Chapter 1045 Chapter 120 Premiere

When the time entered May, the film market began to enter a booming state, and movie theaters everywhere began to welcome more and more moviegoers, which was a world of difference from the empty movie theaters in the past two months—in a broad sense That said, the summer holidays start in May.

This year's Chinese film market had a surprise of "Crazy Stone" at the beginning of the year. Feng Bicheng's new film was released on the first day of the Lunar New Year. However, no matter how powerful "Crazy Stone" is, it is impossible to support the months-long market lull in the post-holiday period with a single movie.

In fact, due to the repeated prohibition of high-definition piracy on the Internet, the real movie viewing peak brought by "Crazy Stone" to the film market after the festival is only half a month. After half a month, although it is still the most popular , but the sensational effect has passed, and when the first month comes out, although there are still people watching, and the scale of the release is not small, its driving effect on the entire market is already negligible——It’s funny to say, in "Crazy "Stone" dominated the box office list for 40 to 50 days in a row, but the daily box office of this movie was barely maintained at around five or six million.

From this we can see how miserable the box office of other movies in the same period should be.

In fact, in recent years, Qi Jie and Li Qian have become more and more aware of the profitability of domestic movie theaters after they have begun to control more and more theater chain resources and have more and more screens.

Every year after the Spring Festival, until the opening of the summer film in May, almost every movie theater in the country loses money. In this situation, it depends on the explosion of the summer film to make money and initially realize profits. When the New Year's Day file, that is, the Lunar New Year file, it is really a big profit.

Of course, in the face of this situation, each company has its own countermeasures. For example, the simplest method is also a method that Minghu Cinemas has been implementing recently, that is, in large urban areas with conditions and audience base, Prioritize the screening of literary and artistic films with a certain standard, and gather some audiences who love literary and artistic films. In small cities, where there is no such audience base, the old films in the company's hands, such as "Once Upon a Time", "Huang Feihong", " Famous movies such as "Red Sorghum", if they are shown again, they can still gather some residual value.

Of course, the newly released movies are definitely the easiest to get the box office, but they have to be good movies. The distribution and release of movies depends on the capabilities of theaters.

In this regard, so far, the best in China is still the Oriental Cinemas. They can even do it off-season without losing money. It is conceivable that when it enters the summer vacation, it will make a lot of money almost every day.

And the biggest unexpected gain of Minghu Cinemas this year was actually Qi Jie's intervention in the "care" once, allowing the theaters to get as many copies of "The True Story of Zhong Kui" as possible.

Just this time, the theater chain has gained nearly 20 million more box office revenue than the same period last year, and more than 9 million box office revenue--a little more profit, of course, a little less loss.

But movies like "The True Story of Zhong Kui" are not available at any time, let alone "picked up" easily, so in fact, in this off-season stage, evil and evil are still the main tone of the market— — Both the producers and distributors feel that it is an off-season. Good movies with big productions want to get a high box office, and they are unwilling to release them at this time. Without the promotion of blockbusters and high-quality movies, the market becomes more and more cold.

As a result, the theaters are empty every day, and every day they open, they will lose a net one day.

However, when the time entered May, the situation was different immediately.

Regardless of whether it is a domestic production or a Hollywood production, the movies that are released during this time period are all blockbuster movies with a lot of investment and a large number of stars. As a result, the annual summer box office war began to gradually kick off.

And when the time enters June, although the real highlight of the summer film has not yet arrived, the fight between various filmmakers in the film market is almost head-to-head.

It doesn't have to be.

As far as Li Qian knows, the current time and space of the Chinese film market he is in is completely different from the time and space of the domestic film market he once experienced.

In his vague impression, Li Qian probably remembered a statistical report he had read, so he barely remembered that in China in another time and space, until 2005, there were only more than a thousand movie theaters in China and the total number should be It was a big screen of no more than 3,000 yuan. It was not until 2012, when the number of screens in China increased rapidly year after year, that it finally broke through 10,000 yuan. In my impression, it was as high as more than 12,000 yuan. When he left that time and space In 2015, it was widely believed that the number of screens in China would exceed 30,000 within the year—this was a process of an absolutely astonishing explosion of market capacity.

But in the current time and space, before the domestic film market fell off a cliff in 1997, due to the level of economic development, the number of domestic screens was already close to 6,000 yuan. By 2003, it had experienced a wave of strong film production. After the recovery, the number of screens registered in the domestic statistics has reached more than 13,000 yuan. By the end of 2004, the number of screens in China had exceeded 15,000 yuan!

