of the previous investment of 30 million, so there will be a publicity budget of 30 million in the next ten days.

With five levels of screenings and a huge amount of publicity, on January 22, "Interstellar" once again reversed its box office decline, reaching six million from less than two million the day before.

Obviously, the box office potential of "Interstellar" has been almost exhausted. Even with such a high screening schedule and huge investment in publicity, the box office only increased by more than 4 million.

Not to mention the previous performance, even compared to the performance of "Interstellar" after it appeared on the News Broadcast two weeks ago, the movie's single-day box office was at least over 10 million.

However, Liu Zhou was actually very satisfied with the box office revenue of 6 million, after all, it was only 36 million away from the record.

As long as we can maintain this single-day box office level, the record will be broken in about a week.

At this time, not only the media but also many netizens noticed the abnormal performance of "Interstellar" at the box office, and soon realized that it was impacting the box office record of "Avatar".

Most of them may not be able to contribute to the box office of "Interstellar", but they still very much hope that it will be successful.

So they put all their enthusiasm on the Internet, not only stirring up the popularity of the movie again, but also happily calculating the gap between the movie and the box office record.

"With 12.9 million at the box office yesterday, the total box office of Interstellar has reached billion. Now we are only million short."

"That's awesome! I see that the cinemas are scheduling more screenings for Interstellar now than before. It seems that Liu Zhou is making great efforts."

"It's just a difference of 30 million yuan in box office revenue. Liu Zhou will definitely give it a try no matter what."

"Liu Zhou won't buy the box office, right? I heard that many film and television companies do this."

"It's unlikely. In this area, Golden Harvest's reputation is still guaranteed. I've never heard of Golden Harvest buying box office tickets."

"That's right. As the industry leader, Golden Harvest must have a lot of people watching. If they really did that, it would have been exposed long ago. But until now, there has been no news about Golden Harvest buying box office tickets."

"Interstellar has such a high screening schedule today, and the promotion is also quite strong. Even though the movie has been released for more than a month, it should be reasonable to get 6 million in box office in a single day. There is no need to buy box office at all."

"I have watched it three times. If I had enough money, I would definitely go and support it again. Not only is Interstellar a movie of outstanding quality, but it is also a shame that the Chinese box office record has been broken by the same person for consecutive years."

"What you said is absolutely right. I am a student and I squeezed out my living expenses to watch Interstellar twice. I think I am doing my bit to help."

"For college students, there's no need to worry. Just do your best. Although the record represents something, it's just a movie box office record. There's no need to take it too seriously."

"That may be true for you, but for the older fans it may be a very significant thing."

……

Liu Zhou no longer cares about the support for the movie online, nor does he care about the huge hit of "The Legend of Zhen Huan".

"Interstellar" is currently his top concern, and this is his last moment, and he doesn't want any accidents to happen.

On January 23, "Interstellar" earned 5 million at the box office. Although it was a decrease compared to the previous day, this result also made Liu Zhou and Han Shanping satisfied.

On January 24th, he again won 4.5 million, on the 25th he won 4 million, and on the 26th he also won 4 million.

It earned a total of 13.07 million in four days, pushing the film's total box office to billion, only million away from the record of "Avatar".

As "Interstellar" gets closer and closer to the record of "Avatar", the media and netizens are paying more and more attention to it, making this matter more and more popular.

January 27th happened to be a Saturday, and perhaps because the record was so close, it caused a complete backlash from a portion of the audience, and more people spontaneously went to support "Interstellar".

So on this day, Interstellar grossed 8 million at the box office, leaving it only 5 million away from the record. Now everyone knows that Interstellar will have no problem breaking the record of Avatar, either tomorrow or the day after tomorrow.

This made everyone in the circle amazed.

When "Titanic" grossed more than 300 million yuan at the box office, many domestic filmmakers despaired, thinking that this was a record that was impossible to break.

But ten years later, Zhang Yimou and Liu Zhou jointly brought "Red Cliff" which brought China's box office record back to the hands of domestic films.

A year ago, James Cameron's "Avatar" raked in 13.2 billion yuan at the box office, bringing the Chinese film market into the billion level.

The sense of powerlessness brought to the Chinese-language film industry this time is even greater than that of "Titanic" last time, so many media have said that this box office record is unlikely to be broken in the next ten years.

But no one expected that breaking the box office record of "Avatar" would not take ten years like "Titanic" did. Instead, a Chinese-language film would break its record in just one year.

At 6:42 p.m. on January 28, "Interstellar" earned 5 million at the box office that day, officially tying the box office record of "Avatar."

