Huayu 05, our science fiction movie universe

Chapter 689 A New Year Begins
Wang Hao spent almost the entire month of March 2021 handling company business.

In addition to the group's film and television projects this year and in the next few years, there is also game development, the second phase of the construction of [Galaxy Paradise], the domestic and international expansion of Douyin, the branch of Galaxy Shopping Plaza, the equipment upgrade of Galaxy Cinema, and the research and development of AI.

Oh, right, there are also team-building activities within the industry.

Wang Hao is now a big shot in the industry, serving as a director or vice director of various associations, and he's also on the radar of high-ranking officials in the cultural sector.

Therefore, at the beginning of this year, he was invited to attend almost every slightly formal seminar in the industry, and he was always seated in the front row.

Of course, while Wang Hao was busy approving the company's various businesses and making decisions, Xinghe Pictures' "Ne Zha 2" continued to dominate the March film market with an unparalleled momentum.

Even though it's no longer the Spring Festival season, "Ne Zha 2" is still experiencing steady growth in box office revenue.

101亿……102亿……103亿……111亿……112亿……

With its daily box office revenue of tens of millions, "Ne Zha 2" is slowly but steadily moving towards the new 150 billion yuan mark.

Anyway, China Film Group has already said that they can postpone "Ne Zha 2" for as long as they want, until the box office surpasses 150 billion yuan.

However, if we include overseas box office revenue, the global box office revenue of "Ne Zha 2" at this point is not far from the 150 billion mark.

Even after breaking the 100 billion mark, many domestic movie fans seemed to enter a period of post-coital calm, and they were no longer paying much attention to the subsequent increase in the total box office of "Ne Zha 2".

This might be considered a marginal effect, because no matter how high the box office performance of "Ne Zha 2" is, it will always be a milestone work in Chinese-language cinema. It may not be the last one, but it is definitely unprecedented.

So whether it's 150 billion or 100 billion, there's not much difference anymore; it's still a mountain that others can hardly reach.

Similarly, movies that chose to be released at this time also suffered a great misfortune.

In fact, a Hollywood monster movie with special effects was released this March.

Speaking of which, this movie also has a portion of the investment from Star River Group, because its name is "Godzilla vs. Kong". In addition to Warner Bros., Legendary Pictures is also a major producer.

The film was shot in their [Star River Cinema] studio, and most of the post-production special effects were handled by Starlight Fantasy.

However, even with such a big IP backing and special effects blockbuster, its box office performance in China was only so-so.

On its opening day, it only grossed 1.3 million RMB, which is among the lowest of all Hollywood films released in China.

In fact, Godzilla vs. Kong was deliberately scheduled for release at the end of March, while Ne Zha 2 had already been released for a month and a half.

But who would have thought that its daily box office would still reach an astonishing 60 to 70 million over the weekend?

Moreover, the key point is that the popularity of "Ne Zha 2" seems to have emptied the wallets of movie fans and audiences, and drained the market potential of the past few months. Compared with last month, the total box office in March dropped by 40%.

Ultimately, while "Ne Zha 2" finally broke the 150 billion yuan box office mark in China, "Godzilla vs. King Kong" ended its run with a meager box office of less than 10 billion yuan.

Globally, thanks to its overseas box office of $400 million, "Ne Zha 2" ultimately achieved a total global box office of 183 billion RMB, successfully entering the top three in global film history, only behind "Avengers: Endgame" with 202 billion RMB and "Avatar" with 212 billion RMB.

The key point is that "Ne Zha 2" is the only film whose box office performance in a single market accounts for 80% of its total box office revenue.

This further highlights the vast scale and enormous size of the Chinese film market, and at the same time, it proves this to the world by taking advantage of the opportunity of "Ne Zha 2" breaking into the top three of global film history.

Although overseas, many media outlets still reacted negatively to this, and some overseas entertainment industry figures even said that a single market is not representative and that the global box office performance of "Ne Zha 2" does not count.

But while they say that, in reality, those major Hollywood film studios, who had already decided to abandon the Chinese market, have started to re-discuss the issue of the Chinese market internally because of "Ne Zha 2".

