Huayu Entertainment: Tianxian really wants to improve

Chapter 430 The Master of Marketing and Distribution for the Most Miserable Hollywood A-Rank Production Horror Film in History
"He is back!"

The Venice Film Festival's program cover featured a photo of Gu Bei walking the red carpet at the social media screening yesterday, showing the high regard they gave him for his presence.

Although Gu Bei's "Gravity" this year was merely a screening to attract audiences,

However, Rose Pictures did not miss the main competition at Venice.

Directed by Darren Aronofsky and Anthony Hopkins, the film "A Father Trapped in Time" is the opening film of this year's Venice Film Festival and is also in the main competition.
The Social Network, produced by Karen, president of Rose Films' production department, is also one of the films in the main competition.

However, David Fincher's style has never been favored by film festivals, and his social media presence didn't garner much attention at Venice.

However, Anthony Hopkins, an elderly man in his seventies,

He has become the frontrunner for Best Actor at this year's Venice Volpi Cup.
There are signs of a career resurgence, and seventy is a great opportunity to strive for success!
On the open-air rest platform next to the Venice Film Palace,

Gu Bei and Liu Yifei were chatting with Marco Müller across from them.

Marco Müller said with a smile, "Bruce, this should be our first time meeting in Venice, right?"

"I'm not afraid, but I doubt you, the film festival chairman, would dare to meet me!"

Gu Bei replied with a smile that he was a participant in the main competition. If he had met privately with Marco Müller, the president of the Venice Film Festival, at the festival, he would have been accused of some kind of backroom deal.

especially,
Gu Bei won the Golden Lion Award for two consecutive years during Marco Müller's tenure as the film festival president.

This also continues the tradition of Chinese directors winning the Golden Lion Award for three consecutive years, a tradition that began in 2005, allowing Chinese directors to win the Golden Lion Award for five consecutive years.
This record led to Marco Müller being heavily criticized by Italian film critics over the past few years, but fortunately he will officially retire next year.

“I watched the movie Gravity. Bruce, your directing skills are still improving. Crystal, your performance was fantastic. Even if you come to Venice, you will be a strong contender for the Volpi Cup.”

Marco Müller then brought up gravity, saying with some regret, "However, given the current situation, it seems unlikely that your film will break even!"

"Thank you."

Liu Yifei replied with a slight smile.

Is this the most shabby Hollywood A-list production marketing campaign in history?

Gu Bei couldn't help but laugh at himself.

This is a mockery of Gu Bei by Italian local newspapers. He won the Venice Golden Lion Award for two consecutive years. While Italian local media criticized Marco Müller, they also criticized Gu Bei quite a bit.

"I'm so sorry, Bruce!"

Marco Müller also apologized to the media with some resignation.

The media can just criticize, but as the festival's president, Marco Müller has to consider more. If it weren't for the artists from Gu Bei and the city of La La Land supporting the first two Venice Film Festivals, their popularity and reputation would have declined significantly.

"It's okay, at least in this matter, what they said is true."

Gu Bei shrugged and replied, not particularly concerned.

When you are the weaker party, everything you say is wrong!
Previously, Rose Pictures' global distribution was either handled by Summit Entertainment or directly commissioned by Sony Classics to Sony Pictures. Rose Pictures only needed to communicate with one of the parties.

But this time, the gravity manipulation was done by Rose Pictures themselves.

Even with a partnership model involving local distributors, Rose Pictures was still in a state of chaos.
The lack of long-term and stable cooperation channels has severely hampered the global promotional pace of Gravity, causing its brand awareness to be significantly lower than expected.

Moreover, judging from the setbacks in the promotion of Gravity this time...

Gu Bei also understood why the six major Hollywood studios all sided with media conglomerates.
The media group possesses abundant media resources globally, enabling it to achieve twice the results with half the effort when distributing content worldwide.

In contrast, Rose Pictures achieved far less with much effort.
A global marketing budget of $100 million is being burned through, but the results are somewhat disappointing.

Now, Gu Bei has also realized the situation and has suspended the promotional activities in some areas, directly withdrawing the film from release and postponing its premiere.

He, on the other hand, defied gravity, moving from one film festival to another.
Starting with the Venice International Film Festival in Italy,
I'm going to the Toronto International Film Festival and the Telluride Film Festival in North America in a couple of days.

