Chinese Entertainment: Starting from 1996

Chapter 558: The Box Office Blast of Transformers

Just as all kinds of entertainment news were making a lot of noise in the country, as time came to the morning of July 16, all the noise disappeared.

On July 3th, "Transformers " landed in the domestic film market with the same sound of "da da da, bang bang bang, boom bang boom" as the previous two films.

With the failure of "Wu Xia" and the lack of other Hollywood blockbusters, "Transformers 3" is undoubtedly the most anticipated movie in the summer season in mid-to-late July, no doubt about it.

With the huge success of the first two films, everyone knew that "Transformers 3" would be a box office hit, but no one expected it to be so huge.

On the first day of its release, it grossed 1.05 million yuan at the box office, becoming the second film in domestic film history to gross over million yuan in a single day.

The previous one was "Interstellar" directed by Liu Zhou and released during the Lunar New Year holiday last year.

The first-day box office of 1.05 million yuan not only set a new record for the first-day box office of a movie, but also set the highest record for the highest single-day box office of a movie.

"Interstellar" originally broke the 1.02 million yuan single-day box office record on its third day of release, when the screening schedule was nearly %. It was the only day that it achieved the million yuan mark, and that was only million yuan.

Therefore, the first-day box office of "Transformers 3" was 1.05, which broke two records at the same time, both of which were held by "Interstellar".

The previous first-day box office record was Interstellar's $87 million.

This is fortunately due to the presence of "Interstellar". At that time and time, the first-day box office record in China was still more than 30 million for "Let the Bullets Fly", and the single-day box office record was only 48 million for "Avatar".

"Transformers 3" more than doubled these two records. The most important thing is that there was no movie with a single-day box office of over million at that time.

So when the first-day box office of "Transformers 3" reached 1.05 million, all the filmmakers in the industry were speechless and couldn't say a word.

Although the domestic movie box office exceeding 100 million yuan at this time is not a huge achievement, it is also considered excellent.

In fact, even if the total box office of the movie exceeds 100 million ten years later, you can’t say that the result is too bad.

Therefore, the single-day box office of "Transformers 3" exceeded million yuan, which had a huge impact on domestic filmmakers at the time.

This is not just an increase from 40 million to 50, 60 or 70 million, but a direct push of the record to 100 million RMB, which makes people sigh and feel discouraged. They have no desire to catch up, and only a deep sense of powerlessness.

Although there are two films in this life, Liu Zhou's "The Martian" and "Interstellar", which have generally improved the records of domestic films by a large margin.

But the performance of "Transformers 3" also left everyone speechless.

After all, the only two movies by Liu Zhou that can compete with Hollywood blockbusters are these two movies. Apart from Liu Zhou, no one else, even Zhang Yimou, can compete with Hollywood blockbusters.

What most people in the industry know is that last year's Lunar New Year holiday, "Interstellar" was able to achieve a single-day box office of over 100 million yuan, which was achieved by Liu Zhou and Han Shanping trying their best and even using some means outside the rules to increase the film's screening rate to 90%.

As of now, the screening schedule for "Transformers 3" is only %, so it can be said that its box office potential will be even more fierce.

Although there are more screens in China now, it has only been half a year since last year's Lunar New Year holiday, and the increase in the number of screens will not exceed two thousand.

According to data released by relevant agencies of the Film Bureau at the beginning of this year, as of the end of 2010, the number of screens in China was just over .

If Liu Zhou remembers correctly, in the past two years and the next few years, the number of domestic screens has been growing at a rate of about 30% per year.

Although we don’t know the specific data yet, it will not exceed 1.2 yuan.

Therefore, the number of screens did not increase much, but "Transformers 3" achieved a higher single-day box office than "Interstellar" despite having nearly % fewer screenings than it.

Therefore, the box office impact of "Transformers 3" will not be lower than that of "Avatar".

In everyone's opinion, it is a foregone conclusion that the movie will gross over 10 million yuan on the first day and over billion yuan in total. It is also very likely to surpass "Avatar" or even break the box office record set by "Interstellar".

