Chapter 605: Breaking Million in Half a Day
On the National Day, the industry was very lively. The news of the completion and establishment of various films and TV series, as well as all kinds of gossip and big news channels were overwhelming.

The day before yesterday, the Golden Rooster Awards just ended with a controversial award result, and the public opinion has not yet dissipated.

On the same day, the nomination list for the Golden Horse Film Festival was officially announced.

Also announced was the complete list of judges and special guests.

There are many films and actors from the mainland nominated, but Li Bingbing is the most prominent one on the jury.

Among the award presenters and special guests, there are three big stars from mainland China, two superstars from Hong Kong Island, and international superstar Jackie Chan. This year's Golden Rooster Awards can be said to be star-studded.

As soon as the list was announced, it sparked heated discussions among netizens from both sides of the Taiwan Strait and Hong Kong and Macau.

"Awesome! This should be the mainland film festival with the most celebrities in attendance in recent years."

"It is indeed a unique event. Apart from a few big directors from the mainland, most of the other big names have gone there."

...

Reports on "Gu Jian Qi Tan" appeared in the media.

"The large-scale ancient costume fantasy drama "Gu Jian Qi Tan" starring Yang Mi, Li Yifeng, Zhong Xintong, Ma Tianyu, Qiao Zhenyu and others, has been filmed for three months and officially wrapped up in Hengdian this morning."

"Huanrui said that the drama has signed an exclusive first-round broadcast agreement with Mango TV."

Later, the latest news about Chen Kaige’s "The Taoist Goes Down the Mountain" also came out, which attracted the attention of the entire film and television industry.

As the chief producer, Chen Hong officially released the announcement:

"Director Chen Kaige's new film, "The Taoist Goes Down the Mountain", has officially opened for casting. For some female roles, we have decided to use new actors. The roles available for audition have been announced. Companies and actors in the industry are welcome to submit their audition resumes."

The open auditions have already attracted the attention of a large number of actors, but the use of new actors has attracted even more attention in the industry.

All of a sudden, many celebrities in the circle took action, and students from major universities also prayed that this opportunity would fall on them.

...

In the industry, many film and television giants are focusing on the premiere of "The Wandering Earth", while Internet companies are focusing on the ticket purchasing software launched by Xingchen Film and Television Company.

To be honest, compared with the revenue generated by the Internet, the total output value of the current domestic film market in one year is not enough.

Even during the years when the mainland film market was most prosperous, a movie could sell for tens of billions, but it was still child's play for the Internet. This can be seen from the sales of activities such as Double Eleven in later generations. Others made tens of billions or hundreds of billions a day. The gap between the two is too big.

The purpose of Internet companies paying attention to ticket purchasing software is to see whether this model is feasible. If it is feasible, they will imitate it to expand and maintain their respective company's users.

To be honest, domestic movie tickets were relatively expensive in the early years. Ordinary tickets cost 60 to 80, and IMAX or 3D tickets often jumped to 100 or more.

Later, group buying appeared, but it only lowered the ticket price to around 40 or 50 yuan, and you still needed to use the redemption code to go to the front desk of the theater to choose seats and exchange tickets, which was really troublesome.

It was not until the emergence of ticket purchasing apps that allow online seat selection and "ticket subsidies" that a large number of low-priced tickets priced at 9.9, 19.9, etc., that moviegoers really got a good deal.

This has also become an important driving force behind the box office boom in the Chinese film market.

From 14 billion in 296 to 17 billion in 523, it is largely due to the low-priced tickets that have cultivated the movie-watching habits of a large number of audiences.

However, the audience can enjoy low-priced tickets because someone is paying for it, because the theaters are unwilling to lose money and they have a minimum settlement price. The minimum settlement price varies depending on the popularity of the film and the location of the theater.

For example, if a cinema's lowest settlement price is 35 yuan, and it sells online for 9.9 yuan, the difference needs to be made up by the e-commerce platform or the film company. Although this sounds like a loss-making business, the e-commerce platform and the film company have their own plans.

What e-commerce companies want is the market and users, while what film producers want is the box office, screening schedule and attendance in the first few days, so as to quickly attract audiences to watch the movies in a short period of time.

Anyway, hard advertising costs money, and subsidizing the box office also costs money, and the latter has a higher conversion rate and can be directly reflected in the box office. Because whether the money is spent by yourself or by the audience, it is a real box office figure.

Although the money-burning "ticket subsidy" activity changed its nature later, its sudden appearance in 13 must still shock many people.

As for Xingchen Ticketing, it mainly promotes to the audience through hard advertising, trailers, Weibo marketing and other methods.

