Chapter 381 Box Office Comparison
In this age where whoever has money is successful, the word Kung Fu has gradually faded from the public eye and is no longer the focus of mainstream attention.

Xu Ke is a director who experienced the glory and decline of Hong Kong films and then went north to make films.

"Flying Daggers of Dragon Gate" is his new work, the combination of Kung Fu and special effects, bringing the stories of the past together with modern technology.

On September 9th, the premiere press conference of "Legend of White Snake" was held grandly in Hong Kong Island. Yongsheng's boss Xiang Qiang attended to support the event, while on the mainland, the release time was advanced to 28 pm on the 28th, hoping to take advantage of some small advantage.

At this moment, Xu Ke, together with the main creative team, is doing a roadshow in the movie theaters in Shanghai. Wherever they go, there are countless fans, including many kung fu movie lovers. This also shows that even now, there are still many fans of action movies.

At the scene, Li Lianjie was in a good mood and performed a set of boxing techniques, which made a group of Kung Fu movie fans admire her and lament the decline of action movies.

"Li Lianjie's Fanzi Quan" topped the hot search list, triggering nostalgia among many netizens, who lamented the glory of Hong Kong action movies in the past.

A few hours later, a netizen made a "Hong Kong Film Classic Boxing Editing" and uploaded it to the Internet. It included a large number of classic boxing action shots, and was accompanied by classic Kung Fu film interludes such as "Stealing Kung Fu". It was forwarded crazily, triggering more and more nostalgia among people.

When Bona's publicity and promotion staff saw this, they followed suit and quickly played the nostalgia card, issuing a press release by Li Lianjie. At a recent media meeting, Li Lianjie talked about some behind-the-scenes stories of the era of Hong Kong action films. Once released, the popularity of the movie "Flying Daggers of Dragon Gate" has been increasing.

After all, the hot topic of "nostalgic kung fu film" alone has brought a lot of positive attention to this movie.

When the publicity and promotion personnel of Juli and Huayi saw this, they also followed current affairs and issued a wave of press releases about Li Lianjie. Even though Bo Na was dissatisfied, there was nothing they could do. We all have Li Lianjie participating in the film, so why can you release it but I can't?

The next day, the box office of "Legend of White Snake" was released, and it only took in more than 8 million yuan on the first day. Although it was only shown for six hours on the first day, the result of only more than 1 million yuan per hour was still far below the expectations of Juli and Huayi.

What’s even worse is the collapsed reputation. The Douban score is only 4.5 points, and there are countless one-star and two-star negative reviews.

Gu Wei also looked around the company and couldn't help but wonder, the negative reviews were too uniform.

There is no need to guess, Yu Dong and Wang Changtian must have used some tricks, otherwise how to explain the overwhelming and consistent negative reviews?

Afterwards, Gu Wei flipped through it again and found that most of the complaints from netizens were about the bad plot and the White Snake being too coquettish. After reading for a while, he gradually realized that it must be because Huang Shengyi’s "popularity with the public" was too bad!

Ordinary netizens' inherent impression of her should be that she became famous for her role as the mute girl in "Kung Fu", and then took advantage of a rich boyfriend to go to court with Stephen Chow.

As a result, the first impression of the vast majority of netizens is "ungrateful", and coupled with the later label of "mistress", it can be said that she lost 99% of her fans and almost all her "popularity".

The popularity of a star among the public is a magical thing that cannot be seen or touched at ordinary times.

But with it as a shield, some minor mistakes that are not related to the major principles can be forgiven by the audience and fans. But if you make a big mistake like "cheating" and lose all your popularity, your star journey will be ruined.

Far away, the former "fifth king of heaven" Ekin Cheng lost a large number of fans because of the "confrontation between the two Qis". His image as a good man was shattered.

Recently, there is "Wen Zhou Yi" who will be seen soon, and the current one is Huang Shengyi who has been bearing the unbearable infamy for several years.

In this case, Yang Zi actually dared to use Huang Shengyi, who is almost unpopular among the public, as the female lead. It seems that the two are truly in love!

On the other hand, "The Revolution of 1000" failed to even break million ticket sales on the first day, which poured a bucket of cold water on the producers.

"Let alone surpassing The Founding of a Party, it would be good enough if it can reach half of the other one. This makes Han Sanping look like a joke again."

When Ren Zhonglun saw the data, he had already guessed the final outcome. The first-day box office was simply too low. It had been a long time since a commercial film with such a large investment had a box office that failed to exceed 10 million.

Ren Zhonglun was very upset at the moment. In fact, after the premiere, everyone's reactions gave us a rough idea of ​​what was going on.

Originally, he had placed his hopes on the box office success of Jackie Chan and Li Binbin, but he didn't expect this would be the result.

"The Revolution of 1911 failed at the box office. What is the future of mainstream films?"

Someone posted a message online and also quoted the slogan of the General Administration’s meeting in the first half of the year. 28 main-theme movies were assembled, and the box office was expected to exceed billion at the minimum. But looking at the current situation, unless there is a miracle, it will be difficult to achieve the expected goal.

The comments from netizens below are very interesting, and the vast majority of filmmakers think that the problem lies with the story.

The filming cost was not low, and the actors invited were all big names, but the result was a box office failure. Who should be blamed for this?
At this stage, no one can find where the problem lies. No one would think that this is a problem related to the national economy, international status, or national rejuvenation. They can only attribute it to the script or story content.