Simply put, after seeing the success of "Ne Zha 2", several major Hollywood film companies want to go back to their roots.

This is not hard to understand, because the entertainment and cultural industry is ultimately linked to the economy.

In a country where the economy is declining, the entertainment market is naturally unlikely to be very prosperous.

Looking at countries around the world, most have already moved from their peak to a period of decline.

Needless to say, Japan and South Korea didn't get much of a chance to be included in the table. Old Europe enjoyed a high-welfare lifestyle for over a decade, and with no way to siphon resources from outside, their wealth was almost depleted.

As for the world's beacon of light, it is still the world's beacon of light in name only, and the dollar tide continues to drain the world's resources. However, financial bubbles and industrial hollowing out have long since emptied the foundation of the United States.

Coupled with inflation caused by the debt crisis and the increasingly frenzied multi-gender political correctness narrative in Europe and the United States, the North American film market has actually been in a period of great decline in recent years, far from what it was when Avatar was released.

At this time, the Chinese market naturally stands out.

This market is currently the world's largest and still has growth potential.

Sometimes hope is more precious than gold, and even in the financial stock market, it's often about selling expectations.

Behind the big Hollywood studios still stand the financial giants of Wall Street.

The only problem is that, unlike Hollywood's past successes in other countries' cultural markets, the American approach of launching blockbuster commercial films is becoming increasingly ineffective in China.

When Titanic and Avatar were first released, they were absolutely unstoppable in China, crushing all rivals.

The success of "Titanic" was a huge obstacle for countless Chinese directors at that time.

However, looking at "Avengers: Endgame," although it is the second highest-grossing film in global box office history, its box office in China is only 4 billion yuan, failing to even break into the top ten in domestic film history.

In recent years, which of the following films—The Three-Body Problem 1, Sky Ladder, Operation Red Sea, The Martian, Detective Chinatown, and Wolf Warrior 3—didn't have higher box office returns than this one?

As for the past few years, even Disney's Marvel Cinematic Universe, since Avengers: Endgame, look at those movies.

From She-Hulk, She-Hawkeye, She-Black Panther, Captain Marvel, Ms. Marvel, Black Ironheart, Black Captain America... to things outside the Marvel Cinematic Universe like The Little Mermaid, Snow White, and Barbie, the political correctness issues of gender and race are almost everywhere.

But as Chinese people, domestic audiences don't actually pay as much attention to these things as overseas audiences; they simply think they're not good.

Moreover, the more Hollywood production companies try to promote this aspect, the worse the results become.

This is actually one of the reasons, besides political and economic ones, that Hollywood has begun to gradually abandon the Chinese market.

To put it simply, Hollywood filmmakers believe that including a few Chinese actors and adding some Chinese elements in a movie is already a way of currying favor with China, but you don't appreciate it.

These Hollywood creators never bothered to understand the Chinese market, nor did they care about it.

But the release of "Ne Zha 2" was undoubtedly a slap in the face, proving that it wasn't that the Chinese market lacked potential, but rather that they were simply incapable.

Of course, some Hollywood creators will certainly shift the blame to "xenophobia against China," but in any case, the renewed emphasis on the Chinese market is an undeniable fact for Hollywood.

However, Wang Hao didn't seem to care about this matter.

Today's Chinese film market is no longer a place where Hollywood can continue to conquer and expand as it used to, just because it has taken notice of it.

Even Avengers: Endgame only grossed 4 billion RMB in China. Can any other movie be more successful? Or have a wider fan base and audience?

Putting aside everything else, even James Cameron's "Avatar 2," despite the high box office success of its predecessor, would probably still be at a disadvantage in China today.

The only remaining possibility is a co-production, and it would have to be a co-production with Galaxy Pictures.

For example, Galaxy Pictures' upcoming film project "Rampage 2" will be released in April. This film is a collaboration between Galaxy Group and Legendary Pictures, and the main filming location is the Galaxy Movie City branch base located in Hangzhou Bay. The actors come from two countries.