Fortunately, the popularity of "The Wandering Earth" has always been high. It is produced by Xingchen Films, directed by Gu Wei himself, and starred and guest-starred by well-known celebrities from home and abroad. In addition, a series of news that happened in the past two days has been making its presence felt among the audience, so many people have the idea of ​​watching it.

Now that the low-priced tickets of 9.9 yuan have been released, many people are really surprised.

9.9 yuan is just the price of a fast food meal, and you can’t even eat good food. It’s really worth watching a movie. I’ll buy it first!
When the final trailer of "The Wandering Earth" was released, too many people went online to grab tickets every day.

Ten million, twenty million, thirty million. By October 10, the pre-sale box office of "The Wandering Earth" had exceeded fifty million.

After this number was announced, it shocked many people in the circle.

Fifty million. Many films may not even get this much box office on their premiere day. But The Wandering Earth has this much in pre-sales. This world is crazy.

.........

Inside Xingchen Films.

Gu Wei came to the company early in the morning. As it was the National Day, a statutory holiday, everyone in the company was basically on holiday except for the staff on duty and the staff involved in the release of "The Wandering Earth".

“Boss, according to statistics from major cinema chains, The Wandering Earth’s first-day box office has exceeded 50 million, and is still rising rapidly.

Combined with today's film schedules and attendance at major theaters, the first-day box office can be said to have exceeded 100 million yuan."

When hearing this number, Gu Wei had a blank expression on his face, obviously he had expected it.

But when other people in the office heard it, they felt like they were dreaming.

"It's already exceeded 100 million just like that?" Jiang Xueruo said in disbelief.

Song Ge on the side was also shocked. Although he was in charge of the ticket purchasing operation of Xingchen, he felt it was unreal when he heard the data reported by his subordinates.

"It starts at midnight and it's only been less than ten hours. This is too exaggerated." Chen Guofu glanced at the time. It was less than nine fifty in the morning.

In other words, apart from the data from the midnight previews, many cinemas may not have even finished the first show. The box office is too scary.

"The statistical data includes the pre-sale box office, right?" Song Ge asked after reacting.

"Yes, everything is included." The staff member replied immediately.

"Oh, that's what I knew." Now many people breathed a sigh of relief, it turned out that half of them were pre-sold, which means that many people bought tickets but might not go to see it today. Maybe they would find time to see it tomorrow or the day after tomorrow.

"This ticket purchasing software is quite interesting." Chen Guofu thought for a moment and suddenly realized it, then continued: "Think about it, even if many viewers buy pre-sold movie tickets but don't watch the movie today, they have paid for it, which is equivalent to watching it once, isn't it?"

"That's true." Everyone present was smart and understood Chen Guofu's statement immediately. Although it was suspected of stealing the concept, the pre-sale of tickets was new and people didn't know much about it. Afterwards, a group of people chattered and discussed non-stop, but Gu Wei pondered for a while and asked, "What is the current scheduling rate? Is the data out?"

"It's out. Because there were no competing blockbusters during the same period, the screening rate has reached a staggering 72.1%, which is on par with the 2% of Transformers 72.8 that year and the 3% of Transformers 71.3 the year before. It's definitely being treated like a top blockbuster." The assistant said excitedly, holding the latest data sent by the theater chain.

Xingchen Ticketing Technology Co., Ltd., under the arrangement and instructions of Gu Wei, the general manager of the company selected the top 500 theaters with the highest box office in the country and persuaded them to arrange a large number of screenings for "The Wandering Earth" during the National Day holiday and to guarantee prime-time screenings.

To achieve this, Xingchen Ticketing has adopted the approach of emphasizing the role of online pre-sales in box office sales and persuading theaters not to lose the initiative in the competition.

What makes the theater manager even more excited is that Xingchen Film and Television Company and several producers of "The Wandering Earth" each put out 3000 million yuan in ticket subsidies, setting up two low-priced movie tickets at 9.9 and 19.9 yuan.

This is equivalent to the film company spending money to help the theater promote its films, ensuring the theater's attendance rate. Theater managers will naturally be more willing to reserve screenings for "The Wandering Earth."

In the end, more than 500 of the 480 cinemas selected by Xingchen Ticketing chose to sign the contract.

It can be said that the reason why "The Wandering Earth" was able to have this screening rate is that it cost a lot of money.

With more than 70% of the screenings, it can be said that for every ten screenings in a cinema, "The Wandering Earth" accounts for more than seven of them, and the remaining dozen or so movies in the same period share the remaining less than three screenings.

"Boss, with such a high screening rate, the producers of other movies won't complain to us, right?" Wang Chen asked with some concern after hearing this astonishing screening rate.

"It's okay. Other domestic films in the same period have had their release dates postponed or advanced. There are no competitors at all. As for the distributors of imported films, do you think their complaints will be useful?" Gu Wei said casually.

