sovbooks Chapter 27 Extortion
Chapter 27 Extortion
We are in the early days of commercial cinema, and there is no concept of midnight screenings. Cinemas usually open at eight or nine in the morning, and there are usually not many viewers in the morning.
Thanks to the success of "A World Without Thieves," the overall box office for the Lunar New Year film season has begun to rise, and cinemas are starting to bustle with activity.
Since its release on December 9th, "A World Without Thieves" has been a resounding success, sweeping away the slump in cinemas in November.
From its release until December 19th, the film grossed a whopping 73 million yuan at the box office.
This is a typical characteristic of the box office in this era, because the audience size is not large nowadays.
Through promotion, the film's producers have already attracted audiences interested in the movie to the cinema.
Therefore, the first two weeks of a film's run basically determine its box office ceiling, which is different from Hollywood.
However, even in Hollywood today, the opening weekend box office of a blockbuster can usually account for one-third or even two-thirds of its total box office.
However, Hollywood blockbusters have a longer theatrical run in North America, typically lasting four to five months.
In the Chinese mainland market, a film typically takes only two months to complete.
For slightly longer films that have obtained extended keys, it's already quite remarkable if they can stay in theaters for more than three months.
To put it bluntly, the market is only so big, and the audience is only so many.
Nowadays, Chinese audiences don't have the money to go to the cinema repeatedly for a single movie, and even if there are such audiences, they are a minority.
A manager of Chung Hwa Cinema said in an interview, "We need not only new movies now, but also new audiences."
This view was widely shared by theater operators, because the current audience size is no longer enough to support the era of commercial blockbusters ushered in by "Hero".
Fortunately, with commercialization and cinema reforms, cinemas are becoming increasingly attractive to audiences, and more new viewers are starting to go to the cinemas.
Especially among the post-75s and post-80s generations, unlike the older generation who favored traditional leisure activities like television and radio, these young people are more willing to pursue different things.
Going to the cinema is one of the great options.
Just as Zhang Jun had said when he was trying to fool Ye Bingcheng, young couples nowadays love to go to the movies on dates, and a blockbuster movie is the key to attracting them to the cinema.
However, "Little Miss Sunshine" is not a blockbuster, so it needs to be original to attract audiences.
As the saying goes, "Pick the softest persimmons."
After university screenings, a bread truck parade along the Songhua River, and other conventional promotional methods, Zhang Jun offered his suggestions again.
They used the "Garfield" franchise for marketing purposes, portraying "Little Miss Sunshine" as a vanguard in the fight against Hollywood movies.
Most of the time, Hollywood movies are not easy to mess with. If it were other movies, Zhang Jun would not consider this option, and would even suggest that "Little Miss Sunshine" be moved to another release date.
Unfortunately, Garfield was the easy target.
The movie "Garfield" is a typical American pet comedy, but it is classified as a children's film in the Chinese mainland market.
In addition, the absence of Hollywood stars and directors familiar to Chinese audiences naturally resulted in lower viewership.
This is how Zhang Jun explained it to He Xuan, Jiang Tao, and the people from China Film Group: "If we were to compete with foreign countries in technology, such as airplanes and artillery, it would definitely backfire."
If we were to compare ourselves to "Pirates of the Caribbean," which was released in North America this July, audiences would certainly think we were overestimating ourselves.
But Garfield is just right; it's not well-known, and we're not competing with it in the tech field.
Therefore, portraying our film as a hero fighting against Hollywood movies should inspire patriotism in many viewers and draw them to the theaters.
Patriotic marketing is a common tactic, but it is still a novel approach today. Zhang Jun believes this is related to the widespread foreign worship in the entertainment industry today.
Moreover, Zhang Jun's methods were not drastic and would not attract the attention of those public intellectuals.
He Xuan hesitated: "Will this work?"
"The reason we chose this release date was because the movie 'Garfield' wasn't very well-known, and I thought it was a good idea," said Cheng Yang, who was in charge of distribution at China Film Group.
"Although it's somewhat risky, if we succeed, the rewards will be huge," Jiang Tao said, expressing his support.
So the plan was decided, and Zhang Jun immediately asked Ye Xiaoyi to mobilize the students of the Tsinghua University Film Association to become online trolls.
In the days that followed, a strange trend began to emerge online, attracting the attention of netizens who enjoy surfing the internet.
Zhou Qiming from Fudan University is one of them. He had previously attended a preview screening of "Little Miss Sunshine" at Fudan University and thought the film was very good.
Today he saw a message online saying that "Little Miss Sunshine" and the Hollywood blockbuster "Garfield" were released at the same time.
Zhou Qiming felt it was a pity. This domestic film was good, but it probably didn't stand much of a chance against Garfield.
But speaking of which, what kind of movie is Garfield? How come he's never heard of it?
In the afternoon, Zhou Qiming saw another post on the BBS, calling on everyone to go to the cinema to support "Little Miss Sunshine".
The post was highly inflammatory: "China has already fallen behind the West in all aspects of science, technology and economy. We must not allow our spiritual world to be colonized by the West."
Zhou Qiming found the post very reasonable; after all, it was just two movie tickets.
So he sent his girlfriend a message on QQ: "Tingting, shall we go see a movie on Sunday?"
QQ quickly replied: "I was just about to tell you about this. Let's go see 'Little Miss Sunshine' together!"
Zhou Qiming was surprised: "Huh? You also read the posts online and know it's going to compete with Hollywood movies?"
"I don't know!"
Tingting across from her replied matter-of-factly, "I just think the director of 'Little Miss Sunshine' is really handsome, so I have to support him."
Zhou Qiming suddenly didn't really want to go.
However, Tingting was right. The young director who interacted enthusiastically with the students at Fudan University was quite handsome, like Hua Ze Lei from "Meteor Garden".
However, compared to Hanazawa Rui's melancholy, the young director was more mature and confident.
Zhou Qiming and Tingting are not isolated cases. The boycott of Hollywood movies has resonated strongly among students, with many college students immediately expressing their intention to go to the cinema to support "Little Miss Sunshine".
However, the reason this matter has caused such a big reaction is mainly because "Little Miss Sunshine" has already built up its reputation through its preview screenings at universities.
If it's a bad movie, everyone's eyes are sharp, and no one will respond no matter how loudly the slogan "It's a bad movie" is shouted.
With its university screenings, ingenious promotional tactics, and the claim of resisting Hollywood films, coupled with Feng Xiaogang's unexpected assistance, "Little Miss Sunshine" had a very smooth theatrical run from the start.
Since there weren't any big names, He Xuan originally wanted to hold a premiere like big-budget movies, but Zhang Jun felt that it was better not to do such formalism at this time.
They've done everything they were supposed to do; the rest is up to the audience.
The film "Little Miss Sunshine" has shown a different quality from current Chinese-language films from the very beginning.