Rebirth 2004: A lone figure in the literary world

Chapter 250 Huayi's Last Night
On September 2006, 9, the action comedy blockbuster "Baby Project" produced and distributed by Yinghuang and Huayi Film Company held a grand premiere ceremony in Yanjing.

The most dazzling thing at the premiere was, of course, the starring team led by Jackie Chan. At that time, Jackie Chan had not yet aged, Louis Koo did not need a facelift, and Gao Yuanyuan was even more beautiful.

Even Zhang Chao, who was watching TV at home, was dazed when he saw the energetic faces of the people in the news. Judging from the news, the premiere of "Baby Project" was undoubtedly a success.

Whether it is the number of media present or the huge crowds of audiences outside the theater, it proves that the big brother is still in his prime and has a strong box office appeal.

The data really proved this point. With the triple stimulation of early release, literary and artistic publicity and discounted tickets, "Baby Project" swept 2700 million box office in the first three days after its release.

If this trend continues, "Baby Project" can definitely hit a box office of 100 million yuan during the National Day holiday!
"Baby Project" is also a movie released simultaneously around the world. It also has good box office in Hong Kong and Taiwan, and is the best performing Chinese-language film in recent years. In addition, it has also been released in South Korea, Japan, the Philippines...

The representative sent to the mainland by Yinghuang Company was Qilong, the son of Boss Yang. He and Wang Zhongjun finally breathed a sigh of relief after looking at the soaring box office data.

Qilong, who had already arrived in Yanjing, patted Wang Zhongjun on the shoulder at a private dinner hosted by him and praised him, "My dad said that among all the filmmakers in the mainland, he admires Mr. Wang the most.

Young, courageous and knowledgeable, our artists under Yinghuang will definitely look for Huayi to cooperate with when they go north in the future!"

Wang Zhongjun smiled, but he was cursing in his heart. Boss Yang took advantage of the situation and took away almost all of Huayi's expected profits from "Baby Project", which means that even if the film earned 1.5 million or even more in the global box office, Huayi would only be able to break even.

But on stage, he still had to respond to Boss Yang's compliments in an almost exaggerated tone: "If it weren't for Mr. Yang's matchmaking, we wouldn't have the opportunity to work with an international superstar like Brother Cheng Long.

Yinghuang is already an international film company, and we at Huayi still need to work harder.”

Although Qilong was still entertaining Wang Zhongjun, he couldn't help but glance at the beauties at the table. Wang Zhonglei understood what he meant and immediately stood up to welcome him to the table and arranged for Shuangbing to sit beside him.

Although Qilong did not lose his composure, he still raised his glass with a smile: "I believe that after tonight, Huayi will enter a new realm. In the future world film industry, there will definitely be a place for you two!"

Everyone responded with a roar and drank the wine in their glasses!

Faced with the aggressive offensive of "Baby Project", "Your Name" did not show any panic, but took steady steps.

On September 9, the animated film "Jungle Rebellion" produced by Sonic Entertainment suddenly announced that it would withdraw from the National Day schedule due to "technical reasons" and would be released at another date.

The reason is simple. Not only did "Baby Project" come on strong, but "Your Name", also an animated film, completely overwhelmed "Independence Day" in terms of media voice, publicity and box office pre-sales.

There is also "The Banquet", which is at the end of its release period, and it also had to sit up suddenly from its dying illness and grab a lot of screenings.

In the same period, only one film of the same type can survive. Rather than waiting to die during the National Day, it is better to find another time to rescue it. In recent years, the production of Hollywood 3D animation has exploded, and the audience has become aesthetically fatigued and is more willing to try new tastes.

As an animated blockbuster with an investment of 8000 million US dollars, the gap left by "Jungle Invasion" has become a battleground. However, this time, under the organization and coordination of China Film, several major theaters tacitly gave most of their schedules to "Your Name".

As a result, "Your Name" began to approach "Baby Project" in terms of screening volume, and left "The Banquet" and other cannon fodder movies far behind.

On October 10st, "Your Name" was officially released in theaters nationwide!

In the days before online ticketing and automatic ticket machines, except for some modern cinemas in first- and second-tier cities that had open ticket offices, most traditional cinemas still continued the format of paying with one hand and receiving the ticket with the other in a "rat hole" of a small iron grille window. (The large-scale modernization of cinemas seems to have happened after "Avatar"?)
Xiaoqi is an ordinary girl living in a small city in Northeast China. Early this morning, she brought her boyfriend to watch "Your Name". In addition to buying consecutive tickets, the most important thing was to exchange the "couple ticket stub".

