Chapter 636 Cheng Long's Nemesis and Business Compliment Each Other
Because this year's National Day falls on Sunday, the holiday was early, so the curtain of the National Day file was opened on the day before October 1, which was Saturday, September 30.
There was even a movie that was released in advance on September 29 because it wanted to seize the opportunity.
"Sky Hunter" directed and acted by Da Hei Niu
In the current environment where cross-border directors are very popular, this old guy couldn't hold back his ambition and saved up a project.
What surprised Boss Wei was that this guy finally saved up.
You know, Da Hei Niu didn't participate in "Running Man" in this time and space, and he didn't have any contact with Fan Xiaopang. At best, he was a second-tier star and couldn't rank in the circle.
Previously, because of calculating Liu Tianxian, he asked Liu Shishi and Boss Wei to take the blame, but he was made disgraced and infamous.
Under such circumstances, he was able to come up with this project, and the producer still had an air force.
Even though this year is the 90th anniversary of the founding of the army, and all parties are willing to support military themes, Boss Wei still admits that he has two brushes, and it is no wonder that some people speculate that he has a background.
Da Hei Niu also knows that his name is not enough, so he pulled Li Bingbing to play the female lead, and the actor configuration is much stronger than in his previous life, and he also invited many big names to make guest appearances.
But in this way, the cost can't be stopped!
According to the publicity of the film company, this movie has an investment of more than 200 million. In his previous life, Da Hei Niu could fool Fan Xiaopang for free or invest at a discount, but Li Bingbing didn't buy it, and the same is true for other actors.
Just the salary of these people alone, 50 million is probably not enough, and this is 30%.
It is said that this movie was filmed abroad, the scene is not small, and a large number of foreign actors were used. In addition, the air force special effects are probably not less. Is the remaining money enough?
The most important thing is, can it make back the investment?
Wei Yang didn't know that this 200 million package did not include publicity and distribution. Even if it was included, the box office would have to be more than 600 million to make back the investment.
In the current film market, this number is not large, but it is definitely not small.
It can be seen that investors are still very cautious about the movie "Sky Hunter", with a total of nearly 20 producers and co-producers.
High EQ: Da Hei Niu has a wide network of contacts and can find so many financial backers
Low EQ: Investors are extremely conservative about the prospects, so more than a dozen companies work together, and even if they lose money, the losses of each company are not big
However, Da Hei Niu himself is still very confident and is very active during the promotion period.
This is mainly because of the confidence given to him by the summer movie "Wolf Warrior 2", which is a military theme and the main theme, and also has the so-called overseas hostage rescue scenes.
"Wolf Warrior 2" is just a rifle + hand-to-hand combat, with a tank and a warship at most, "Sky Hunter" is a fighter.
The combat effectiveness is not at the same level at all!
The box office of "Wolf Warrior 2" is 5.8 billion, and he also knows that there is too much chance, so he can accept a 2.9 billion discount.
It is not easy to save this project, and Da Hei Niu has paid a lot of price. He wants to make a comeback with this movie.
Therefore, in order to increase exposure, Da Hei Niu did all kinds of things to promote himself. He promoted Wolf Warrior 2 in China, saying it was the Air Force version of Wolf Warrior, and Top Gun abroad, saying that Sky Hunter was the best air combat film in China and that he was the Chinese version of Tom Cruise.
As a result, when the movie was released, the entire crew was dumbfounded.
The first-day box office was 22.08 million!
This is the first-day box office, the peak single-day box office of most movies, and Sky Hunter was released in advance, and the hard-core movies of the same period had not yet been released. He deliberately created a time difference, and with this result, is there any hope for the future?
The box office was a flop, and the reputation was also extremely bad. Douban, Weibo, Zhihu and other platforms all opened fire.
[Worth the ticket price, by the way, the ticket was free]
[A bunch of sissies playing house with chest hair]
[Although I don't like Wu Jing, compared with "Wolf Warrior", it is really insulting]
[Star crossover directors should just keep quiet, not everyone has the talent to be a director, Li Chen doesn't understand what dramatic tension is, the narrative structure is a mess, the heroine appears inexplicably, and the thin character setting leaves me speechless]
[How should I put it, in fact, there are no particularly big thunder points, but it is very mediocre and boring to make people drowsy]
[This movie was released too timely, it saved countless film projects, put the brakes on the military fever after "Wolf Warrior 2", and blocked a bunch of "War Tiger", "War Dragon" and "War XX"]
[It's what it deserves, the disgusting stone man deserves it]
[……]
Most of the above are the comments given by people who have watched the movie. Although it's not nice, it's also meaningful. More fans of Liu Tianxian who gave negative reviews are adding insult to injury.