Therefore, leaving aside movie ticket prices and international currency exchange, we only discuss this market in terms of the number of moviegoers that the market can accommodate. In this time and space, China’s film market in 2005 was five times larger than in another time and space— —Referring to the exchange ratios of domestic currencies and U.S. dollars in the two time-spaces, if they were 8:1 and 2:1 at this time in 2005, the movie ticket price is generally maintained at 15 to 20 Chinese yuan after the discount. To go far beyond that other time and space.

Therefore, China's current film market capacity is already very large.

In the 2005 film market in another time and space, because of the limited number of screens, it is almost impossible for the market to accommodate two big-selling films at the same time. This situation will last until 2010, or even 2012. , as the number of screens exceeded 10,000 yuan and more, the overall size of the market increased, and it began to accommodate two or even more movies released at the same time, and the results were quite good.

In the current time and space, as early as 2002, "Once Upon a Time" and "The Gate of Life and Death" had already staged the most powerful domestic film schedule collision in the Chinese film market so far. "Once Upon a Time" seemed to lose out One, but the box office is still very high-at that time, the market has actually proved that it can accommodate two movies at the same time, and the box office will not be too bad.

But unfortunately, due to inertia, everyone feels that the summer release is the best way to maximize the box office and maximize profits.

And the more critical issue is that although the overall production of domestic films has shown an explosive trend in recent years, there have always been very few good films! Therefore, after experiencing several tragic collisions between big directors and big-invested commercial films, everyone discovered almost at the same time that we don’t have to fight. Even if the summer vacation is only about four months, there are few good films. The 20-30 day schedule is enough, anyway, 20 days after the release, piracy must be rampant.

As a result, an extremely tacit market rule was formed.

Domestic films by big directors, big companies, and big producers will be released in the summer, and they will go head-to-head with Hollywood movies that are also allowed to be screened at this time. The beginning of small investment films and literary films.

In short, the market is already huge, but there are not enough good movies, and Hollywood movies are limited in time, so blockbuster movies make money in the summer, and small movies try to rise in other times, while theaters make up for it from ticket prices. After one summer holiday period, you can smoothly realize profits even if you lose money in other periods.

In Li Qian's view, such a market situation is deformed, and it is a characteristic of the film industry that is not yet developed. There are quite a few new directors, and many small and medium-sized production companies are slowly rising. When they make money in this market and find a way to make money stably, this market will soon become truly and thoroughly prosperous.

Of course, by that time, the Minghu culture, which has been adhering to the development idea of ​​controlling production, improving quality, and leading the way for the domestic film industry, may account for a smaller and smaller proportion of the entire domestic film market, but it doesn’t matter. Li Qian even felt that when Minghu culture lost its dominance, it would be possible and qualified for Chinese films to talk about the concept of "rise".

This year, 2005, is a small year for the film production of Minghu Culture.

Because "Shaolin Temple" announced in advance that its release date will be August this year, even though Qin Wei came with his new work "The Great Wall", they still tacitly chose to stagger the schedule with "Shaolin Temple", and they chose to release it in July ——As mentioned earlier, even a one-month schedule is enough.

Of course, not meeting with "Shaolin Temple" does not mean that it will not meet with other big movies. In July, "The Great Wall" will be responsible for many Hollywood blockbusters. Even for domestic films, there are several works that are highly anticipated by the industry.

Besides "Shaolin Temple", there is only one movie that Minghu Culture will release within the year.

That is "Autumn Fairy Tale".

Talented female director, beautiful director, big star "Thirteen Aunt" Lu Lingxi's first big-screen work, the leading role is "Red Sorghum", the actor and actress team joined hands again after a few years - the promotion of the film itself Points, of course, are enough.

At the beginning of June, before the movie was released, Li Qian even wrote an article and posted it on his blog to cheer for "Autumn Fairy Tale".

As soon as this blog post was published, it quickly attracted a sensation from Li Qian's fans and fans.

In fact, there is nothing too remarkable, and there is nothing enlightening. In the article, Li Qian simply described a few interesting events during the filming period, which is a bit like a memoir.

But the problem is, as the number one celebrity in China's entertainment and cultural circles promoted by the company "Blog", and as a blogger with more than 30 million followers on his blog, Li Qian's usual blog posts , It’s really not much—but as long as he speaks, even if he just sends a few words or a photo, it will quickly become the focus of attention of the whole network.

Moreover, his blog changes will be quickly spread across the country through online media, print media, and electronic media on the same day and the next day.

Therefore, with his blog post, "Autumn Fairy Tale" has easily become the most concerned and anticipated movie among the batch of movies that will be released in June.

And when the time came to mid-June, Li Qian handed over the guide tube to Sun Yuting again, and rushed back to Shuntian Mansion to attend the premiere ceremony of "Autumn Fairy Tale" in person.