Such a high first-day box office overshadowed all the recent voices in the entertainment industry.

After the silence, there was a lot of hype from the media. Almost all media were praising this movie, even more than "Avatar" and "Interstellar".

However, on the following Friday, the box office fell to 9500 million, failing to achieve the feat of breaking million for two consecutive days.

The box office reached 200 million in two days, which is also amazing.

However, the box office hit a new high on Saturday, reaching a staggering 1.15 million, once again breaking the single-day box office record of the mainland film market.

With this number reached, it would be very difficult to increase the box office by another 5 million, let alone 10 million.

On Sunday, the movie box office fell back, but it was still as high as 1.08 million. After four days of release, the total box office of "Transformers 3" reached 4.23 million!
The 4.23 million in four days undoubtedly broke the first-week box office record of 2.53 million set by "Interstellar".

This result is even more impressive than that of "Interstellar". Although "Interstellar" was only released for three days in its first week, the average daily box office was only more than 80 million.

The average daily box office of "Transformers 3" exceeded million yuan in the first four days.

Such fierce performance has almost dominated the domestic entertainment media.

The overwhelming coverage was so overwhelming that even Liu Zhou, who was promoting "Aftershock", could not ignore it. Due to its high popularity, it even affected the promotional effect of "Aftershock" to a certain extent.

Liu Zhou, who had just finished recording CCTV's "Art Life", returned home and browsed the news and data.

With 1 screens, the single-day box office reached 1.15 million yuan, which has basically reached the upper limit of the current domestic film market. Unless another hit movie is released, the single-day market may increase significantly.

Before there was "Avatar", and now there is "Transformers 3". If domestic films did not have the fig leaf of "Interstellar", they would really be bullied by Hollywood blockbusters.

But there is only one "Interstellar". Apart from this movie, other domestic films are generally inferior to Hollywood blockbusters.

In fact, historically, before Stephen Chow's "The Mermaid" in 2015, there were also some domestic films such as "Lost in Thailand" and "Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons" that had box office revenues of over 1 billion and had a relatively large influence.

But overall, Hollywood blockbusters are more popular, and only domestic films of relatively good quality can barely compete with them.

In the original time and space, after "Transformers 2013", the next movie to break the 1.16 million yuan in a single day was not until , two years later, with "Iron Man ", which raked in million yuan on the first day.

Then there are the four movies in 14: "Tiny Times 3", "Lost in Thailand", "Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons", and "Transformers 4".

The highest was "Transformers 1.92", which took in 2013 million yuan on the first day, also sweeping everything and reaching the limit of the domestic film market. But you have to know that by , the number of screens in China was , which is % more than the current .

The first-day box office of "Iron Man 3" was only a little more than 11 million.

You can imagine how fierce the "Transformers" series is in the country.

Especially in 2014, when there were nearly screens in China, "Transformers " was still able to maximize its box office potential.

Compared with domestic films of the same period, the best performing one was "Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons", which only grossed 1.28 million yuan, a clear gap.

Thinking of this, Liu Zhou couldn't help but sigh in his heart.

Although Liu Zhou exists in this life, the butterfly effect he caused did not change many things, although the film market is slightly larger than that of the original time and space.

However, the overall quality of domestic films is not much better, and they are still supported by a few well-known directors. Instead, they feel like they are just preparing wedding dresses for Hollywood blockbusters.

Their box office were slightly higher. The performance of Transformers 3 did not change much, but it has almost realized its box office potential to the maximum extent and has almost reached the upper limit of the current domestic film market.

There is not much that can be done about this. After all, the commercialization time of domestic films is too short. If we count from the film "Hero", it has only been nine years.

Even if we count from Feng Kuazi's "Party A and Party B" in 97, it has only been fourteen years.

In just fourteen years, many filmmakers have not been able to change their thinking so quickly.

On the contrary, the domestic film market has grown too fast, resulting in more non-professionals flocking to the film and television industry to make a living, causing more bad films to flood the market.

