Huayu 05, our science fiction movie universe

Chapter 611 Advancement
On the third day of release, the third day of the Lunar New Year, the online ratings of several popular films in the 2018 Spring Festival season have basically stabilized.

Among them, "Hello Mr. Billionaire" has a Douban rating of 7.0 and a Taopiaopiao rating of 8.8.

Monster Hunt 2 has a Douban rating of 5.1 and a Taopiaopiao rating of 6.4.

The movie "Journey to the West: The Land of Women" has a rating of 4.4 on Douban and 5.2 on Taopiaopiao.com.

"Shanghai Fortress" has a Douban rating of 2.8 and a Taopiaopiao rating of 3.0.

The eyes of the masses are discerning. As word-of-mouth spreads about the films, the box office performance of different films varied in the following days.

Thanks to its excellent word-of-mouth, "Hello Mr. Billionaire" continued to soar at the box office. After taking in 3.4 million yuan on its opening day, it earned no less than 2 million yuan per day for seven consecutive days. In the end, it accumulated an astonishing 18 billion yuan in box office during the Spring Festival, becoming the most eye-catching film of the Spring Festival and once again proving the correctness of "Xinghe's productions are bound to be masterpieces".

According to big data projections from ticketing platforms, this film's final box office should be at least 35 billion yuan.

Second place went to "Monster Hunt 2". With the support of its predecessor and a story more suitable for younger audiences, the film grossed 11.8 billion yuan in seven days during the Spring Festival, despite some issues with the plot. It is expected to gross over 20 billion yuan in the end.

As for "The Monkey King 7: Kingdom of Women," which ranked third, its box office revenue during the seven-day Spring Festival holiday was only 7.3 million yuan. Even though it capitalized on the popularity of "Black Myth: Wukong" during its promotion, its momentum was clearly insufficient, and it is estimated that it will not even be able to recoup its costs.

Not to mention any sequels to the series, which will likely remain only in the planning stages.

Unfortunately, the film ranked fourth at the box office was not "Shanghai Fortress," which had been heavily promoted beforehand, but rather the evergreen film "Boonie Bears" from the Spring Festival season.

As the fifth feature film in the "Boonie Bears" series, "Boonie Bears: The Big Shrink" focuses on parent-child relationships and continues its target audience of young children, resulting in consistently stable box office performance.

After seven days in theaters, "Boonie Bears: The Big Shrink" has grossed 4.8 million yuan, ranking fourth on the box office charts and surpassing "Shanghai Fortress".

This puts "Shanghai Fortress" in an awkward position, especially for the fans of the lead actor Lu Han, who are almost too embarrassed to promote the movie online for fear of being ridiculed and embarrassed by netizens.

After all, the cumulative box office during the seven-day Spring Festival holiday was only 1.6 billion yuan. It can be said that apart from the first day when the film relied on publicity to lure some viewers into the cinema, the box office of this film plummeted afterward.

Negative reviews of the film from viewers are scattered across multiple aspects.

Some viewers complained that the plot was chaotic, saying that the movie left them confused and unsure of what the director was trying to express.

The main storyline of aliens and humans vying for the Immortal Vine, as well as the subplot of the love between Jiang Yang and Lin Lan, are both told in a fragmented and illogical way.

One moment it's a chaotic war scene, and the next it's inexplicably interspersed with romantic scenes; the two don't blend together at all.

Some viewers also questioned the lead actor, saying that Lu Han, as a soldier in the movie, sported a Korean-style fringe that remained unchanged even during intense battles, which was too distracting and made it impossible for viewers to immerse themselves in the tense plot.

The female lead, Shu Qi, is too old, and she and Lu Han have no chemistry at all. They don't look like a couple; they look more like a mother and son.

As for the special effects of this movie, there wasn't much criticism from the audience.

This isn't because the special effects in "Shanghai Fortress" were particularly good; it's simply because audiences, having been exposed to sci-fi films from the "Star Trek Cinematic Universe," have developed a clear understanding of the quality of special effects and are no longer so easily fooled.

Therefore, everyone's opinion on the special effects of "Shanghai Fortress" is very consistent: they are completely substandard and have no bottom line. The quality is so bad that there is no need to even complain about them.