Also, there's the San Sebastián International Film Festival in Spain at the end of September, the Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival in Brazil, and the Zurich Film Festival in Switzerland.

Targeting major box office markets in North America and Europe, it returns to the old path of Rose Pictures' previous films.

Fortunately, China Film Group in Asia relieved a lot of pressure on Rose Pictures, preventing the release schedule of Gravity from getting stuck in a quagmire.

At least in the top ten box office markets worldwide, the film will be released simultaneously on October 1st, which happens to be a Friday.

of course,

Except for the country of cherry blossoms,
Although cherry blossoms are the world's second largest vote bank,

However, the release schedule of Sakura's films is quite strange. Some films can still be shown in theaters one or two years later, and their box office performance is quite slow. Therefore, Sakura is often the last country in the world to release a film.

This promotional strategy of using film festivals to generate word-of-mouth, and then using that word-of-mouth to drive box office revenue,
For an A-list sci-fi blockbuster with a production cost of $100 million, this is truly stingy to the extreme.

In the past, this kind of technique was only used in B-movies with a production budget of less than $5000 million, such as "The Artist" and "La La Land".

After all, after the film festival screenings,
Studios cannot control whether viewers will spoil the plot for others.

Imagine if Spider-Man: No Way Back had been screened at a film festival first...
So, can the surprise of the three insects appearing together still be kept secret?

Without this sense of surprise, how could Heroes Without Return have achieved such astonishing results, earning $8 million in North America and $19 billion globally?

However, the reason why Gu Bei could remain so calm in the face of these sarcastic comments was because Gravity was different from other blockbusters.

Gravity is a movie made for movie theaters.
Its visual experience is far richer than its narrative experience.
Even if viewers read a lengthy explanation of Gravity first, they won't lose much of their enjoyment of the film. Other blockbusters simply can't do that.

"Ugh!"

Marco Müller sighed.

However, seeing Liu Yifei beside Gu Bei, he wasn't too worried about Gu Bei anymore.

Given Rose Pictures' track record over the past few years, they can afford to lose two hundred million dollars.
Even if this money were used to buy Gu Bei and Liu Yifei global exposure, and a Cannes Best Actress award, it wouldn't be unacceptable.

After the three continued chatting for a while,

Marco Müller rose to take his leave.

Finally, he reminded Gu Bei, "Remember to attend the closing ceremony tomorrow!"

"it is good!"

Gu Bei's heart skipped a beat, and he agreed.

"What does Mr. Muller mean by this?" Liu Yifei asked curiously.

"I reckon Venice will give gravity a special award!" Gu Bei said with a smile.

"Will this really work?"

Liu Yifei was slightly surprised upon hearing this.

"It's just a special award. As the president of the film festival, he certainly has the power to do so. The screening of Gravity did bring a lot of attention to Venice."

Gu Bei shrugged and said casually.

Then, he put his arm around Liu Yifei's shoulder and pointed to the beautiful twilight view of Venice outside the open-air rest platform. Liu Yifei followed Gu Bei's finger and looked in that direction.

As dusk settled over the Venetian sky, the buildings and water outside the window intertwined, and the Gothic spires and Byzantine domes of the distant Venetian buildings were bathed in the twilight, resembling an oil painting.

On the canals, black gondolas, like ink-black shuttles, weave through the small arched bridges of the Venetian canals.

Looking at the beautiful scenery, Liu Yifei couldn't help but exclaim, "Those houses are orange!"

Gu Bei, holding Liu Yifei, leaned against the edge of the terrace and replied with a smile, "Yes!"

Having visited Venice so many times, this was the first time the two of them had seen such a beautiful sunset, making it a unique surprise on their trip.

the next day,
The Venice International Film Festival's closing ceremony will include an awards ceremony.
Marco Müller, in his own way, gave Gravity a shout-out by awarding the Persol 3-D Best Stereo Film award to both Avatar and Gravity, recognizing their contributions to 3D film technology.

These special awards, which are not part of the main competition, don't offer much prestige, but they at least contribute some buzz to Gravity, especially those associated with this year's most dazzling Avatar.

Simultaneously,

Anthony Hopkins won the Venice Volpi Cup for Best Actor, his first of the three major European awards.
For Anthony Hopkins, this kind of award is actually dispensable.

