Chapter 194 The brightest star

Why did the movie "Mr. Six" achieve a comeback at the box office?

As a movie that has won the Golden Horse Award for Best Actor, the total box office of "Old Cannon" just exceeded 1 million in the past two days.

Is this really a bad box office result?
On the contrary, this is already a very excellent box office result.

First of all, in the Chinese film genre market, feature films like "Mr. Six" have never been the mainstream of the market.

Secondly, as a drama film full of Beijing flavor, "Mr. Six" has obvious regional characteristics.

Most importantly, "Old Cannon" chose Christmas, a holiday season that young couples are keen on.

Among the films competing in this period, light-hearted and lively blockbusters or funny comedies are the first choice. No matter how you look at it, "Old Cannon" is more like a cannon fodder in this period.

Under such circumstances, the box office of "Old Cannon" in the first two days was actually a surprise, but no one probably expected that "Old Cannon" could have such a magical box office curve today, and it was really amazing to reverse the decline for several consecutive days.

Why was “Old Cannon” able to make a comeback?

As of now, "Mr. Six" has a score of 8.6 on Douban, which is a rare level of praise for domestic films in recent years.

Most importantly, "Mr. Six" won praise from practitioners, critics and audiences.

Almost everyone agrees that this is director Feng Xiaogang's best and most energetic performance since his debut.
He is playing himself. It can even be said that the unwillingness of the old guns is the unwillingness of the old guns in Chinese films. This time, Feng Xiaogang's Liu Ye speaks for the old guns.

More importantly, after the box office flopped on the first day, Mr. Six immediately changed its promotional strategy.
The box office was able to achieve a reversal by shifting the publicity focus from Feng Xiaogang to popular stars such as Lin Feng and Wu Qian, coupled with the high reputation of "Old Cannon".

In other words, word of mouth is the key factor in the reverse growth of the box office of "Mr. Six".

Despite the low screening rate in the early stage, "Old Cannon" maintained a very high attendance rate;

When attendance and word of mouth push the theater to increase screenings, attendance continues to be maintained, and the box office counterattack eventually becomes a trend.

It is worth mentioning that in the box office counterattack of "Old Cannon", there is another important driving force that cannot be ignored - "Bad Angels" which was released at the same time as "Old Cannon".

As an important box office competitor of "Old Boys", "Bad Angels" can be said to have made an indelible contribution to the box office comeback of "Old Boys".

No matter how you evaluate "Bad Angels", this movie is destined to become a landmark commercial movie in this Christmas season.

It has been a long time since a movie has caused such a big controversy and box office contrast:

On the one hand, the box office was booming in the early days of its release, with a very high screening rate and a very high first-day box office; on the other hand, it continued to face criticism in terms of word of mouth, and its Douban score has now dropped to 3.9.

Meanwhile, the directors of Bad Angels, Deng Chao and Yu Baimei, adopted a crisis management approach that was as high-profile as their film promotions, posting more than 80 positive reviews of the film on their personal Weibo accounts.

But what makes Deng Chao helpless is that the reputation of the movie "Bad Angels" has not recovered, and his Weibo followers have decreased by 16.

The box office success of "Bad Angels" can be said to be very natural. Based on the pre-launch publicity momentum,
"Bad Angels" is also the comedy blockbuster that best matches the Christmas atmosphere, so it is predictable that it will be very popular in the film market.

Unfortunately, the film's continued poor reputation and Deng Chao's overreaction in word-of-mouth management ultimately led to a serious lack of box office momentum for "Bad Angels", with the single-day box office falling from first place in the "Christmas League" to the bottom.

If we go back to the technical aspects of the film, is there really such a big difference in Douban scores between Mr. Six and Bad Angels? Of course not.

Movie ratings reflect not so much the difference in the quality of the movies themselves as the difference in the collective feelings that the movies bring to the audience:
"Bad Angels" made some viewers very happy, while "Old Cannon" made many viewers very happy, but the results were different.

What's worse is that, as audiences now pay more and more attention to social word-of-mouth on the Internet, when "Bad Angels" continues to have negative word-of-mouth,

In fact, it further created the opportunity for "Old Cannon" to overtake others, and "The Villain" became the angel that made "Old Cannon" a box office success.

Before "Mr. Six", domestic films with high reputation have always faced a fatal dilemma - word of mouth cannot reach the audience, and high reputation cannot achieve high box office.

The media has given a common name to this type of movies that cannot sell due to sentimentality: “circle of friends movies”.

