Chinese Entertainment: Starting from 1996

Chapter 573: Movies are released overseas
On Thursday, August 3, Aftershock premiered at the Billy Wilder Theater in Los Angeles.

Originally, Liu Zhou was also required to go along to attend the North American premiere of the film, but he was in a heated argument with a group of film critics at the time, so he couldn't leave without permission.

In his heart, "Aftershock" is important, but eliminating that group of evildoers is equally important.

The movie has been promoted in North America for nearly half a month, and Summit Entertainment has done everything it should do. Even if Liu Zhou is absent from the North American premiere, it will not have much impact.

"Aftershock" will be released independently in North America by Summit Entertainment.

After Edwards's full efforts and because of the precedent set by Liu Zhou's "Interstellar", even though this was a Chinese-language film, there were still 1,200 cinemas and nearly 2,000 screens that opened the film.

Edwards also understood Liu Zhou's importance to Aftershock and put a lot of effort into the premiere of the film.

Many stars including Keanu Reeves, Christian Bale, Anne Hathaway and Nicole Kidman were invited to support the event. The red carpet was star-studded and as lively as a Hollywood blockbuster.

For a Chinese-language film, being able to hold such a grand premiere in Hollywood, perhaps only Liu Zhou in China can do it.

This is also the reason why the market value of Golden Harvest Group is so high. Summit Entertainment may really contribute more than half of the market value.

Otherwise, with the current size of the domestic film and television industry, even though Golden Harvest Group is the leader, it is almost impossible for it to support a market value of nearly 100 billion yuan.

Summit Entertainment is a well-known Hollywood film company, and it is definitely a big plus for Golden Harvest Group to be able to acquire it.

In addition, Summit Entertainment has been developing very well, with its profits last year already being comparable to those of domestic groups.

Therefore, whether it is shareholders or investment institutions, they are all full of confidence in Golden Harvest.

Domestic peers were also very envious of Golden Harvest's acquisition of Summit Entertainment, which opened up distribution channels in North America.

In the past, it was extremely difficult for domestic films to be released in North America. Even if they were successful, they were often cheated. For example, Chen Shishi and Zhang Yimou were cheated by the fat man from Miramax.

Zhang Yimou was lucky as he only delayed the release of Hero. However, not only was Chen Shishi's The Promise ripped off, it was also only released on a small scale in the Chinese community. As for the promised Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, forget it.

With the Golden Harvest channel, Chinese-language films now have another channel to enter North America. Although Golden Harvest collects a lot of distribution fees, at least it is fair.

However, at this point, apart from the works of Liu Zhou and Zhang Yimou, other domestic films can no longer produce films that can achieve certain results in North America.

There are only two elements that are popular in Chinese-language films in North America: kung fu and martial arts. Now that the martial arts craze is over, only kung fu is left.

Therefore, the success of Liu Zhou's "Interstellar" in North America has indeed impressed his domestic peers.

The audience may not know, but they are very aware of how xenophobic North America is towards foreign films.

"Aftershock", directed by Feng Kuzi in the original time and space, was also released in North America, but it only made $60,000 at the box office, which was a big disappointment for Huayi and Feng Kuzi.

In the United States, audiences don't like to read subtitles. No matter how well-made the film is or how much you invest, as long as it is a foreign language film, they think it is an art film, and movies can often only be shown in art theaters.

In the past twenty years, only four foreign-language films have been released in more than 2,000 theaters: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Hero, Kung Fu, and Interstellar.

The first three are all action movies because action movies have a built-in fan base in North America.

If "Interstellar" hadn't been jointly distributed by Summit Entertainment and Lionsgate, it would have been difficult for so many cinemas to show it.

After all, science fiction movies have always been the strong point of Hollywood movies, and North American audiences naturally look down on overseas science fiction movies unless they are particularly outstanding.

Apart from these, there are only two other types of films that have more than a thousand cinemas. One is Italy's "Life is Beautiful", which relied on the Oscars to gradually increase its number of cinemas from more than a hundred to more than a thousand. The other is Liu Zhou's "The Martian".