Da Hei Niu plotted against Liu Tianxian last time, and they still remember the grudge.
The fans of 85 Flowers are not good people. They are numerous and powerful. They don’t seem to get any advantage when they quarrel with their opponents, because their strength is similar.
But attacking Da Hei Niu, who has few fans and poor popularity, makes people see what "fan circle network violence" is.
There is also a group of people who are not happy that Da Hei Niu boasted too much before, and now "Sky Hunter" has failed. How much Da Hei Niu boasted before, how badly he is ridiculed now.
All these things have made the already bad situation of "Sky Hunter" worse. Many means have been used, but the reputation has not been reversed.
The next day, with the momentum of the National Day holiday approaching, it was an opportunity to increase the box office, but the reputation fell seriously, and the movies released at the same time made the box office of "Sky Hunter" less than 20 million.
It can be said that at this point, it can be declared that this movie was out of the National Day period in advance.
Not to mention half of the box office of "Wolf Warrior 2", looking at this situation, "Sky Hunter" has almost no hope of making a profit, and it is probably difficult to even make 300 million.
Not to mention that Da Hei Niu's dream of turning over was shattered, just the various investors were enough to make him drink a pot.
Although film and television investment emphasizes mutual consent, whether it makes a profit or a loss, or even the personal vision and luck of the investor, the person in charge cannot be blamed.
But that being said, there are too many unreasonable financiers.
Moreover, Da Hei Niu has attracted more than a dozen financiers at once, so it is inevitable that he will make some conditions or sign some gambling contracts. Now he has lost money, which is troublesome.
…
If it were another time, Boss Wei would like to see more of Da Hei Niu's excitement.
It was secondary that they had a little conflict with each other. The key was that because of the previous life, the petty boss Wei had no good feelings towards the "rivals" including Wu, Liu, Luo, Feng, and Zhang.
He didn't specifically target them, but if they didn't have a good time, Boss Wei would definitely be in a better mood.
But at this time, Boss Wei really didn't have the leisure time.
Thinking about Zhao Liying's upcoming due date, Wei Yang took "Dying to Survive" and started the most intensive roadshow in his career.
Wei Yang's main opponents in this National Day file were not many.
"The Shameful Iron Fist" was still withdrawn. This was not what Boss Wei meant. He was confident in this movie, but Happy Twist and Blue Whale were not confident. After careful consideration, they decided to postpone it to the Lunar New Year file.
In fact, it would be best to put it in the Spring Festival file, but there was no way, the Spring Festival file was too crowded.
Blue Whale alone invested in "Operation Red Sea" and "Journey to the West: The Demons Strike Back" produced by Stephen Chow, and Huayi also moved out "Monster Hunt 2".
It will be too crowded to go to "The Shameful Iron Fist" again.
It can only accompany Li Jiahang's "Ex-Files 3" and compete with Feng Kuazi's "Youth" and Chen Dadao's "Legend of the Demon Cat".
"The Shameful Iron Fist" is not there, and the project "Sewing Machine Band" that should have been released in the original time and space was intercepted by Blue Whale and is still in production.
However, it is said that Dapeng still made a new movie that Boss Wei has never heard of. It seems to be a two-person turn theme and is expected to be released during the Lunar New Year.
The gap of "The Shameful Iron Fist" was filled by "Dying to Survive", but no one filled "Sewing Machine Band".
It's not that no one is interested, but they dare not join in the fun when they heard that Wei Yang was coming.
Just kidding, Boss Wei's "Detective Chinatown 2" just broke the record in film history at the beginning of the year. Although it was surpassed by "Wolf Warrior 2" in the summer, this movie also has the shadow of Boss Wei.
At present, Wei Yang's momentum is booming. Although it is not as good as the heroes of the small screen, it is not far behind.
At least for some crews that are not so confident, they can avoid it if they can.
If the TV series fails, at least there is a platform to back it up. If the movie fails, the producer will really lose money, so they have to be cautious.
Therefore, the situation of the National Day file is particularly clear. There are only two movies left that can compete, and they are all acquaintances of Boss Wei.
"Chasing the Dragon" starring Wang Pangzi, Liu Tianwang and Zhen Zidan, this configuration is considered the ceiling in Hong Kong movies, and it is not so bad that they will run away when they see Wei Yang.
The other one is Brother Cheng Long!
It is a coincidence that Boss Wei and Cheng Long have met repeatedly in the past two years.
"Wushuang" VS "Skiptrace"
"Detective Chinatown 2" VS "Kung Fu Yoga"
Counting this time's "Dying to Survive" and Brother Cheng Long's "The Foreigner", it is already the third battle between the two in two years.
However, these three times are not the limit. Going back, in the 2015 Spring Festival file, "Detective Chinatown" also defeated "Dragon Blade".