Compared to "Godzilla vs. Kong," which was released in March, "Rampage 2," released in April, was certainly better off, at least avoiding the impact of "Ne Zha 2" to a greater extent.

In terms of plot design, "Rampage 2" also features more innovations compared to the first film.

In fact, the story of "Rampage 2" is somewhat similar to "Operation Red Sea," as both stories take place at the same time.

Anyway, influenced by Dr. Chen Ang, a giant sea monster appeared in the sea, and China launched the heavy mechanical armor project, fully demonstrating its powerful industrial capabilities.

But the United States is different. Deindustrialization has made it impossible for the United States to build a powerful mechanized armored force from scratch.

How to do it?

But the U.S. military, which was having a headache, immediately had a bright idea when they saw George, a gorilla that had swollen to more than ten meters tall.

Thus, George, the mutated gorilla clad in mechanical exoskeleton armor and equipped with rocket-powered boxing gloves, was born, and he indeed made a great contribution to protecting the West Coast of the United States.

Rampage 2 tells such a simple story. Following the usual Hollywood three-act structure, the story begins with the gorilla George and his zookeeper Davis (Dwayne Johnson) being recruited by the U.S. military to work for them in exchange for living space.

During this process, George the gorilla did indeed demonstrate his value, working with Davis to resolve numerous monster rampages on land caused by leaks of the Brilliant Group's biological agents, which made them quite proud.

Then came the setbacks: the sea monsters erupted and began attacking the West Coast, especially California, the golden area of ​​the North American West Coast, supported by the "Golden State," a true political and economic center.

So George the gorilla was sent here to guard the city. Because of his previous behavior with those monsters in the United States, George had been made a celebrity animal by the government and military. Upon arriving in California, George was warmly welcomed by the local people.

However, George failed in a wave of attacks by sea monsters, and suffered a crushing defeat.

How could a land-dwelling gorilla monster possibly defeat a sea monster?

Those sea monsters were not only much larger than it due to their environment, but they could also retreat back into the sea if things went wrong after launching an attack, which was quite a challenge for a gorilla.

Thus, this first conflict ended with George suffering a crushing defeat, and the city being attacked, resulting in heavy losses.

And because of George's failure, the people who suffered losses began to blame a mutated gorilla, and those who were originally his supporters have now become his perpetrators.

They dared not confront the sea monster, but they dared to throw bottles and trash at George the gorilla, and yell and curse at him, which seriously hurt George's fragile heart.

Keep in mind that even though George is a mutated monster that is over ten meters tall, his intelligence is actually only equivalent to that of a 4 or 5-year-old child.

Yes, in the eyes of zookeeper Davis, George is just a child.

It was precisely because of Davis's presence that George was able to recover from his setbacks.

It was also because of Davis's love for animals that the two of them unexpectedly rescued a stranded giant whale monster during their vacation and became friends with it.

Then another crisis struck. This time, with the help of the U.S. military, George donned a mechanical exoskeleton and was equipped with more lethal weapons such as rocket-propelled gauntlets.

With these, the sea monsters were no match for George.

When the sea monsters were about to jump into the sea to escape, the sudden appearance of the mutated whale was a great help, ultimately allowing George to successfully eliminate the sea monsters.

At the end of the movie, George regained the support of the people, but he was no longer as easily smug as before.

It can be said that the entire "Rampage 2" is the coming-of-age story of the gorilla George, which is no different from many Hollywood superhero movies in the past. The only difference is that the human superhero is replaced by a gorilla, which is particularly ironic.

Although the plot is somewhat clichéd, the design of the gorilla wearing a mechanical exoskeleton and rocket-powered gauntlets is still very eye-catching and impressive. Watching a mutated gorilla fight monsters is quite a fun thing to do.

As for the post-credits scene, it shows George the gorilla playing with a mutated whale on the beach, while his zookeeper Davis laughs heartily, only to be spotted by military personnel.

When asked why, the reason was that the new Olympic Games were about to be held in Shanghai, and the United States wanted to send George there.

(End of this chapter)