When Zhong Yuanfu explained with a little embarrassment that Zhou Baoshan sprained his ankle while running two days ago, so he couldn’t make it through, Li Qian laughed it off. It's perfectly normal for my son to dare not come to see me.

Not to mention the present, even in the future, no matter what kind of high-end atmosphere they are mixed with, in front of the mentor who single-handedly promoted himself from an unknown person to a superstar, there is definitely nothing to show for it— —And it is said that Zhou Baoshan's spectrum is already very large.

I saw Zhu Qiang at the premiere ceremony, chatted briefly, asked about the progress of "A Chinese Ghost Story", and then Li Qian asked him to stay for dinner at night, but he directly refused, saying that he was going to rush back overnight.

Li Qian knew his temperament and Jin Han's set rules, so he let him go.

It's just that the more troublesome thing is that I can't get away as the leading actor, and Zhu Qiang, the nominal first supporting actor, can't find time, which will lead to the promotion and road show of "Autumn Fairy Tale" , will be purely based on the two girls Lu Lingxi and Qin Jingjing - it seems somewhat inappropriate.

But when it came to this topic, the two of them were very calm and didn't think there was anything wrong.

When I visited the film and television city earlier, Lu Lingxi said, "I know you are busy, so I didn't dare to count on you!" When we met at the premiere ceremony this time, Qin Jingjing smiled and said, "It's okay, I and Lu Sister is fine. You are so busy, with an investment of 500 million yuan, how dare you drag you to participate in the promotion, what a waste of time!"

Li Qian was also helpless about this, but it was indeed impossible for him to put aside the filming of "Avatar" and go to help with publicity. Therefore, he had no choice but to tell Zou Wenhuai to take charge of leading the team himself.

Zou Wenhuai is fully aware of this.

He said: "Don't worry! I guarantee that those people from theaters and TV stations won't even be able to touch their hands!"

Li Qian smiled helplessly.

…………

The movie-watching atmosphere at the premiere ceremony was very good.

Although judging from the reaction of the audience, it seems that everyone's perception of this movie is not obvious. After all, this movie is indeed as plain as water, and there is almost no place for surprise, exclamation or gimmick, but when Li When Qian looked back, he could feel the silent power in the entire auditorium.

So he whispered to Lu Lingxi: "It is said that romance films are a niche theme, but if you look back, I can guarantee that as long as you can make every movie theater be as quiet as it is now during screenings, It's hard not to sell this movie!"

Hearing this, Lu Lingxi looked back obediently for a while.

Then, she seemed to understand something, and seemed to think of something, and nodded to Li Qian.

Are romance movies niche movies?

Have to admit, to some extent, yes.

The reason why the audience is small is that there are almost no templates for love movies to follow—two commercial blockbusters with similar plots, similar ideas, and similar structures, as long as they change their skins, and they are well-produced and special effects are excellent, they can be equally popular. But not romantic movies.

Most of the hero stories that have been handed down in this world have more or less similarities and surprising features, but each love story has its own characteristics.

As far as movies are concerned, every romance film that can leave a name in film history has its unique narrative context, as well as its unique and different joys and sorrows.

Although in the final analysis, there must be routines for things in the core, such as gifts from the lady's back garden, such as the poor boy and the ladies, such as the love between ghosts and ghosts, and so on.

But every love story, to be successful, must have its distinctive qualities.

And this kind of trait will only come from the creator's unique idea, not from a simple routine.

Therefore, love movies cannot be copied and cannot be mass-produced on a large scale.

But niche films will always have a bad box office-the most typical example, so far, "Titanic", which has been released for several years in this time and space but still ranks first in the global box office list, is an out-and-out movie. Buckle up love movie!

While the special effects are its big selling point, it's a love movie.

In fact, the love story of "Autumn Fairy Tale", whether it is the original version in another time and space or the current version directed by Lu Lingxi, in Li Qian's opinion, it is absolutely excellent and unique.

It has a complex, ineffable power to induce tranquility and contemplation.

It is as plain as water, but it can accurately hit the softest part of everyone's heart.

As a matter of fact, in Hong Kong in another time and space, a mediocre romance film like "Autumn Fairy Tale", which was generally loved to watch commercial films at the time, still won an astonishing 25 million Hong Kong dollars in one fell swoop. Achievements - Brother Xiao Ma was of course popular enough back then, and his contribution to the promotion of the film in the early days was of course very strong, but today, Li Qian's influence and appeal in China are no better than those after "The True Colors of a Hero" Where is my pony brother!

And, a good movie is a good movie.

Publicity is very important, but the quality of the movie itself is the most fundamental.