Chapter 151: Life is unpredictable

"Charlotte's Troubles" and "Lost in Hong Kong" are both comedies with similar themes, and they both follow the same "midlife crisis + old dreams of goddesses + nostalgic golden songs + it turns out my wife is the best" model.
Therefore, it is easier for people to compare the two films, and this comparison can easily lead to trouble. At the beginning, it is certain that "Lost in Hong Kong" will completely beat "Charlotte's Troubles".
But with the large-scale release of "Charlotte's Troubles", especially after Lin Feng personally went on a roadshow to promote it, the situation seems to have reversed.

Although "Lost in Hong Kong" still has an advantage in the box office, after all, it was released several days in advance and the early screening schedule was too high.
At least for now, "Charlotte's Troubles" cannot pose a threat to "Lost in Hong Kong", but in terms of word of mouth, "Charlotte's Troubles" can be said to have won!
However, rather than saying that netizens are overwhelmingly praising "Charlotte's Troubles", it would be more accurate to say that they are using "Charlotte's Troubles" as an opportunity to vent their dissatisfaction with "Lost in Hong Kong".

"Charlotte's Troubles is the best Chinese comedy in recent years, significantly better than Laughing in London. The plot is clear, the characters are well-played, the rhythm is a little unstable, the large amount of soft light is a bit visually tiring, and the jokes are dense. This Chinese comedy may not be high-end, but it is decent enough."

“Don’t be afraid of comparison. With the same reminiscence of youth + love + comedy + praising wife + old songs, “Charlotte’s Troubles” is ten times funnier than “Lost in Hong Kong”. It directly leaves “Lost in Hong Kong” ten light years away to the Three-Body World!”

“The setting of “Charlotte’s Troubles” is novel, and it uses time travel to play a lot of tricks. Although the core is similar to “Lost in Hong Kong”, it is also about the midlife crisis and the rediscovery of love around you, and it brings out a lot of nostalgic things.

Moreover, "Charlotte's Troubles" brings back many memories of the late 90s. When watching it, the whole theater would burst into laughter every two minutes. It was really funny.

As for Lost in Hong Kong, my friend told me, it’s a good thing I didn’t watch it! ”

"I don't know how to write those high-sounding film reviews. I've watched both movies. Let's not talk about anything else, but let's talk about the reality of the theater. The whole audience burst into laughter at "Charlotte's Troubles", and only a few people laughed at "Lost in Hong Kong". It was so embarrassing!"

“Why do I think “Charlotte’s Troubles” is better than “Lost in Hong Kong”? There are so many people online saying that “Lost in Hong Kong” is good. Is there something wrong with my aesthetic sense?
There is nothing wrong with you, and it also shows that you have normal aesthetic taste. Because those who say that "Lost in Hong Kong" is good are not normal people, and may not really be human. "

"I don't believe anyone, whether experts or audiences, I just listen to my wife. She said that Charlotte's Troubles is better than Lost in Hong Kong.
Then I took her to see "Nine-story Demon Tower" and she told me directly that if I took her to see such a movie again, she would break up with me!"

"Xu Zheng has a talent for business. He combined Internet thinking with apps and started marketing a month in advance. As a result, the 2D version of this movie broke the record. I have to admire him.
Just returning to the movie itself, except for the advertisements throughout the whole process and the fact that Wang Baoqiang was not the lead actor, Xu Zheng wanted to express too many things. The legality of prostitution in Hong Kong, Young and Dangerous, the underworld, and the Infernal Affairs between the police are all Hong Kong classics.

But there are several confusing plot lines in the movie. I don't know whether it's a story about a middle-aged man looking for youth or collusion between the police and the underworld. Also, the poster for "Lost in Hong Kong" says it's hilarious throughout, so I just laughed.

Objectively speaking, Xu Zheng's film doesn't tell a clear story at all. The only bright spot in this film is that the protagonists are hanging on the building at the end. Hong Kong at night is so beautiful. "

...