"It's better to be cautious, in case someone does something bad. How about you ask Director Han to inform the higher-ups in advance?" Song Ge suggested.

"Haha, do you really think the higher-ups don't know?" Gu Wei waved his hands, feeling that it was totally unnecessary.

.........

After staying in the company until around three o'clock in the afternoon, Gu Wei said hello to Song Ge and then went straight back to the villa to pick up Liu Yifei. Today was Han Sanping's sixtieth birthday, so naturally they would not be absent.

In the villa, by the time Liu Yifei had finished packing, it was almost five o'clock.

Gu Wei picked up the phone and called Song Ge, making an appointment to set off together.

There were only two people here. Gu Wei drove with Liu Yifei, while there were more people on Song Ge's side. Ning Hao drove with Xing Aina, Lu Yang, Wu Jing and Guo Fan, while Song Ge and Zhang Yimou were in a car together. As for Chen Guofu and Wang Jinghua, they did not follow the main group.

However, everyone's appointment time is about the same, so if nothing goes wrong we should probably arrive at the same time.

Han Sanping chose a leisure villa in the suburbs as the venue for his banquet, mainly because going to a place that was too busy would seem a bit too high-profile.

Starting from around four or five in the afternoon, people from the circle began to arrive at the villa one after another.

Gu Wei and his group set out early, and it was not yet six o'clock when they arrived at the location.

"Is that Urshan?"

As soon as we got off the bus and everyone gathered together, we saw a few people not far ahead being led by a waiter and walking inside.

Ning Hao, who was next to Gu Wei, asked uncertainly.

"It's him." Gu Wei, whose eyesight was better, said affirmatively.

"Haha, they really got mixed up, no wonder!" Song Ge said sarcastically.

Gu Wei, Song Ge and Wu Ershan had talked about this in the company before. Wu Ershan said that he wanted to make a big splash after finishing "Painted Skin 3" and hoped that the company could invest money in him to shoot a 3D blockbuster.

But after learning the amount of funds the other party needed, both of them fell silent. At that time, Song Ge's words were a bit harsh, mocking the other party for overestimating his own capabilities, and the two sides had an unpleasant argument.

"Don't worry about him. No one has cooperated since Painted Skin 3." Gu Wei said lightly.

Wu Jing, who was standing next to him, had been in the crew before and had no idea what happened in the company. Upon hearing what Gu Wei said, he immediately asked Lu Yang next to him, and the two of them discussed in a low voice.

Afterwards, Gu Wei took the lead and walked in front, holding Liu Yifei's hand and striding inside with everyone else.

After greeting the daughter of the Han family at the door, everyone entered the banquet hall with a smile.

Han Sanping has quite a lot of guests today, and almost all of those who can come are big names in the circle.

Almost all the well-known companies in the industry, including Yinghuang, Bona, Guangxian, Wanda, Star Media, Huanrui, Orange Sky, Xiaoma, and Huayi, came.

Entering the hall, Gu Wei looked around and saw Chen Kaige, Feng Xiaogang, Gu Changwei, Jiang Wen, Tian Zhuangzhuang, Chen Kexin, Wu Yusen, Xu Ke...

Basically all the well-known directors in the circle were present, and many of them came here specially from the film crews.

Han Sanping was chatting and laughing with Ren Zhonglun and several other bosses of state-owned enterprises, and they didn't look like they were once rivals at all.

The arrival of Gu Wei and others instantly attracted the attention of most people, mainly because their target was a bit too big.

There is a top international director, a top domestic director, and several commercial film directors. If the film market is regarded as a league and film and television companies as teams, then Star Film and Television Company is undoubtedly a top team. Even if it is viewed from a global perspective, in addition to its size, it is not inferior to those big Hollywood companies.

"Director Gu, here we are."

"Director Zhang!"

"Yifei!"

The banquet hall was very large, covering over a thousand square meters. Gu Wei and his friends walked from the entrance to the innermost part, and heard endless greetings along the way.

On the way forward, everyone dispersed.

Gu Wei and Song Ge went straight to the direction of Han Sanping, while Liu Yifei was called over by Fan Binbin, Li Binbin, Huang Xiaoming and others.

Zhang Yimou was a low-key person, so he went to Jiang Wen's table. Ning Hao, Lu Yang, Wu Jing, Guo Fan and others found an empty table and sat down directly. The big guys gathered in front, so everyone knew what was going on.

As for Chen Guofu, Wang Jinghua and others, they sat down and chatted with their familiar friends.

"Director Han, Director Ren!"

"Come on, come and sit down!" Han Sanping and Ren Zhonglun stood up and greeted them.

Yu Dong, Wang Zhongjun and others nearby felt uncomfortable when they saw the attitude of the two people. They did not enjoy such treatment.

.........

(End of this chapter)