Chinese Entertainment: Starting from 1996

Chapter 584: Box office exceeds billion? !

On its first day of release, "Flying Daggers of Dragon Gate" grossed 81 million yuan.

This is another piece of data that has left everyone in the industry silent.

This first-day result ranks third among domestic films, only behind "Interstellar" and the recently released "The Flowers of War".

Even if Hollywood movies are included, it is only second to "Transformers 3" and ranks fourth.

On that day, "The Flowers of War" only earned 32 million due to the compression of the screening schedule and the squeeze of "Flying Daggers of Dragon Gate".

With nearly 1.13% of the screenings, the two films together grossed million yuan, accounting for % of today's box office.

The other movies combined only took less than six million in box office today.

The next day, Saturday, "Flying Daggers of Dragon Gate" again grossed 89 million, and on the third day, Sunday, it grossed 96 million.

In the first three days of its release, "Flying Daggers of Dragon Gate" grossed a total of 2.66 million yuan.

Compared to the first three days of "The Flowers of War", it was 22 million less.

In fact, Golden Harvest did its best for "Flying Daggers of Dragon Gate". It coordinated with the theaters to increase the film's screenings over the weekend, hoping to help the film's single-day box office exceed 100 million yuan.

However, this may be the ceiling of "Flying Daggers of Dragon Gate", and the box office still has 4 million left and cannot go higher.

This time the two movies competed again, and "Flying Daggers of Dragon Gate" was slightly inferior.

Judging from the current trend, "The Flowers of War" may win in the end.

Compared with "The Flowers of War", "Flying Daggers of Dragon Gate" received more negative reviews.

Due to the strict control of Golden Harvest, there are currently no internet trolls that deliberately influence the rhythm.

Therefore, the current reviews of the two films are still relatively objective feedback from the audience.

People are more discussing the rationality of the plot and logical loopholes of "The Flowers of War".

As a martial arts film, and a remake of it, "Flying Daggers of Dragon Gate" has a relatively simple and crude plot.

The biggest attraction of this movie is its 3D special effects and martial arts action.

The audience was quite satisfied with the special effects. Apart from being a little dazzling, there were no problems.

The fighting moves are pretty good, but I’m mainly dissatisfied with the actors.

Jet Li has aged visibly, giving people the feeling of a knight in his twilight years, which is a bit inconsistent with the image of Zhang Zhao Huaian in everyone's mind.

Then there is the character of Mr. Zhou, who always has a cold face and seems to be in love, which makes people dislike him.

In everyone's mind, a coquettish boss lady is the best boss lady.

On the contrary, everyone recognized Chen Kun's performance. He was feminine yet domineering, and his character was full of charm, giving people the feeling that he was the male lead.

Also, the plot is too simple, and some people are not satisfied with the addition of the Blackwater City plot.

Therefore, the negative voices about "Flying Daggers of Dragon Gate" are louder.

However, we have to admit that the overall quality of "The Flowers of War" is indeed higher.

Especially after modifying some criticized points, the number of complaints about "The Flowers of War" has been greatly reduced.

The audience is actually not too harsh. As long as your movie is up to standard, they won't criticize you.

The reason why "The Flowers of War" received so many bad reviews in its previous life was not only because there were indeed some parts that deserved to be complained about, but more because other companies deliberately led the trend.

Many bad reviews for movies are slander from rivals or peers.

Despite this, the original time and space "The Flowers of War" still won over "Flying Daggers of Dragon Gate".

This time, because both movies were produced by Golden Harvest, there was no conflict between them and they were released one week apart.
In addition, Golden Harvest was fully prepared and did its best to control reviews, so both films received fewer negative reviews. Coupled with the expansion of the film market, the box office of "The Flowers of War" and "Flying Swords of Dragon Gate" were much higher.

Relatively speaking, the box office of "The Flowers of War" increased more, and it also achieved a single-day box office of over 100 million yuan.

Moreover, Xu Ke's box office appeal is indeed significantly different from Zhang Yimou's.

This weekend, a movie theater in Xi'an had an incident where people collectively left and went to other theaters after discovering that The Flowers of War was not showing.

This incident was not hyped by Golden Harvest, but actually happened.

It's just that this matter was known by Jiahe's publicity department, so they just publicized it.

Back to the weekend, the box office of "The Flowers of War" also saw a sharp increase.