In fact, due to the huge success of the previous "Lost in Thailand", many viewers had high hopes for Xu Zheng's new film, but the gap between expectations and results was too large.

If a normal director made a film like this, everyone would turn a blind eye, but this is Xu Zheng! How could a director whose first film grossed over 10 billion yuan be so perfunctory and fool his fans?

Moreover, it can be seen from the screening rates of the theaters that before the two movies are released, which one the audience is more looking forward to?

But the result is that "Charlotte's Troubles", with a group of sketch actors and top star Lin Feng, can crush a comedy star like Xu Zheng!
In fact, since "Lost in Hong Kong" was released on September 9, there has been a lot of controversy. Many people complained that Xu Zheng had run out of ideas and his performance was not up to par.
However, due to the public relations pressure a few days before the release, it did not explode into mainstream public opinion until the release of "Charlotte's Troubles". The two films were compared horizontally and the difference was immediately clear. This officially became the fuse that ignited public opinion.
Moreover, "Lost in Hong Kong" had already been released for so many days and had already attracted enough viewers. It was already difficult to suppress public opinion at this time, so Xu Zheng was immediately scolded and became a hot topic.

"In such a long movie, the only time I couldn't help laughing was when Eric Kot said his Mandarin was not good. As a comedy commercial film, it basically flopped. Director Xu was lost in fandom and shitty film theory books. The jokes were forced, the style was cheap, and the music was abused!"

"It is ten thousand times more vulgar and childish than Lost in Thailand! Bao Beier is shameless and clings to Xu Zheng, with a fake expression, cheap and dirty jokes, and he acts stupid and falls around. He has a low IQ, a low sense of humour, and a low bottom line. Especially the iron shell on his head that hits the telephone pole, and the fake nostalgia of youth and the lines and golden songs of old Hong Kong movies are sensational. With tens of millions of marketing, public opinion control, and powerful online trolls, the box office will definitely explode. Congratulations to the profiteer Wang Changtian and the main creators who have relied on this shameless film for several lifetimes to raise money for their caskets!"

"Cheap values, plagiarizing various jokes and movie clips, the whole thing is the most vulgar, the most low-brow, the most kitsch endorsement. I can't understand why "Lost in Hong Kong" is so rubbish, but the box office is so high. The domestic audiences really have no IQ to watch it, and their behavior and thoughts are even more stupid than their own. Damn, after saying so much, it's just one word, fuck!"

"I haven't watched such a bad movie in a long time. I'm so poor, but they still cheated me out of 35 yuan! Fuck Xu Zheng, fuck Bao Beier!"

...

Fortunately, Xu Zheng had Bao Beier to take the blame for him. Could this be the main reason why Xu Zheng specially invited him to star in this movie?

Actually, Xu Zheng originally offered Wang Baoqiang 500 million yuan to act in the film, but Wang Baoqiang did not want the salary. He wanted to invest 1000 million yuan and get 10% dividend.

In the end, Xu Zheng and Wang Baoqiang parted ways. Xu Zheng invited Bao Beier to star in "Lost in Hong Kong", while Wang Baoqiang collaborated with Lin Feng on "Detective Chinatown 3".

"Why not invite Wang Baoqiang? What is this Bao Beier? Where did he come from? Is it all because of the bald guy?"

"Because I think Lost in Hong Kong has Paul Bell. I never knew him before, but thanks to this movie, I got to know him. Then I couldn't finish watching it. The plot and performance were so awkward that I wanted to throw my phone away."

"Bauber wants to be famous just for being a eunuch? Why did they choose Baobeier? I want to vomit. They chose such a disgusting person to play the role!"

...

Xu Zheng has been through all kinds of ups and downs. He doesn't care who gets scolded, but is more concerned about the box office performance of Lost in Hong Kong. "Have the box office statistics for October 10th been released?"