Before this, there were two classic examples of domestic films that were able to make a comeback in 2015 thanks to word of mouth: "Charlotte's Troubles" and "The Return of the Great Sage".

It seems that they all gained high reputation by virtue of their high quality, and then used the reputation to achieve a box office comeback.

What’s even more coincidental is that both movies are related to Lin Feng. One was starred by Lin Feng, and the other was recommended by Lin Feng.

However, films like "Mountains May Depart" and "The Master", which also have high reputations, are not as lucky as these two films. Why?
From the perspective of timing, although it was released during the Christmas period, "Old Cannon" quickly achieved a box office comeback after Christmas. This is obviously not a coincidence. After the holiday, the opportunity for drama films has come.

From the perspective of geographical advantages, facing the rapid decline in the box office of "Bad Angels" and the normal decline of "Mojin: The Last Dragon", there is no strong obstacle to the counterattack of "Old Cannon".

But the most important reasons are people and:

After being influenced by Hollywood movies for a long time, Chinese moviegoers have been increasingly inclined towards fast-food movies.
This is also a stage that any film industry must go through when it is rapidly improving. However, the audience will eventually return to rationality, and the stories and performances will always be seen.

As one movie after another in the circle of friends continues to educate the audience about aesthetics, the audience has become increasingly adept at accepting a movie with average "appearance" but solid "content". When "Mr. Six" appeared, everything came naturally and it was a big deal.

"Mr. Six" is far from perfect. It is more like a roar of unwillingness rather than a classic worthy of worship. However, in the current domestic film market, it is a movie that deserves the audience's thumbs up.

Whether a region's film market is mature depends on whether its audience is mature. The box office counterattack curve of "Old Cannon" is

What we are witnessing is the gradual maturity of Chinese audiences: the audiences finally have the patience to watch the wonderful Mr. Six.

In this box office counterattack of "Six Masters", it is important that the movie is strong enough, and Feng Xiaogang's "dissatisfaction" is important.

But the most important reason for the film's success can be best summed up by a line from Feng Xiaogang's film: "We have to thank the masses!"

Moreover, the counterattack of "Old Cannon" is not over yet. In the following days, even on weekdays, its box office performance has remained high, and it has been the single-day box office champion for several consecutive days. On the sixth day of its release, December 6: the box office of "Old Cannon" was 12 million, and the box office fell again; the box office of "Bad Angels" was 29 million.

上映第7日，12月30日：《老炮儿》票房为5607万；《恶棍天使》票房为1587万。

上映第8日，12月31日：《老炮儿》票房为6489万；《恶棍天使》票房为1600万。

During the New Year's Day holiday, the box office of "Old Cannon" fell again. At this time, "Old Cannon" has been released for 8 days and the cumulative box office has reached 5.31 million yuan, and the total box office results have surpassed "Bad Angels".

Moreover, based on the current reputation and box office performance of "Mr. Six", we cannot say that it will definitely exceed 10 billion, but it is basically not a big problem, with a probability of around 80%.

This probability is also based on statistics from professional film research. The average box office share of a film in the first three days (first weekend) is approximately 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 %。

Even if the final box office of "Old Cannon" did not exceed 10 billion, it could at least reach 8 million.

For a movie with an investment of about 6000 million, this is definitely a huge profit, and it is a result that satisfies investors, fans and audiences.

However, there are also people who are unwilling to face this reality, such as Lin Feng’s “big black fan” Wang Hailin, who still insists on being stubborn when facing media reporters and netizens’ comments.

"Writer Wang, Mr. Six has been released for eight days now, and the box office has exceeded 8 million yuan. What do you think of this?"

How should I look at it? I look at it horizontally. Anyway, I can't look at it vertically. Wang Hailin didn't want to answer these questions.

However, the reporter will not let go of this hot topic, and will specifically look for hot topics to continue asking questions:
"You said before that professional box office forecasting agencies predicted that Mr. Six would not reach 5 million yuan, but now Mr. Six has exceeded this threshold.

Even according to professional box office forecasting agencies, the box office of "Mr. Six" was predicted to exceed 10 billion, and even to be close to 11 or 12 billion in the end. What do you think about this?

And the bet you made with Lin Feng, if the box office of "Old Cannon" really exceeds 10 billion, will you eat the microphone live?"

Seeing that the media reporters were endless, Wang Hailin couldn't help but said stubbornly: "You don't need to tell me about the bet, I still remember it!
But our bet is 10 billion, not the current 5.31 million. Everything will be decided after the box office of Mr. Six exceeds 10 billion."