With 1.09% of the screening time, it grossed million on Saturday and another million on Sunday, for a total of million in two days.

Ten days after the movie was released, "The Flowers of War" grossed 6.03 million yuan.

This result has raised everyone's box office expectations for this movie.

Many media have boldly predicted that the final box office of "The Flowers of War" is likely to exceed 1 billion.

This is not impossible. There is no other competitor except "Flying Daggers of Dragon Gate" during the Lunar New Year holiday, and the screening time is quite long.

And now it is obvious that "Flying Daggers of Dragon Gate" did not have much impact on the box office of "The Flowers of War".

Of course, Jiahe was very excited about this.

The fact that the box office of "The Flowers of War" exceeded 1 billion is sensational news, and it is definitely very good news for Golden Harvest's stock price.

It has only been released for ten days and the box office has already exceeded 600 million. If the subsequent screenings are tilted towards this end, it will have no problem breaking 1 billion.

Of course, for Golden Harvest, the best result is that both "The Flowers of War" and "Flying Swords of Dragon Gate" have box office revenues of over 1 billion yuan.

However, this possibility is somewhat low. The probability of "Flying Daggers of Dragon Gate" breaking 1 billion is not very high, and negative reviews will definitely affect the subsequent box office.

Moreover, the ceiling of martial arts movies is there now. Even with the addition of 3D, it is difficult to achieve a qualitative leap in the box office.

On the contrary, the subject matter of "The Flowers of War" is unique and can be said to be a national subject for Chinese people.

Now that there is a chance to break the 1 billion box office mark, Zhang Zhao is even preparing to put "The Flowers of War" on the "News Broadcast".

However, you can’t go on the “News Broadcast” whenever you want, especially since it’s a temporary arrangement now.

In the following week, the two films continued their journey of reaping box office rewards.

In seven days, "The Flowers of War" earned another 1.8 million yuan at the box office, pushing the total box office to 7.83 million yuan, officially surpassing "The Martian"'s 7.2 million yuan and becoming the third place in the Chinese-language film box office rankings.

Second only to Liu Zhou's "Interstellar" and "Aftershock".

If overseas movies are included, it is currently lower than "Avatar" and "Transformers 3".

The box office growth rate of "The Flowers of War" has obviously slowed down, but it has only been released for seventeen days and there is still more than a month left.

"Flying Daggers of Dragon Gate" grossed 2.5 million yuan in the seven full days of its second week of release. After ten days of release, the total box office of the movie reached 5.16 million yuan.

At this time, Golden Harvest could no longer suppress the negative comments, and its peers had already taken action.

Both movies suddenly received a lot of negative reviews this week.

But it's a bit too late now, the reputation of "The Flowers of War" and "Flying Swords of Dragon Gate" has already spread thoroughly. Netizens are not as easy to fool as before, so the impact of the negative comments now is not as big as imagined.

Faced with this situation, those people were helpless.

Even though I was extremely jealous, I could only watch the box office of the two movies continue to grow.

At the same time, they were also full of admiration for Golden Harvest's publicity and promotion, which was able to control reviews in all aspects for such a long time.

Although Jiahe has demonstrated the method, they cannot imitate it because they lack the strength.

First of all, they do not have such strong Internet connections as Golden Harvest, and they do not have as much contact with major domestic media, so their influence cannot reach so many media at all.

In fact, what they don’t know is that this is not entirely the strength of Jiahe, Liu Zhou also played an important role in it.

It is now December 24th, and the Western Christmas is about to come.

"The Flowers of War" was also released nationwide in North America on this day, December 23rd, US time.

Distributed by Summit Entertainment, the film opened in 1,200 theaters.

However, Sony still took action during the promotional period before.

Just like in the original time and space, the film was directly banned from the first-tier market. No matter how Golden Harvest tried to smooth things over, it could not enter the first-tier market.

However, what is somewhat different from the original time and space is that this time the Asian distribution of "The Flowers of War" is done by Golden Harvest International itself.

There is no doubt about Golden Harvest International’s distribution capabilities in Asia. Although one of their films cannot be released, they cannot ban it in Southeast Asia and South Korea.

These regions are all countries and regions that have suffered from invasion in the past.

Although "The Flowers of War" tells a Chinese story, people from these countries can also resonate with it.

The film grossed nearly $8 million in its first seven days in these territories last week.