So after the masks, the domestic film market has stabilized, and the audiences have had enough of bad movies and are starting to become calmer about watching them, which means it has returned to normal levels.

It is difficult for bad movies to get high box office at this time. The bosses of various film and television companies have been shouting that it is a cold winter for the movie industry, but in fact, the audience is not so easy to fool.

If you want to get audiences to spend money again, you have to be able to bring good movies.

As long as your film is good enough, you don't need to keep promoting it, the audience will go back to watch it spontaneously. "Nezha 2" is the best example.

"Nezha 2" is full of sincerity and excellent quality, and the audience may really send it to the box office of 10 billion yuan.

This record will shock the world film industry.

However, what made Liu Zhou slightly happy was that there was some adaptation at least. At least the science fiction film was developed in advance.

The time is still short now. In two or three years, not only Golden Harvest Group, but other film and television companies will also release their own science fiction movies.

By then, even if a big bad movie comes out, the door to science fiction movies will not be closed so easily.

At this time, the screening schedule for "Transformers 3" is still as high as 70%. Except for a few, there is almost no room for other movies to survive.

The film company's publicity was actually quite impressive. Whether in North America or in mainland China, two or three months before the film was released, they had been promoting this as the last film directed by Michael Bay and that he did not plan to participate in the subsequent sequels.

There is no doubt that Michael Bay is indeed very important to the "Transformers" series and has a great influence among the wireworkers.

This is the last film of Demolition Master, which is almost a swan song, so of course fans must support it.

It's just that today's audiences are so easily fooled. In the film and television industry, when someone says it's the last film or the last time, it's almost always fake. It's either for publicity or to divert attention.

When "Transformers 4" was being prepared, Paramount looked around but couldn't find a suitable director, so they invited Michael Bay again, and he immediately agreed.

Then when the movie was released, he told the media that it was the last Transformers movie he would direct.

When the fifth film started, Michael Bay returned.

In this way, each one is the last one and the swan song.

Later, the audience also understood his routine. Some netizens summarized that during the promotion of the "Transformers" series of movies, the most common thing he said was "I will never shoot "Transformers" again until this one is finished."

While "Transformers 3" was wreaking havoc in China, an article on Sina.com titled "Who can stop Hollywood blockbusters? Liu Zhou!" caused quite a stir.

In the article of thousands of words, after praising "Transformers 3", it also cited specific data to analyze the current situation and past performance of the domestic film market.

Finally, we come to the conclusion that only Liu Zhou can compete with Hollywood blockbusters.

In fact, this is also the general voice of everyone. After all, there was the example of "Interstellar" before, and it just so happened that a blockbuster movie "Aftershock" directed by Liu Zhou was released soon after.

"Transformers 3" set a series of domestic box office records within a week of its release, and also brought silence to the domestic film industry. It is impossible to say that everyone was not upset at that time.

If Liu Zhou was not there, they would have no choice but to endure it, but with Liu Zhou in the front, everyone certainly hoped that he could once again make a Hollywood blockbuster.

In fact, some media have compared him with Liu Zhou before. After all, Liu Zhou is the only one who has succeeded in China.

As for why such news had little influence before and only caused heated discussion now, it was of course the work of Golden Harvest, and Liu Zhou agreed to such publicity.

Firstly, it happened to be the right time, so Liu Zhou certainly couldn't be timid, as he now holds the box office record in domestic film history.

Moreover, the domestic film industry is now somewhat silent due to the impact of "Transformers 3". As a representative figure of the Chinese film industry, it is his responsibility to instill confidence in everyone.

It's just a direct competition with "Transformers 3", so "Aftershock" may not be afraid of it.

Others may not know that Liu Zhou is very clear about this. Although "Transformers 3" is very powerful, the box office of popcorn movies like this is concentrated in the early stage, and will plummet starting from the third week.

Although the box office of this movie has exceeded 1 billion in history, it has not broken the box office record of "Avatar".

Liu Zhou is confident in the quality of "Aftershock", and coupled with his experience from "Interstellar", it should not be a problem for his film to break 1 billion at the box office.

(End of this chapter)