The staff immediately began to report: "It's out. Our box office yesterday was 6513.31 million."

Xu Zheng frowned and asked, "Why is it so little? How were the data for other movies yesterday?"

The staff member continued to report: "Yesterday's box office ranking first was "Charlotte's Troubles" with 1 million, and the second was our "Lost in Hong Kong" with 1572 million.
Then came "Nine-story Demon Tower" with 5614.44 million, and fourth was "Saving Mr. Wu" with 1461.75 million. As for the others, they were basically all below one million. "

Xu Zheng was a little surprised and said, "The box office of "Charlotte's Troubles" has exceeded 100 million? I remember that its screening schedule yesterday was similar to ours. How could its box office be so much higher than our "Lost in Hong Kong"? "

The staff below also told the truth: "It is true. The screening rate of "Charlotte's Troubles" ranks third at 28.6%, slightly lower than our 28.8%. As for "Nine-story Demon Tower", it is now 23.8%."

"Charlotte's Troubles" VS "Lost in Hong Kong";
Screening rate: 28.6% VS 28.8%;

Box office: 1 million VS 1572 million;
The gap is so obvious that even elementary school students can see it. "The filming rate is lower than ours, but the box office is higher than ours. The attendance rate is so high..." Xu Zheng thought for a moment and then asked, "What was the total box office yesterday?"

The subordinate replied: "About 2.68 million."

At this time, Xu Zheng also sighed and said, "Oh, I can't help but admit it! Is the gap so big? That means they took nearly 1/3 of the box office with less than 1/2 of the screenings. This is too fierce! For a movie with such a high cost-effectiveness, they will definitely increase the screenings tomorrow, right?"

In fact, the reason why the screening rate of "Charlotte's Troubles" on October 10 and October 3 is similar is because several major movies are still in the final stage of the game.

But now the results are very obvious. "Charlotte's Troubles" only increased by 0.6 percentage points, but the box office increased by nearly 18 percentage points. What does this mean?
This shows that there is a huge market space for "Charlotte's Troubles", but theater owners are not stupid and will definitely continue to increase the number of screenings of "Charlotte's Troubles".

The subordinate also said to Xu Zheng: "According to the news we heard, today we will reduce the screening of "Lost in Hong Kong" and "Nine-story Demon Tower" by 1 point, and then add it to "Charlotte's Troubles", and it will continue to be reduced tomorrow."

Even though Xu Zheng was somewhat prepared, when the dust settled, he still sat there in silence for a long time, and for a moment he still found it difficult to accept this reality.

After all, Xu Zheng's "Lost in Hong Kong" had a screening rate of 57% before, and was once sought after by theater owners.
However, during the National Day holiday, the film's screening rate was cut by more than half, and now it only has 28.8% of the screening rate, barely maintaining the top spot.
If one more point is cut today, it means that he will give up the throne of the first place in the screening rate.

After all, if "Lost in Hong Kong" cuts 1 point, it means that the screening rate of "Lost in Hong Kong" will drop to 27.8%.

And "Charlotte's Troubles" increased by 1 points to 2% with the addition of "Nine-story Demon Tower", officially becoming the film with the highest screening rate.

Yesterday, even though "Lost in Hong Kong" had a high screening rate, its box office was still not better than "Charlotte's Troubles". Now that its screening rate has surpassed it, it will be even more difficult to suppress "Charlotte's Troubles" at the box office!
The key is that both films are comedies. If "Charlotte's Troubles" is scheduled to be screened more, the number of moviegoers will increase, which will inevitably affect the subsequent box office performance of "Lost in Hong Kong".

After a long silence, Xu Zheng finally sighed and said, "The young are formidable! I thought before that "Nine-story Demon Tower" and "Saving Mr. Wu" would be our biggest rivals, but I didn't expect that the dark horse "Charlotte's Troubles" would surpass us in the end!"