Although Wang Hailin refused to admit it, he has been working in the film and television industry for many years and can see the box office potential of "Old Cannon". However, Wang Hailin's character is the opposite of Lin Feng, and he cannot take the initiative to admit defeat.

These provided a lot of hot spots for "Old Cannon", allowing "Old Cannon" to further reap box office revenue.

At this time, as the box office of "Old Cannon" continued to rise, Feng Xiaogang straightened his back again and started to fight again.

"I told you, 'Old Boys' is a good movie, it will definitely be a big hit at the box office! I never gave up!
Those who don’t like to watch “Mr. Six” are garbage audiences. I’m not saying that the audiences are garbage, I’m just saying that there are quite a few garbage audiences among them.”

When Feng Xiaogang said this, he completely forgot how dejected he was when "Old Cannon" failed at the box office.

But Feng Xiaogang is not stupid. He also knows that the reason why the box office of "Old Cannon" changed so much is due to Lin Feng.

It was because of Lin Feng’s hard work in promoting “Old Cannon”, and the shift of the promotional focus of “Old Cannon” to Lin Feng, that “Old Cannon” brought about a box office explosion.

As for why Feng Xiaogang did not mention Wu Qian, it was because he did not bring any good changes to "Mr. Six", and even brought many bad changes.

Because of Wu Qian's performance, although "Old Cannon" can attract Wu Qian's fans, his performance will also cause many passers-by not to watch the movie "Old Cannon".

For example, if one fan of Wu Qian watches the movie "Mr. Six", there will be an indirect loss of three passers-by watching the movie.

If it is a low-budget movie, I only care about the box office of Wu Qian's fans, and don't care about the popularity of the public, which is only 200 to 300 million at most.

But for movies with high investment costs, they need not only fans of celebrities, but also the support of more passers-by fans.

Therefore, Wu Qian's "positive and negative" actions seemed to cancel each other out, so the final promotional focus of "Mr. Six" was still Lin Feng.

Otherwise, how could Feng Xiaogang praise someone so much? Lin Feng did make "Old Cannon" a perfect counterattack.

Moreover, on December 12, "Mr. Six" was not the single-day box office champion, but another newly released movie by Lin Feng, "Detective Chinatown 31", was released.

In fact, as early as December 12, when the single-day box office of "Old Cannon" surpassed "Bad Angels" and won the first single-day box office championship since its release,
Lin Feng has already bid farewell to the crew of "Mr. Six" and joined the promotional roadshow for the movie "Detective Chinatown".

These were all agreed upon in advance. After all, Lin Feng's fixed salary for "Old Cannon" was only 600 million.
No matter how much the box office of "Old Cannon" is, it has nothing to do with Lin Feng. Apart from winning box office appeal for Lin Feng, Lin Feng has no direct interest in it.

Of course, if “Old Cannon” has a high box office, it will definitely increase Lin Feng’s popularity. But being able to promote “Old Cannon” so much is already a great thing for him!

Lin Feng’s pay for the movie “Detective Chinatown 500” is “5 million basic pay + % box office share”. There is a box office share in it, so Lin Feng must be very concerned!
Of course, what concerns Lin Feng the most is that because he has different rankings in the two films, the responsibilities he bears are also different.

Lin Feng's ranking in "Old Cannon" is only tied for fourth place. Although "Old Cannon" has added some benefits to him, it is not much. Feng Xiaogang also added more benefits.
On the contrary, in "Detective Chinatown", he and Wang Baoqiang are on par with each other, and both are absolute male protagonists.

If "Detective Chinatown" is successful, the bonus to Lin Feng will be more than a little bit, which is incomparable to "Old Cannon";

What's more, "Detective Chinatown 2" is a series of movies. If the first one is successful, then it will be a series after that. Series movies are very powerful in Chinese movies.

Therefore, whether it is the pay, the status, or the subsequent series development, Lin Feng will definitely put more energy on "Detective Chinatown 3".

Before Lin Feng acted in "Detective Chinatown", he only had two works in hand, "Swords of Legends" and "My Sunshine".
Lin Feng appeared at the premiere of Detective Chinatown on December 12th, but he brought two hit TV series, The Journey of Flower and Nirvana in Fire,

As well as the two box office hits "Charlotte's Troubles" and "Old Cannon", there is even the bonus of three seasons of "Running Man".

The treatment he received was different. He was almost the brightest star of the entire premiere.

……

(End of this chapter)