Despite the criticisms, the existence of "Shanghai Fortress" still has some positive aspects.

For example, after watching "Shanghai Fortress", the ratings of several science fiction films in the Star River Cinematic Universe on Douban have increased.

Some people even added new comments below:

"I am grateful to Director Wang Hao for his contributions to the development of Chinese science fiction films. I was blind to his talent."

"I can't imagine what domestic science fiction films would be like without director Wang Hao?"

"At this moment, the value of Lei Jun's statement 'Our competitors are all idiots' is still increasing."

As the old saying goes, it's not that you don't know the goods, it's that you're afraid of comparing them.

With domestically produced trashy sci-fi films like "Shanghai Fortress" as a foil, people realized that they had been eating refined food all along.

Many viewers, whose eyes were tainted by "Shanghai Fortress," went to Wang Hao's Douyin account to leave messages, expressing their hope that the movies of the "Galaxy Cinematic Universe" would be released soon so that their eyes could be cleansed and their wounded hearts could be soothed.

What else can Wang Hao do in this situation?

Of course, the very next day, he uploaded the trailer for the movie "Sheep Without a Shepherd" to his Douyin account, which helped him gain a huge amount of traffic.

However, the movie won't be released until April. Right now, the biggest beneficiary is still "Hello Mr. Billionaire".

With the end of the 7-day Spring Festival holiday, some migrant workers had to leave their hometowns and return to big cities to work.

Correspondingly, the film market also saw a small rebound at this time, with the daily box office of several films released during the Spring Festival increasing, except for "Shanghai Fortress".

This thing is so bad it's become an open secret; people have even given it a sarcastic nickname: "the gatekeeper of science fiction movies."

Despite its poor reputation, "Shanghai Fortress" failed to perform well at the box office, ultimately grossing only a little over 1.8 million yuan.

The failure of "Shanghai Fortress" is undoubtedly multifaceted and comprehensive.

At the same time, its existence also poured cold water on those hot-headed film investors who were ready to follow the trend. It turns out that sometimes the success of a film is not only due to its subject matter, but also has a lot to do with the project team.

Ultimately, cultural creation is about people; it all comes down to who you are.

As a result, Galaxy Pictures once again became popular with industry insiders and investors, with calls coming in almost every day to the company or to the project managers.

Indeed, rather than painstakingly producing a film with uncertain risks, it's much better to latch onto the coattails of a successful company. Unfortunately, clinging to a successful company isn't always easy. Everyone in the industry knows that Galaxy Group's projects are profitable, but over the years, it has developed its own network. When there's a chance to make money, it prioritizes its own people.

Only by releasing items that their own circle of insiders doesn't want can outsiders get a share of the profits.

But this is very rare. Even companies like Wanda, whose future is uncertain due to the real estate economy, still do not give up any opportunity to invest in Galaxy Pictures projects.

Of course, if you only want to invest, it's not impossible.

As long as you don't limit yourself and don't pursue the well-known or large projects of Xinghe Group, there are still some investment opportunities under its name.

For example, Xinghe Group has been developing the online drama and online movie market in the past year or two, and Xinghe Group will also develop short drama projects based on Douyin in the future.

Galaxy Group has invested in quite a few of these projects. While the prospects may not be particularly promising, the returns are definitely considerable. At least they won't rip off investors like some other companies' projects.

With the end of the Spring Festival holiday, work at Xinghe Group returned to normal, and the "Mars Rescue" crew naturally resumed work to continue the unfinished filming.

There aren't many scenes left to film now. Apart from some scenes inside and outside the base on Mars, there are scenes on the spaceship. Although these all require green screen shooting, it will only take a little over a month.

However, this only covers the footage. The post-production work, including special effects, editing, dubbing, and music composition, will take a considerable amount of time.

After all, it's a rare domestic sci-fi blockbuster with a space theme, so it can't be worse than the previous "Gravity", so it's not unreasonable to be as meticulous as possible.

Because of this, after the "Mars Rescue" crew resumed work, everyone was on high alert, especially Liu Ye, who was the absolute lead actor in the entire film.

Even during this Spring Festival holiday, he did not relax at all, and continued to devote himself to figuring out Zhang Beihai's feelings on Mars every day.