The subordinate quickly suggested: "Director Xu, do you think we should continue to increase our efforts, or find some Internet trolls to create some negative information about "Charlotte's Troubles"?"

Xu Zheng thought about it for a moment and gave up. "Forget it! It's too late now. We've already seen everything we need to see. Besides, the reputation of our film has already been ruined. It won't work if we promote it more.

Besides, the box office and reputation of "Charlotte's Troubles" have both increased. If we try to suppress it, we will only attract unnecessary enemies."

The reason why Xu Zheng refused was not because he was afraid of Lin Feng and the others. He didn't care whether he offended his peers. The key was whether the benefits were proportional.
If "Charlotte's Troubles" and "Lost in Hong Kong" were released on the same day, with word of mouth polarized, Xu Zheng might very likely consider hiring internet trolls to discredit the other party.

But after all, "Lost in Hong Kong" has grossed 10 billion yuan in box office revenue in 10 days since its release. Not only is the box office trend beginning to decline, but the online public opinion environment has also become ineffective.

Moreover, according to the predictions of professional box office organizations such as Maoyan and Douban, the final box office of the movie "Lost in Hong Kong" may be around 15 to 16 billion yuan, and it is basically impossible to reach 20 billion yuan.

There is big data analysis here. According to professional film research statistics, the average box office share of a movie in the first three days (first weekend) is about 3%;

前7日票房占总票房比例约为60%；前14日平均占比85%；前30日（一个月）占比为99 %。

Now, that is to say, "Lost in Hong Kong" has been released for 10 days and has already taken more than 70% of the box office, and the remaining box office is at most 30%.

In addition, there are only a few days left for the National Day holiday, so there is no need to provoke Lin Feng and Happy Twist at this time. It is not worth it and not necessary.

What's more, Xu Zheng is also an experienced person. When his "Lost in Thailand" was released, Feng Xiaogang's "1942" was released before it and Cheng Long's "Chinese Zodiac" was released after it. He managed to carve out a path for himself.

What does it rely on? It relies on the reputation of the movie. Once the storm of public opinion is formed, no one can suppress it.

But I didn’t expect that many years later, the same thing happened to Xu Zheng again, but his identity had changed. How unpredictable!

Moreover, as the reputation of "Charlotte's Troubles" spread, more and more "tap water" actively promoted it.

Not only did netizens take the initiative to promote it, but some celebrities who had nothing to do with Lin Feng and his team also took the initiative to promote it themselves.

For example, director Dapeng, who directed his first feature film, The Pancake Man, which grossed 11.6 billion yuan this year, directly recommended Charlotte's Troubles on Weibo.
“Most of the people who follow me on Weibo probably like comedies, and a small number love my looks. I hope you all go watch “Charlotte’s Troubles”. I was deeply shocked after watching it.

This kind of shock is called: Thank goodness that "The Pancake Man" was released in July, otherwise I would be embarrassed to wave the flag and shout now! "

Han Han, a famous writer, director and racing driver, also recommended it: "I just finished watching "Charlotte's Troubles". I was surprised, delighted and praised it highly. I decided to watch it a second time. I highly recommend it.

From the film crew to the actors, I don’t know anyone. Of course, I know Lin Feng, but he doesn’t know me. I sincerely recommend this movie. It would be a shame if the box office is less than 10 billion!”

Even Ma Dongmei's biological father Ma Dong showed up to recognize his daughter, "I just watched "Charlotte's Troubles" and it reminded me of my long-lost daughter named Ma Dongmei. It reminded me that a good movie script is really good.

Let's estimate the box office, 15 billion. Because Lin Feng is so handsome, we'll add 1 million, but because Shen Teng is ugly, we'll subtract 1 million, and it'll still be 15 billion."

With the help of a lot of word-of-mouth publicity, "Charlotte's Troubles" has completely exploded at the box office and ushered in its own highlight moment!

……

(End of this chapter)