Entertainment: I just want to be the boss behind the scenes

Chapter 550 A bounty of 100,000, with no upper limit!
"The box office numbers are really neck and neck!"

In Wanda Cinema's office, Meng Bai looked at the Spring Festival box office statistics in his hand and couldn't help but sigh.

On the first day of the Lunar New Year, "The Wandering Earth 2" took the top spot in the Spring Festival box office with a single-day gross of 4.76 million yuan.

In comparison, "Man Jiang Hong," which had the same number of screenings, had a slightly lower daily box office, but it was not far behind, also earning 4 million yuan and ranking second.

However, on the second day of the Lunar New Year, the box office figures for "The Wandering Earth 2" saw a slight decline, remaining at 4.5 million yuan per day, which was similar to "Man Jiang Hong" which remained at around 4 million yuan.

The difference between the two is only 100 million, which is negligible for a film of this size.

This situation was somewhat unexpected for Meng Bai, but it was also understandable.

Big data from ticketing software statistics shows that the audience for "The Wandering Earth 2" is more concentrated in first- and second-tier cities, while the main box office for "Man Jiang Hong" is concentrated in third- and fourth-tier cities and counties.

The Spring Festival film season is different from other film seasons, as young people who have been working away from home all year return to their hometowns. During the Spring Festival, they want to watch movies, and even if they don't have children, they will think of bringing their parents along.

For these older viewers, "Yue Fei" is definitely more familiar and interesting than the inexplicable "solar helium flash" and "digital life".

Moreover, there are differences in subject matter, so it can only be said that during the Chinese New Year, ordinary audiences still prefer comedies.

However, Chen Zhixi's thoughts were different from Meng Bai's: "Your reasons certainly exist, but the current box office data seems a bit problematic."

As she spoke, she handed over a new document: "Look, this is the box office statistics for the third day of the Lunar New Year yesterday. Our screening schedule and average attendance per screening have not changed, but the total box office has inexplicably dropped by more than 60 million."

Meng Bai took the data and glanced at it. It was indeed as the other party said. Yesterday's single-day box office for "Wandering Area 2" was 3.8 million yuan, and there was a strange decline on the box office curve chart.

Meanwhile, the daily box office of "Man Jiang Hong" suddenly surged against the trend, reaching 4.4 million yuan. With this shift, the already small box office gap was immediately closed.

Meng Bai frowned as he looked at the data. ArcLight primarily focused on film and television, and their understanding of the film market was relatively limited. In his understanding, since the number of screenings remained unchanged and the number of viewers was not a problem, theoretically, such a sharp drop in box office revenue shouldn't have occurred.
Even if someone is stealing box office revenue, there should be evidence in the average number of viewers per screening.

"Currently, ticket sales are mainly conducted online, and the number of tickets sold is verifiable. If the cinema's terminal were to manipulate the data, there would definitely be anomalies in the data. Since everything is normal now, the only problem must be with the screening schedule."

Meng Bai asked in confusion, "But the number of screenings doesn't seem unusual?"

"Data can be deceiving; there are some things you can't tell just by looking at the data."

Chen Zhixi chuckled. As a veteran of the film industry for over a decade, she clearly understood the various tactics used in the business: "The simplest way is to adjust the screening times. Both have ten screenings a day, one in prime time and one in a low-price slot. The screening data is the same, but the final box office results can differ by half."

"You mean some cinemas deliberately moved the screenings of 'The Ball 2' to non-prime time slots?"

"To be more precise, they wanted to make way for prime-time screenings for another movie; we were just passively affected."

Chen Zhixi went on to explain that in the past, when online ticketing was not as developed, distributors would not only contact cinemas in person but also send people to negotiate with them, which also served as a form of oversight. Later, as online platforms such as Maoyan and Taopiaopiao became the mainstream for ticketing, offline ticket purchases decreased, and distributors then focused solely on contacting cinemas.

Some film producers, in order to improve the performance of their films, will exploit this loophole and privately contact cinemas, offering them priority access to prime-time slots at a certain cost.

Theater chains typically impose a minimum number of screenings on each film at their affiliated theaters, meaning a certain number of screenings must be arranged each day. To meet these requirements, theaters often reschedule other films for late-night or even early-morning showings.

So sometimes when audiences see a movie showing up completely sold out late at night, it's not necessarily because of "ghost screenings"; it could also be something the theater itself has done. "This is really... where there's a will, there's a way," Meng Bai shook his head and chuckled. "So, our regular screenings have probably been 'taken up' by some other movie."

Although neither he nor Chen Zhixi specified which movie it was, they both knew that only one company would do this or had the motive to do so.

"Man Jiang Hong"!
That's the idea, and it's logically sound, but these are all just guesses, without any direct evidence.

It's pointless for Ruyi to investigate this kind of thing on its own; the best approach is to let the distribution company handle it. They have a nationwide network of personnel, which, while less dense than in the days of ground promotion, is still sufficient.

The main distributor of "The Wandering Earth 2" is China Film Group. Chen Zhixi contacted them, thinking of asking them to find out the actual situation.

Unexpectedly, before China Film Group could make any arrangements, many viewers leaked information online.

[Located in Hebei, I found the screening schedule for Spring Festival movies quite interesting. (Image) (Image) With the same number of screenings, "Man Jiang Hong" is mainly shown in the afternoon and around 6 or 7 pm, while the other movies are concentrated at noon, in the evening, and after 8 pm.]

The showtimes are fine for me, but there's a problem with the movie ticket. I originally bought a ticket for "The Nameless," but I received a ticket for "Man Jiang Hong" instead. The staff said it was a printing error and that I should just go with the original ticket.

The way "Man Jiang Hong" is being exploitative is rather unsightly. I took a picture of it when I picked up my tickets offline. I clearly entered the reservation number for "The Wandering Earth 2," but the screen only showed "Man Jiang Hong." This is a screenshot from the video. (Image) (Image)

[This is hilarious! My late-night showing of "Man Jiang Hong" was even more packed than the daytime showing. So everyone's coming out to watch movies at night during the Lunar New Year holiday, huh?]

【…】

As the saying goes, one stone stirs up a thousand waves, and more and more netizens are exposing outrageous practices related to "Man Jiang Hong" online. Based on actual images already available, these include exclusive scheduling, misappropriation of box office revenue, and inflated box office figures.

“There have been quite a few leaks, but the evidence seems rather weak. If the other party insists on explaining, it seems they can still come up with a plausible explanation,” Chen Zhixi said on the phone. “More importantly, how should we resolve this matter now? We need to identify the cinemas that specifically carried out these actions. Relying on ourselves alone is not enough.”

“If we ourselves aren’t enough, then let’s mobilize the masses to supervise together,” Meng Bai said leisurely. “Leave this to me.”

"What do you want to do?"

"Just wait and see."

"What are you looking at?"

Chen Zhixi was puzzled, but soon she understood what Meng Bai meant by "mobilizing the masses".

Meng Bai's Weibo account —

I've seen many friends share their negative experiences while watching movies during the Spring Festival season. As someone working in the film industry, I feel deeply saddened by this.

The healthy development of the film industry requires the joint efforts of every practitioner. Especially during a film downturn, any opportunistic or exploitative means could harm the entire industry.

As someone involved in the film industry, I hope to contribute to it. From the moment this Weibo post is published, any viewer who discovers inappropriate behavior in a cinema can send me a private message with clues and evidence. If the evidence is verified, I will personally award them 100,000 RMB.

A reward of 100,000 is offered, with no limit on the number of participants, attempts, or the maximum reward!
We are willing to fight alongside the audience against the unhealthy practices in the film industry to the very end!

(End of this chapter)