My boyfriend said that when he passes the local editor exam next year, he will take the "couple ticket" and watch "Your Name" with her again. At that time, he will give himself a surprise...

Thinking of this, Xiaoqi's heart started pounding. However, the pre-sale tickets were limited, and she had not been able to get one in the past two days, so she could only queue up to buy tickets this morning.

But as soon as she arrived at the small square in front of the cinema, she was stunned - she saw a long queue in front of the ticket window, extending to the end of the square, and then making two bends on the side of the road to reach the tail of the queue.

Xiaoqi has lived here for more than 20 years and has never seen such a long queue for any other movie.

Looking closely, they saw that most of the people there were young men and women like them, many of them were couples queuing hand in hand. Xiaoqi was stunned. Judging from the situation, she might not be able to buy couple tickets today.

At this moment, cheers suddenly came from the front of the line, and many people halfway through the line hurriedly left the line and ran to another window.

Xiaoqi quickly pulled her boyfriend to the new queue, only to find that the cinema had opened another "rat hole" for ticket sales for the first time, with a sign hanging on it:

Special ticket window for "Your Name"!
Xiaoqi was so confused by what she saw. These cinemas were public, and usually only one ticket window was open. She had never seen the second window open since she was a child.

When it was her and her boyfriend's turn, before they could ask which show they wanted, the ticket seller said, "No. 1, 2, front row and middle seats are sold out. You can either buy a seat in the back row or the day after tomorrow."

After saying that, he grumbled and complained, "You youngsters just like to follow the fashion..."

Xiaoqi was dumbfounded again. She didn't expect "Your Name" to be so popular. She had already made plans to go on a trip with her boyfriend after watching the movie...

After much deliberation, Xiaoqi decided to buy two seats at the back row for 7pm that day. Although she couldn't get the best view, she couldn't stop comforting herself by thinking of the role of the "couple ticket stub":

Come back next year, next year and pick a good seat!

Similar situations occurred in cinema ticket offices across the country. The National Day holiday lasted seven days, but the mainstream consumption was still traveling, especially for couples.

The movie-watching schedule is basically squeezed into the first two days or the last two days, so the box office of "Your Name" was very explosive in the first three days after it was released.

2900 million! The box office revenue in the first two days exceeded 1100 million!
Currently, there is no APP for online statistics in the national cinema chain, and the dynamic changes in film scheduling and box office cannot be summarized in the first time. Therefore, even China Film and "Tide Culture" do not have accurate data. However, according to the sampling data of cinemas in some large cities——

During these three days, "Your Name" should have overwhelmed "Baby Project" with its super high attendance rate of nearly full theaters. The latter's box office in the first three days of National Day was almost halved compared to the three days before.

The creative team of "Baby Project" who are still on roadshows in Yanjing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, and Wang Zhongjun who is "supervising the battle" in Yanjing, are simply numb when they see the data.

If this trend continues, the mainland box office of "Baby Project" will probably not even break 6000 million, let alone million.

Audiences and film critics also had polarized opinions on the two films.

Regarding Your Name, the audience:

["Your Name" is so good! ]

[The picture is so beautiful! So beautiful that I want to cry! ]

[Luckily I didn’t watch the pirated version. This kind of movie should be watched on the big screen]

[How can the cartoon be so beautiful! ]

[I really want to watch it again... No, I have to save it for next year to watch it with him! ]

[Chinese animation is already so beautiful, when will domestic animation be so beautiful? ]

[Long and Xi, woo woo woo, my youth! ]

[Did Long and Xi finally recognize each other? Or was it just a déjà vu? ]

[Will it be revealed in the new ending of the re-release next year? ]

[I’m looking forward to it so much! A year seems so long, ahhhhh… I can’t wait any longer! ]

[My girlfriend forced me to watch it with her. I thought it would be very painful, but it turned out to be surprisingly good. ]

[Damn it, you actually have a girlfriend! ]

[I went to see the show alone and bought two tickets. Now only my name is signed on them. Then I will take this ticket stub and confess to the girl, asking her if she is willing to watch the show with me next year! If she is willing, she doesn’t need to say it, just sign her name! ]

[Wow, awesome, bro, you can even think of this! ]

[Fuck, this is amazing, I'm going to try it too! ]

[If you succeed, I will kowtow to you! ]

[Our Hupu's JRS is still talented! ]

On various forums, any review of "Your Name" would have at least hundreds of comments. For example, "Time.com" even opened a discussion section for "Your Name".