As an experienced actor, he certainly knew what this role meant to him—not just box office success and fame, but also awards.

The movie "The Martian" is similar to "Robinson Crusoe" or "The Revenant." As long as the director's shooting and editing are not problematic, it will be a good movie that combines artistry and commercial appeal.

I can't speak for international awards, but domestically, he'd definitely win Best Actor at the Golden Rooster and Hundred Flowers Awards.

Of course, this is on the premise that Liu Ye's performance is flawless and his acting skills are consistently on point, at least above average.

While Wang Hao and the "Mars Rescue" crew were busy filming, other projects of Galaxy Pictures also started during this period at the beginning of the year.

For example, the crew of "Detective Chinatown 1900" held a start-up ceremony at Xinghe Cinema at the end of February. Some members of their crew, such as Li Kui and Wang Baoqiang, even visited the studio where the "Mars Rescue" crew was located and invited Wang Hao to attend their start-up ceremony next door.

However, considering that he shouldn't overshadow the main character and that he was busy with filming, Wang Hao directly declined.

In addition, the crew of "The Witch 2" also moved into [Galaxy Cinema] in March. After that, the female lead of the film, Song Zu'e, often dragged the supporting actress, Hamabe Minami, and took advantage of her youth and beauty to run to the "The Martian" crew from time to time, eagerly getting close to Wang Hao.

Wang Hao knew exactly what the little girl was up to.

Considering the girl's age and his own marital status, he directly instructed the assistant director to strengthen the management of the set, which stopped the young girl's wild thoughts and burgeoning ambitions.

Time flew by amidst the busy life on set, and soon it was the end of March.

Online, Galaxy Pictures' new film, "Sheep Without a Shepherd," a transitional work between the second and third phases of the Galaxy Cinematic Universe series, has also begun extensive promotion.

Although the release date wasn't during a peak season, the suspenseful crime theme combined with the origin story of Q still attracted many viewers who expressed interest in watching it, with pre-sale tickets on Taobao exceeding 700 million yuan.

At this time, Wang Hao had already finished filming at [Star River Cinema]. Currently, "The Martian" has entered the post-production stage, and he has more time to focus on company affairs.

For example, movies currently being filmed, projects about to be filmed, or completed works all need his approval as the head of the Galaxy Group.

In addition, Xinghe Group was quite busy with internal affairs in the first half of the year.

Black Myth: Wukong has now completed all the finishing touches and entered the promotional stage. It is just waiting to make a splash when it opens at Galaxy Park in September of the second half of the year.

Meanwhile, their team wasn't idle either. After all, they were no longer the cash-strapped science game team. With the support of Galaxy Group, "Black Myth: Wukong" was just the beginning.

They didn't even need to wait for the game to be released and recoup their investment; they immediately began preparing for the next installment in the Black Myth series—Black Myth: Nezha.

To be honest, the production time for this work was quite tight, after all, they had to release it together with Xinghe Group's animation department's "Ne Zha 2: The Demon Child Conquers the Dragon King".

The sequel to "Ne Zha" has been in production for three years and is scheduled for release in 2020. It would be best if "Black Myth: Ne Zha" could be released at the same time to achieve a mutually beneficial effect.

Therefore, the Science Games team only has two years left.

Fortunately, this time they didn't need to start from the very basics to make "Black Myth: Nezha". With the foundation of "Black Myth: Wukong" and the fact that the style of "Black Myth: Nezha" is consistent with that of "Black Myth: Wukong", they saved at least one-third of the workload.

Furthermore, during the production of "Ne Zha", a large amount of data and materials were accumulated, and many skilled animators were trained, which can be provided to "Black Myth: Ne Zha", which will be linked with it.

This way, the workload of making the science game "Black Myth: Nezha" was reduced by another third.

With a little extra effort, we should be able to complete the relevant work within two years.

The gaming division is progressing smoothly, the film and television production division is doing well, and Xinghe Group's other key project, "Douyin," is also expanding and developing at a speed that surprises the industry.

As of April 2018, Douyin's domestic DAU (Daily Active Users) exceeded 250 million, and its MAU (Monthly Active Users) exceeded 500 million.

This achievement was made a full 10 months earlier than Wang Hao's previous life's Douyin.

(End of this chapter)