.........

In the circle, the news that Yu Nan was leaving for Hollywood naturally could not be concealed from the media reporters.

It wasn't widely reported, but quite a few female stars in the industry paid attention to it. Didn't you see that Zhang Ziyi was already arrogant after winning the leading role in an international film, and it was an art film. In terms of raising the price, the leading actress of commercial films would raise it faster.

The poor box office performance of films such as "Legend of the White Snake" and "The Revolution of 1911" made people in the industry turn their attention to another film, "Painted Wall".

Both Giant Pictures and Light Media are producing commercial films exclusively for the first time.

From the very beginning, neither side gave in. The tit-for-tat atmosphere has continued since the film's promotion and has intensified until now.

"Painted Skin" grossed 1200 million yuan on its first day, and director Chen Jiashang said in an interview that he was already satisfied."

No one could have imagined that a movie with an investment of only 30 million yuan could beat the star-studded "The Revolution of 1911".

As soon as the data came out, Wang Changtian of Guangxian was overjoyed, while Ren Zhonglun of Shanghai Film Group was even more upset.

As for Yang Zi of Juli, he continued to increase the scale of publicity and promotion, and released press releases continuously.

Relying on "Legend of White Snake", Yang Zi won the first-day box office championship among three competitors. In addition, with the help of a number of big-name production teams, it was shortlisted for the non-competitive unit of the Cannes Film Festival.

Therefore, in the subsequent promotions, other films were often disparaged. This arrogant attitude made the producers of all films in the same period deeply disgusted.

The next day, the box office competition among the three movies continued. "Legend of White Snake" also continued to be released. It closed at 29 million on the 1500th, which was considered an easy win.

But on Friday the 30th, it was only over 1300 million, which was a very dangerous signal. At this time, Bona's blockbuster "Flying Swords of Dragon Gate" was released on the National Day.

This time, Bo Na did not have any midnight shows, but relied on a month of hard-earned advertising, plus the roadshow of the main creative team and Li Lianjie's appeal.

Strive to achieve a higher box office during this National Day holiday.

On the morning of October 10, most of the movie theaters in some of the country's "big ticket cities" were packed. It was a seven-day holiday, and a big movie was released. It can be said that those who did not go out for travel, the first reaction was to go to the movies.

When they got to the cinema, almost everyone bought "Flying Swords of Dragon Gate" without a second thought. There was a boy who wanted to buy "White Snake" because of Li Lianjie, but the girl next to him said, "What's so good about a movie starring a mistress? I hate that kind of woman the most." Seeing the unfriendly look on his girlfriend's face, the boy dared not insist.

"Legend of the White Snake" may not be as bad as the online reviews say, but choosing Huang Shengyi as the female lead is really a failure. It has nothing to do with how well she acted. The audience hates her "public image" and gives bad reviews without even thinking about it, and boycotts and refuses to watch the show without even thinking about it. This is the most fatal thing.

"Flying Daggers of Dragon Gate" received the vast majority of screenings, with its posters and promotional boards placed in the most prominent positions in the theater.

At noon, the Douban score of "Flying Daggers of Dragon Gate" was announced online, which was only 7.1 points, which is not very high.

But at least it passed. For a commercial blockbuster, this score will not hinder the publicity.

In the villa, Gu Wei and the young lady leaned against each other, Liu Yifei kept sending messages on her mobile phone, and Gu Wei flipped through the short reviews of "Flying Daggers of Dragon Gate". The reviews were almost all about the explosive special effects and average plot, while the long reviews were mixed with good and bad reviews.

……

On the morning of the 2nd, the first-day box office results of "Flying Daggers of Dragon Gate" were released, which was million. Although this first-day data is still some distance away from breaking the record for domestic films, it still attracted attention from people in the industry.

It is not obvious when viewed individually, but if it is put together with other movies, "Legend of White Snake", which is also known as a blockbuster, only had a box office of more than 12 million on that day. The gap is obvious at a glance.

As soon as the news came out, Yang Zi, who was very powerful, even cursed in private.

In the eyes of quite a few filmmakers, the reason why "Flying Daggers of Dragon Gate" could achieve such a good first-day result was not only due to the appeal of actors like Li Lianjie and Zhou Xun, but also because of the halo of 3D special effects blockbusters. However, in the current mainland entertainment circle, many filmmakers can't even make 2D blockbusters, let alone 3D movies.

Feng Xiaogang, who was filming "1942" at the time, was also surprised to hear the box office results.

Wang Zhonglei also sighed: "3D blockbusters are really profitable. This year, Bonanza has "Flying Daggers of Dragon Gate". I'm afraid Yu Dong will be very proud for a while!"

The two of them had watched the premiere of "Flying Daggers of Dragon Gate". Feng Xiaogang was silent for a while and then said, "If you ask me, it still has something to do with the word 'martial arts'. Although martial arts films are not so good anymore, it seems that Xu Ke still has some skills.

Juli Pictures, after seeing the first day box office performance of "Flying Daggers of Dragon Gate", although Yang Zi was furious, the box office is not something that can be changed by just talking.

As for Guangxian, when Wang Changtian learned about the first-day performance of "Flying Daggers of Dragon Gate", his first reaction was that it was just okay. You Bo, this movie is awesome, but Guangxian is not a pushover either. When it comes to profitability, it's hard to say in the end.

……

(End of this chapter)