Especially after the creative idea of ​​using "couple ticket stubs" to express love was proposed, it attracted a bunch of single people to follow suit. This effect was completely beyond Zhang Chao's expectations.

The movie budget of these people should have belonged to "Baby Project", but it was snatched away by a large number of people. I can only say that the wisdom of the masses is infinite!

Regarding "Baby Project", the audience:

【Brother Cheng Long is still as sharp as ever! 】

[Gu Zai is so handsome, Yuan Yuan is so beautiful, and the little baby is so cute! ]

[I miss it so much, my brother is filming an action comedy again. 】

Gone.

It hardly caused any waves on the Internet.

But it was different among film critics. Your Name could only appear in the margins of newspapers and magazines, while Baby Project received a lot of praise on the main page:

[Brother Cheng Long has proven that he is the unrivaled king in the field of action comedy! ]

["Baby Project" is the best-written movie by Cheng Long since he started acting. The delicate characterization, natural changes and transitions, and the wonderful action scenes are perfectly matched.]

[If I can only choose one movie during this National Day, I will vote for "Baby Project" without hesitation. ]

[Hollywood is not the limit for Jackie Chan. Chinese audiences understand him best and care about him the most! ]

However, all film critics seemed to avoid making direct comparisons between "Your Name" and "Baby Project". No matter how hard Huayi's publicity and promotion team tried, no one broke this tacit understanding.

Then a strange scene appeared: the "audience reviews" and "critics reviews" were clearly distinguished, each with its own opinion. Many film critics were still immersed in the authoritative inertia of the paper media era, and suddenly woke up to find that everything had changed.

It must be the audience this time!
On October 10, just when the box office of "Your Name" finally showed signs of fatigue, Zhang Chao's words in an interview once again stimulated the sensitive nerves of young people -

"Student Zhang Chao, there are many couples among the audience of Your Name this time. It will be a huge expense to invite them to watch the movie for free next year.

Why did you come up with such a promotional policy? Is it because you don’t believe that the box office of “Your Name” will be so high? "

Zhang Chao's answer was just a short sentence:

"What I don't believe in is love!"

Once these words were spoken, the crowd was excited. Countless pure love warriors bought couple tickets in anger, and did not even enter the theater to watch the movie. They just exchanged "couple tickets" at the ticket checkpoint and turned around and left.

The slogan everyone raised was:

"Witness love, defeat Zhang Chao!"

"If you buy a ticket to enter this year, he will go bankrupt on National Day next year!"

"Ticket in hand, kill the dog!"

……

Watching movies is a pure herd behavior. If everyone else has watched it but you haven’t, you may even be excluded from socializing. The topicality of Your Name satisfies the audience’s social topic needs very well, so it has repeatedly broken the circle.

From the initial "emotional animation", to the later "technical animation", and then to the current "social animation", "Your Name" has successively leaped onto three levels of communication studies.

Therefore, the box office of "Your Name" was weak for only one day, but it immediately rose again and was once again in a close competition with "Baby Project". After all, Cheng Long's comedies have a fixed audience base, and many people are not interested in cartoons.

But for Yinghuang and Huayi, the situation is very bleak.

According to the latest box office estimates, the final box office of "Baby Project" will be around 6000 million yuan, while "Your Name" will reach around 5000-5500 million yuan. The champion is still "Baby Project", but neither Boss Yang nor Wang Zhongjun can smile.

Zhang Chao could just say to them with a smile: "You get the championship, and I'll take the money."

Many people thought that the launch of "couple tickets" for "Your Name" would lead to heavy losses when it is re-screened next year. However, industry insiders know that China Film and "Tide Culture" actually saved a lot of money this time.

As the domestic film market matures, the proportion of publicity and promotion in the film cost is getting higher and higher. Every article of "Baby Project" in newspapers and magazines, every appearance on the portal homepage, and every discussion in the forum is made with a lot of money.

"Your Name" has its own topics and traffic. The entire internet is filled with viewers who have watched it and spectators who are just there to join in the fun, commenting on it and making jokes, which invisibly saves a huge amount of publicity and promotion costs.

The proportion of "couples" in the audience is not as high as everyone imagines, accounting for only about 15%-20% of the total box office, which is more than 1000 million yuan. How many people will be able to cash in this ticket next year?
Even the most optimistic estimate is that the rate is less than 60%. It’s not that all couples break up, but there are too many variables in a year, and any unexpected event may prevent two people from being together during that period, especially for couples in their junior and senior years.