The box office revenue in these regions was almost lost because Zhang Weiping found a British distribution company.

However, Sony was unable to catch up with "The Flowers of War" in Asia, so North America is half of their home turf.

The movie hasn't even started promotion in North America yet, but Columbia has already taken steps to guide public opinion.

However, Summit Entertainment is not comparable to the British distribution company. After all, it is a North American base, and the company's influence has greatly increased in the past two years.

Faced with Columbia's smears and suppression, Summit Entertainment is not completely powerless to fight back.

Moreover, Liu Zhou personally instructed that there would be no limit on the publicity funds and that they should fight Columbia to the end.

This is no longer a simple dispute over a movie, but a battle over the direction of public opinion.

It is because of the vigorous publicity and guidance of Yiben that the crimes they committed in Asia have gradually been glorified.

Anything that is not beneficial to them, whether it is literary or artistic work, will be suppressed and banned by them.

Not to mention something as visual as movies, which they are determined to avoid.

Therefore, Westerners now have no clear understanding of the original crime.

On the contrary, because of Hollywood’s vigorous publicity, people all over the world know about the sufferings that the Jews once endured, and people all over the world sympathize with the Jews.

It has even reached the point where saying Jews are bad is a paperweight mistake.

So now that he has the ability, Liu Zhou must not let Sony completely block "The Flowers of War" again.

Liu Zhou was willing to spend any amount of money.

Even after spending a lot of money, despite Sony's huge influence in North America, it was unable to completely cover up the voice of Summit Entertainment.

And Anthony Edwards is smart enough to understand that he can't defeat Sony just by competing with money.

So he started to spread rumors. Whenever Sony led a certain piece of public opinion, he would spend a lot of money to create a completely opposite piece of public opinion.

For a time, North America was filled with two completely different public opinions, and the audience was unable to distinguish between truth and falsehood.

This result made the people at Sony a little furious, but there was not much they could do about this shameless behavior.

After all, they guide public opinion with their mouths and make up all the content.

In such a lively public opinion environment, "The Flowers of War" officially landed in 1,200 theaters in North America.

Compared to the original time and space where no one was interested in it, this time the box office of the movie is much better.

It grossed $1.6 million on the first day, which is much better than the total of $340,000 in the original time and space.

The next day, the film took in another $2.1 million, and the third day it took in $2.2 million.

The film grossed a total of 5.9 million U.S. dollars in the first three days, which is a very good result.

Christian Bale played a significant role in this. He has been very popular in recent times and has also been working hard to promote the film.

However, Sony did not give up. Since other means did not work well, they attacked the movie from a film professional perspective.

An attempt was made to dissuade North American audiences from the film through a large number of negative reviews.

You know what, this trick really works.

North American audiences are inherently picky and xenophobic, and they look down on foreign films.

Now that "The Flowers of War" suddenly has so many negative reviews, many viewers have given up watching this movie without even thinking about it.

Faced with this situation, Summit Entertainment has no choice.

All I can say is that Summit Entertainment’s influence is still too small and it cannot be compared with Sony at all. After all, they have been working in North America for forty to fifty years.

In the following week, the box office of "The Flowers of War" was cut in half, and it only earned 3.6 million in seven days, which was less than the previous three days.

However, after only ten days of release, the film's total box office in North America has reached 9.5 million US dollars, and it should have no problem breaking 10 million.

Liu Zhou is already quite satisfied that "The Flowers of War" has grossed over 10 million U.S. dollars in North America.

Although the box office revenue is not enough to cover the publicity funds invested by Liu Zhou, it is still worth it.

Through the movie "The Flowers of War", at least some Westerners have realized the brutality of the original book.

This is just the beginning. Take it slow and one day we will be able to break the blockade of public opinion.

When the North American box office figures of "The Flowers of War" were reported back to China, they also attracted a lot of attention.

With nearly 10 million U.S. dollars in North American box office, plus more than 10 million U.S. dollars in Southeast Asia and South Korea combined, the film has already grossed more than 20 million U.S. dollars overseas.

Including the mainland, the movie has been released for 8.8 days and the total box office has reached 1.2 million, which is still million away from billion.

However, the film still has nearly a month to go without any other competition.

Before the Spring Festival, there is a great hope that "The Flowers of War" will break the 1 billion box office.

(End of this chapter)