After all, he had already received numerous accolades in the London theater scene before entering the film industry, and he also won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his sixteen-minute appearance as Hannibal Lecter.

But for Gu Bei, this was a way of repaying Anthony Hopkins for the help he received back then.

Venice has come to a successful close.
Gu Bei and Liu Yifei immediately headed to the Toronto International Film Festival.

Gravity caused a sensation at the Toronto International Film Festival, just like it had at Cannes and Venice, with tickets in high demand.

"Look, The Hollywood Reporter praised you!"

Holding up the newly released news, Liu Yifei proudly showed it to Gu Bei, saying, "The report says that Gravity depicts outer space in a spectacular way, and is as groundbreaking as '2001: A Space Odyssey'."

They also said that you made an independent film with a Hollywood A-list production value and are promoting it in the style of an independent film, which will become a model for many future films.

"It's rare to hear such kind words."

Gu Bei smiled upon hearing this.

There has been a very contradictory sentiment surrounding gravity lately.
The film received almost unanimous praise for its content, with the special effects and acting being lauded to the skies.

But when it comes to the box office prospects of Gravity, The Hollywood Reporter has already given the best assessment, though they haven't mentioned that it will suffer huge losses.

"This is a fact!"

Liu Yifei corrected.

She could feel that as the movie's release date approached, Gu Bei's pressure was increasing. Clearly, the difficulties that Gravity was facing in terms of publicity and distribution were something that even Gu Bei had not anticipated.

"Okay, then I'll trust Liu Yifei's global box office appeal!"

Gu Bei could tell that Liu Yifei was comforting her, and couldn't help but tease her.

"Then trust me!"

Liu Yifei took the initiative to take over the responsibility.

Gu Bei felt warm inside when he heard this.

He smiled,

He helped Liu Yifei gather the strands of hair that had fallen down due to her movements.
Gravity was arguably the most uncertain project he had undertaken since his rebirth.

Fortunately, Liu Yifei was by his side during this difficult time, and the two of them shared the burden, which gave him more confidence.

Fortunately, even though Gravity is very risky, its cash flow can definitely withstand losses of this scale. Consider it paying for this rash expansion, and it can also help Rose Pictures gain experience in global distribution.

at this time,

He suddenly caught sight of a poster.
Liu Yifei followed his gaze and saw a poster with a dark and suspenseful style, clearly a horror movie.

The poster's background features an exquisitely designed American-style house, with dark clouds covering the sky, creating a gloomy atmosphere.

The main subject is a little boy wearing red and black checkered pajamas.

His eyes were vacant, and the word "REDRUM" (inverted "MURDER") could be seen in his pupils. The film's title was "INSIDIOUS".

The poster successfully creates a strong atmosphere of horror and suspense through the combination of visual elements, making people want to pay attention.

"How about we go see this movie?"

Liu Yifei suggested.

Watching horror movies is also a way to relieve stress.
By stimulating various hormones in the body through controllable dangers, the anxiety of people in modern society can be greatly alleviated. After entering the 21st century, horror films have ushered in their own spring.

"it is good!"

Gu Bei wasn't actually looking at this poster.
Instead, it was a familiar name on the poster: "James Wen (Wen Ziren)".

What's this 21st-century horror master doing at the Toronto International Film Festival?

Gu Bei walked towards the screening room with doubts. This was the Midnight Celebration section of the Toronto International Film Festival, which mainly screened various horror films.

This type of film doesn't have high box office returns, but it also has low production costs, so distributors can still make a profit by buying it back.

"I'm sorry, there are no seats left inside. You're too late!"

The staff shook their heads at Gu Bei and Liu Yifei, "There are no seats available for the premiere, but you can book a second screening two days from now. Would you like that?"

"Not needed for now!"

Gu Bei shook his head.

He took out his phone, ready to call for help.

Given his current status, there's no movie he can't watch.

at this time,

A person who had just entered the screening room stepped back and exclaimed in surprise, "You're Bruce, and you're Liu Yifei? I haven't mistaken you for someone else, have I?"

"Hello there!"

Gu Bei nodded to the other party.

"I am the screenwriter of this film."

Ray Whannell quickly introduced himself and warmly greeted Gu Bei, "You want to see our movie? Welcome, welcome! Please come in."

James will be so happy to see you; you're his idol!

Gu Bei's expression turned strange. "Wen Ziren is my fan?"
(End of this chapter)