And next year, when couples bring their "couple tickets" to the movies, won't that become free publicity for the re-release? Killing two birds with one stone, it actually saves a lot of money!
This is why Zhang Chao is not afraid of "heavy bleeding" - he is convinced that those who are shouting "Tickets in hand, kill Zhang the dog" on the Internet are just loud voices, and the mainstream of movie-watching is still the silent majority.

This is also an advantage of having 20 years of experience in the Internet industry. Zhang Chao has seen too many examples of slogans such as "make up for the ticket owed to XXX" being shouted loudly, but the box office ended up being a failure.

On the evening of October 10, the celebratory dinner for "Your Name", which had a box office of over 7 million, was held. In addition to the staff of "Tide Culture" and Xinhaicheng who came to support, Han Sanye of China Film Group attended the dinner in a rare occasion.

But the sharp-eyed reporters immediately noticed something wrong - where did Zhang Chao go?
As the absolute protagonist of the dinner, Zhang Chao, the original author and investor who directly boosted the box office of "Your Name" with a series of stunning operations, did not appear at the dinner.

Not even a celebratory video or message was released on the spot, it just disappeared from everyone's sight!

A reporter immediately called Zhang Chao, but received a busy tone.

Even Han Sanye, who was present at the event, was curious as to why Zhang Chao didn't come. However, Ma Boyong, who was in charge of organizing the event, only hesitantly explained, "Zhang Chao has been exhausted recently..."

Everyone said "oh" to show their understanding. After all, his work in the past three or four months has been almost entirely under the spotlight, and it's all brain-burning work, and the intensity is simply terrifying, so it's normal that he can't stand it now.

Mr. Han San also showed his concern: "I know a Chinese medicine doctor in Yanjing who is very good at recuperating. Xiao Ma, please write down his contact information..."

"Baby Project", which grossed over 5000 million, also held a celebration banquet. After all, in this industry, the principle is "lose the battle but not the battle, fall but not the frame", not to mention that it earned 1000 million at the box office.

But the scene looked a bit desolate no matter how you looked at it. Whether it was the brothers Wang Zhongjun and Wang Zhonglei, or Yinghuang's representative Yang Qilong, their smiles seemed particularly forced.

Brother Cheng Long still greeted the stars and reporters who were present with a smile, and there was no shadow on his face. As a veteran with more than 30 years of experience in the film industry, he has seen many ups and downs in the box office, so he is still open-minded about this.

After the dinner, the Wang brothers did not go home, but returned to their office in the Century Building in Chaoyang. They each poured a glass of wine, stood in front of the window, and looked at the night view of Yanjing.

At this time, the weather in Yanjing was already clear and crisp in autumn. The night sky was exceptionally clear. A bright moon hung in the sky, illuminating all the purity and filth in the world.

After a long while, Wang Zhongjun said, "The ticket to Hong Kong has been bought. You can leave tomorrow."

Wang Zhonglei was not as irritable as before, but whispered: "Has it really come to this?"

Wang Zhongjun said: "Hu San has confessed. Now many people - in the cultural and film circles - are rushing to attack him like wolves smelling blood. No matter how many lines of defense you set up, it is only a matter of time before they are penetrated.

Some of them want to help Zhang Chao, and some want to help us... Hehe, is it really a help?"

Wang Zhonglei was speechless. After a long while, he whispered to his brother, "Yes, I'm sorry. If it weren't for me..."

Wang Zhongjun waved his hand to stop him from continuing and said, "No matter what, you are my brother."

Wang Zhonglei asked, "What about you?"

Wang Zhongjun sneered and said, "Even a rotten ship has its nails. Besides, we are not a rotten ship. All right, you should go back and pack up. Call me when you get to Hong Kong. I have arranged for someone to pick you up there."

Wang Zhonglei nodded, drank the wine in the glass, and left the office.

Wang Zhongjun was alone, holding a glass of wine, staring blankly at the night outside the window.

At the same time, Zhang Chao was also looking at the night sky above his head. Not only was it clear, but there was also no light pollution like in Yanjing. It was almost pure dark blue, and even though there was a moon, many stars could be seen.

He was not "tired", but he was indeed tired of the life and himself during this period, so he threw everything away and came to a mountain on the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau alone, and lived in a Shuizu village...

(End of this chapter)