Now "Aftershock" is the third film, but I don't know if the number of theaters showing it can be increased to 2,000.

However, despite the fact that there are 1,200 theaters open, to be honest, Liu Zhou still has no idea about the movie's box office in North America.

Although "Interstellar" is a good example, the core story of this movie is universal, while "Aftershock" is a completely Chinese story.

But compared to purely commercial films like Feng Kuzi's, Liu Zhou's version of "Aftershock" at least has a theme of hope, as well as family affection, which is equally important to Chinese people. Therefore, the box office will certainly not be so bleak.

Although Feng Kuzi's version of "Aftershock" was released on a small scale, the box office of only 60,000 US dollars was enough to show that the movie could not even impress the Chinese in North America.

Otherwise, the box office contribution from the Chinese community alone would not be that small.

"Interstellar" grossed 80 million U.S. dollars in North America, but Liu Zhou didn't expect "Aftershock" to achieve this result. He thought that a box office of 30 to 40 million U.S. dollars would be enough to meet his expectations.

If this result can be achieved, "Aftershock" can easily make it into the top ten of the North American foreign language film rankings, which will be very beneficial for the subsequent DVD release!
After the movie premiere, the situation was unexpectedly good.

In addition to the media arranged by Summit Entertainment, several well-known media also gave positive reviews to the film.

For example, Variety introduced the background of the Tangshan earthquake in detail and praised it as a great movie.

The Wall Street Journal gave the film an in-depth report in a full-page article, and finally praised it:

"Through the movie, we saw a city reborn from the ashes!"

Moreover, unlike domestic media and film critics who like to make empty comments, there are many film critics in the United States who attach importance to film language and technology, and these film critics have given high praise to "Aftershock".

An in-depth analysis was conducted on the color, structure, lens and even special effects. After reading those comments, Liu Zhou finally felt that his efforts were not in vain.

These reviews really hit the spot. It would be great if domestic film critics could be so professional.

Of course there are negative reviews, but they are in the minority after all.

Rotten Tomatoes gave it a freshness rating of 82, and MTC's comprehensive media rating reached 76.

For Chinese-language films, this score is actually not very high. The Rotten Tomatoes freshness and MTC scores of Chinese-language films have always been good.

For example, Zhang Yimou's movie "Curse of the Golden Flower" received a lot of bad reviews in China, but it still has a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 78 in North America and a MTC score of 72.

However, if compared with Hollywood disaster movies, this result is far ahead.

Over the past decade, the Rotten Tomatoes and MTC scores of Hollywood disaster films have never exceeded 60.

Of course, if "Titanic" is considered a disaster film, then it is the only exception. The very well-known domestic film "2012" released two years ago also failed in both categories.

But no matter how highly Aftershock is rated in North America, it doesn't matter. The final result depends on the box office. August is also the end of the Hollywood summer season, but there are also heavyweight Hollywood movies released.

The most anticipated are two animated films, one is "The Smurfs" produced by Sony Animation, and the other is "Cars 2" produced by Pixar.

Both films are box office hits, with box office revenues of over $5.6 million in North America. The former grossed $5.4 million worldwide, and the latter $ million. Both are films that achieved both box office success and critical acclaim.

The good news is that "The Smurfs" has been released for more than a week and has passed its peak box office period. It will take another week for "Cars" to hit theaters.

However, apart from these two movies, other movies that dare to squeeze into the summer season are not easy to deal with. Whether "Aftershock" can break through the siege depends on the first day of its release.

The result did not disappoint the efforts of Dingfeng Entertainment and Liu Zhou. On Friday, August 5, "Aftershock" earned 5.2 million on the first day, ranking fifth on the box office list of the day.

The film's box office increased over the following two weekend days, grossing $7.4 million and $6.9 million respectively.

"Aftershock" grossed $19.5 million in North America in its first three days. For a Chinese-language film, this result is very good.

There should be no problem in the final box office reaching 30 to 40 million US dollars.

It can be said that the release of "Aftershock" in North America was a success.

However, according to a survey by Summit Entertainment, the movie is still most popular among the Chinese community, who contributed nearly half of the box office.