To commemorate this great day, Golden Harvest and China Film Group tracked the box office of "Interstellar" in real time, so the time can be accurate to the minute.

At seven o'clock in the evening, Golden Harvest and China Film announced the news on their official websites and official Weibo accounts, which immediately caused a huge sensation.

Many netizens also lined up to leave messages on these two official Weibo accounts, all of which were congratulations.

Only at this point did Liu Zhou and Han Shanping finally breathe a sigh of relief.

For this moment, the two of them can be said to have done everything they could and also invested a considerable price.

Not to mention the more than 100 million yuan in real money invested in publicity and promotion, but also the fact that the cinema chain twice gave Interstellar high screening schedules.

Although the cinema chains are profitable, no matter what, they are helping out out of kindness, and the two of them owe those cinema chains a favor.

Of course, there are some operations that violate the rules. It is easy to deal with the above, but some colleagues also need to be appeased.

But now it's all worth it. Compared with the honor and benefits brought by breaking the box office record of "Avatar", these investments are not only insignificant, but also extremely worthwhile.

Finally, on the 29th day, "Interstellar" earned 7 million at the box office, and its total box office exceeded "Avatar" by 2 million.

The next day, major domestic media also widely reported the sensational news that "Interstellar" broke the box office record of "Avatar".

"Surpassing "Avatar", "Interstellar" tops the domestic film market's box office history!"

"In just one year, not ten years, the sci-fi blockbuster directed by Liu Zhou broke the box office record set by Avatar."

"13.22 billion! A new box office champion in film history is born. Liu Zhou has set a new box office record and is vying to become the top director in China!"

"Interstellar dominates the Lunar New Year and surpasses Avatar in a historic way!"

"Nine years ago, the box office of Hero exceeded 100 million yuan, ushering in the era of blockbuster movies in the domestic film market and giving birth to a special term, the 100 million yuan club.

Ten years later, Interstellar surpassed Avatar's 13.2 billion box office record and became the first domestic movie to break the billion box office. It also heralds the arrival of the era of super blockbusters in the domestic film market, and Liu Zhou has become the only candidate for the domestic billion club! "

"He is undoubtedly the best commercial director in China. Even now when discussing the best director in China and the best director in the Chinese film industry, Liu Zhou's voice is getting louder and louder!"

"At the end of January 2011, Interstellar set a new box office record in Chinese film history with a box office of 13.22 billion yuan.

Combined with the 6.27 million yuan earned by "Let the Bullets Fly", the 2 million yuan earned by "If You Are the One 3.85" and the 24 million yuan earned by "The Orphan of Zhao", this year's Lunar New Year box office contributed a total of billion yuan.

Among them, Interstellar accounted for 2010% of the total box office of this year's Lunar New Year holiday, becoming the biggest winner of the Lunar New Year holiday, gaining both fame and fortune. "

……

The box office record in the history of the domestic film market has surpassed "Avatar", the blockbuster that swept the world, and the media could not help but be excited.

This is exciting in itself, and since it is an achievement achieved by Liu Zhou, the traffic center, it is not just being reported by entertainment media, but also by other mainstream media and even professional media in the financial and Internet industries.

Even the next day, CCTV's Morning News reported the news.

On this day, the news about "Interstellar" rarely surpassed that of "The Legend of Zhen Huan". You should know that at that time, "The Legend of Zhen Huan" had completely gone viral and was being discussed by the whole nation. It is conceivable how sensational it was for "Interstellar" to create a new domestic box office record.

The two most sensational and popular hot spots in early 2011 were both created by Golden Harvest. Golden Harvest's success in both movies and TV series has made it the most popular star at the moment.

In addition to the heated discussion about the record-breaking movie, a new topic that emerged from it also caused endless debate among many netizens.

So, has Liu Zhou surpassed Zhang Yimou to become the country's number one director?
If we go by box office, then Liu Zhou is definitely the winner now. From the over 700 million yuan for "The Martian" to the over 1.3 billion yuan for the current "Interstellar", he is the undisputed box office king in China.

In the eyes of the younger generation of movie fans, Liu Zhou has long been the country's number one director.

But Zhang Yimou has been in this position for ten years, and there are still many people supporting him.

Moreover, Zhang Yimou’s current performance and reputation are much better than in the original time and space.

The first one is that Zhang Yimou directed "Red Cliff" and broke the box office record of "Titanic", but he did not shoot the extremely bad-received "The Monkey King 2".

Not to mention the great reputation he gained as the chief director of the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games. He is not called the national master for nothing.

The media also have different opinions, hyping up this topic crazily and leading fans to argue endlessly, and the situation is even getting more intense.

(End of this chapter)