In the previous "Time Travel Cohabitation" and "New Police Story 2013", Boss Wei won again.
However, in these two movies, Wei Yang's main opponent was not Cheng Long. There were other people competing with him for box office at that time, so Cheng Long's presence was not high.
So in fact, the two sides have fought five times.
In the first four times, Boss Wei can almost be called a complete victory. I guess the big brother is used to it. If he wins this time, it can be regarded as a comeback. If he loses, he has lost four times before, and he won't lose many people this time.
However, it can be seen that the big brother is still very depressed. It's not that he can't afford to lose, but you can't catch me alone.
In recent years, all his movies have been hit by Boss Wei, with the only exception being "Railroad Tigers" in the Lunar New Year last year.
And this movie happens to tell the story of Wei Yang's hometown, so many netizens joked that Cheng Long escaped a disaster by relying on "fellow hometown feelings".
So this time when Cheng Long was promoting, he made a joke, hoping that Boss Wei would tell him the release time of his next movie in advance so that he could hide.
Of course, this is just a joke. In fact, for the movie "The Foreigner", Jackie Chan's ambition is not only in China.
It can also be seen from the movie that it is set overseas, and many lines and actors are English-speaking foreigners. Therefore, when it was released in China, it was released almost at the same time in North America, the United Arab Emirates, Europe and other regions, preparing to have a good performance both inside and outside the wall.
Some people on the Internet also joked that Jackie Chan was beaten by Boss Wei and couldn't beat him in China, so he went abroad.
He didn't believe that Boss Wei could still beat him in North America!
Boss Wei really couldn't go to the United States, but in China, he made Brother Cheng Long see the appeal of "Mr. Billion Box Office".
September 30, the first day box office -
"Dying to Survive" 210 million
"The Foreigner" 59.65 million
"Chasing the Dragon" 43.17 million
Seeing this data, Cheng Long was numb. He knew that he would lose with a high probability, but he didn't expect to lose so outrageously.
Although the previous two movies were not as good as Wei Yang, the gap was not so big.
However, what made Cheng Long even more heartbroken was that this was just the beginning. In the next few days, the gap not only did not decrease, but it became bigger and bigger.
From October 1st to October 4th, the single-day box office of "Dying to Survive" never fell below 200 million.
The box office broke 1 billion in five days. Although it was not as violent as "Detective Chinatown 2" which broke 1 billion in three days at the beginning of the year, it was still fierce enough.
The trouble with "The Foreigner" was that it was completely overshadowed. After five days of release, the box office was just over 200 million, and it was not ideal in North America.
Brother Cheng Long was so worried that his hair turned white, and he once doubted whether Wei Yang was his nemesis.
However, Cheng Long did not know whether Wei Yang was his nemesis, but on the surface, Wei Yang still respected him very much.
During the road show promotion of "Dying to Survive", he praised "The Foreigner" in front of media reporters for being well made and said that he liked it very much. He said that he was a fan of Brother Cheng Long and hoped to make a movie with him one day in the future.
His attitude was very humble and his tone was very sincere, which made Brother Cheng Long a little excited.
How to say it, you were beaten five times by others and had no power to fight back, but they turned around and said very sincerely that you were very good and I was your fan.
Either think of the bad side and feel that the other party is being sarcastic, or be flattered and feel a little bit of pity for each other. Cheng Long is the latter.
Wei Yang understands me!
So, Cheng Long also praised Boss Wei in front of the media, saying that Boss Wei is very talented, young people are formidable, and he is the future pillar of the Chinese film industry.
Everyone is lifting the sedan chair, and it is not only Cheng Long who is praising Boss Wei commercially, but Fatty Wang also joined in soon.
The reason is that after Boss Wei praised "The Foreigner", he also praised "Chasing the Dragon", thinking it is a wonderful movie and the best Hong Kong-style hero movie in the past decade.
He and Fatty Wang have a good relationship. They also worked together on "Famous", and because of the good characterization of the movie, Fatty Wang regards him as a confidant.
They have met each other in the same period over the years, but they are all friendly and compete normally.
As soon as Wei Yang praised, Fatty Wang immediately took over, and this guy was much more sincere than Cheng Long. He went to the cinema to watch "Dying to Survive".
Perhaps he was really stunned by the movie, and he posted a 3,000-word movie review on Weibo that day.
One thousand words of it are praises for "Dying to Survive", and the remaining two thousand words are praises for Boss Wei's talent and acting skills.
Including but not limited to --
Wei Yang is one of the two most talented filmmakers he has ever seen, the other is Stephen Chow, Wei Yang's acting skills are extremely talented and contagious, and the last person who gave him such a feeling was Liang Chaowei...