"Aftershock" was being shown in Chinatown. CCTV captured this scene and put it on the "News Broadcast" program.

But no matter what, "Aftershock" was also released on a large scale in North America.

In the new week, "Aftershock" entered its second week of screening in North America and its third week in China.

Due to the crazy box office performance in the first two weeks, even with the support of the "News Broadcast" in China, it is impossible for the box office to rise against the trend. The box office potential of the film has been largely consumed.

Generally speaking, the recognition of a movie by the "Xinwen Broadcast" will inevitably lead to some units booking the entire theater.

But in fact, as early as the second week of the movie's release, many units had booked the entire theater.

Especially in Tangshan area, almost every unit has booked the venue, and it has not been fully booked even after a week.

So in the new week, the box office revenue for five working days totaled 1.4 million yuan, bringing the total box office revenue of "Aftershock" in the mainland to 9.5 million yuan.

At the same time in North America, the film also grossed 7 million U.S. dollars in five days, and the North American box office reached 27 million U.S. dollars.

On Friday, "Aftershock" also began to be released on a large scale in Southeast Asia, Japan and South Korea.

The day before, the film also held a premiere in Yiben.

As the world's second largest film market, no company can ignore it.

Because of Cheng Long, Golden Harvest's distribution capabilities used to be the best in the country. Although he has now left Golden Harvest and Liu Zhou is in charge, they have also picked up the previous channels.

It may not be as popular as it was more than 20 years ago, but it is also one of the Chinese film and television companies with the strongest distribution capabilities.

Thanks to the movies produced by Liu Zhou and Zhang Yimou, Golden Harvest is now also well-known in the film industry.

Liu Zhou attended the premiere of this movie.

Nowadays, the movie-watching group has changed a lot. The audience of movies and TV shows is mainly women aged 30 to 60, and the men are all working.

Most women do not work after marriage and become full-time housewives. After their children go to school, these full-time housewives have a lot of spare time, and watching movies is an important entertainment activity for them.

Therefore, since the 1990s, movies that reflect the warmth and family life have been very popular, for the same reason why mother-in-law and daughter-in-law dramas are so popular in mainland China.

"Aftershock" is a healing movie about family affection during a major earthquake.

However, except for Liu Zhou, none of the other main creators of the film are well-known. Although Liu Yifei has released an album, it did not make any splash.

Therefore, Liu Zhou had to go there in person to participate in the promotional activities.

For the release of Aftershock in Japan, Golden Harvest cooperated with Shochiku Film Company, which is the second largest film company in Japan.

The original Feng Kuzi version of "Aftershock" also sought cooperation with Shochiku Films, but they were unlucky. When the movie was about to be released, a magnitude 8.9 earthquake occurred.

This caused the ceiling of the cinema where the preview was being shown to collapse, resulting in 27 injuries and the death of one female audience member.

Shochiku Films felt that a country that had just experienced the tragedy of a major earthquake was not suitable for showing the movie "Aftershock", so the release was postponed.

What Huayi did not expect was that this postponement became an indefinite postponement, and the film was not released in a single screening until Liu Zhou’s rebirth.

This time, Liu Zhou's version of "Aftershock" was not so unlucky and was released in first-tier theaters very smoothly.

The movie earned 1.8 million yen on its first day on Friday, and with the following two days of the weekend, "Aftershock" raked in 7.4 million yen in box office revenue in its first three days.

7.4 million yen is equivalent to nearly million US dollars, ranking second on the box office list.

In South Korea, the film also received 55 viewers in its first three days, which translated into a box office of around US$ million, making it the box office champion in South Korea.

Meanwhile, Aftershock grossed approximately $5 million in its first three days in Southeast Asia.

The combined box office for these three regions reached $16 million in the first three days.

In North America, the film grossed nearly $4 million over the following two days of the weekend, bringing its total box office to $31 million.

As of now, that is, August 13, the overseas box office of "Aftershock" has totaled 45 million US dollars.

The box office potential in North America is probably almost exhausted, and it is still unclear whether it can eventually break through 40 million.

The overseas box office of the film mainly depends on Asia and Europe.

(End of this chapter)