The King of Huayu Science Fiction

Chapter 536 Challenging the King of Animation and Breaking Records

"Okay, okay, if you go on, I'm afraid it's not "Matrix III" that will win an Oscar."

"Oscars know how to appreciate such a movie? Back then, they would have given the award to "Gravity" instead of "Matrix"...I really kid you, "Matrix III" is definitely not inferior to "Inception". The viewing experience I only have three words to describe it - it's so cool!

Look at it, the Douban score will never be lower than 9 points. "

Zhou Junpeng had a video chat on the computer with his university classmate Zheng Wei who was far away in Hangzhou while having lunch.

The two of them are not only from the same hometown, but also roommates in the same dormitory. They can be regarded as the best buddies who have had the best relationship in the four years of university.

Of course, after graduation, it is inevitable to go their separate ways. Zhou Junpeng, as the first graduate of the "Digital Media Art and Design" of Beijing Normal University, just caught up with the first school recruitment of DreamWorks. In October last year, shortly after the start of his senior year Successfully got an offer from DreamWorks.

Although my friend Zheng Wei failed to get an offer from DreamWorks, he also successfully joined another well-known animation company Helios in this year's spring recruitment. "Magic Legend" is produced by this company.

"Young Lei Zhenzi" encountered the most crowded animation schedule in history, and was overwhelmed by "Wall-E" and "Dinosaur". The box office was less than 3 million, but the cost will be recovered.

However, the box office of "Journey to the West·Zhu Mo Zhuan" in the summer file is not bad.

This story tells the story of the discord between the master and the apprentice on the way to learn the scriptures, which led to Sun Wukong's heart and turned into a six-eared macaque. , Slaying the Demons, and the Journey to the West IP animation film, which is back on the road, has become a dark horse at the summer box office with its excellent production and relatively complete and smooth story.

Although it cannot be compared with DreamWorks and is suspected of following suit, the box office of 17 billion is still a huge success for this company.

With this, Helios announced its huge plans for Westward Journey Universe and Conferred God Universe. Coupled with the investment background of Internet giants and movie studios, it has become a new animation force comparable to DreamWorks.

Although DreamWorks fans dismissed this kind of public opinion, the media and people who eat melons are really happy to hype the news that DreamWorks, which is invincible in animation, has met its opponent.

Dreamworks' animated films are very popular, and the huge profits are naturally eye-catching. Except for the fans of Dreamworks, everyone is happy to see someone who can compete with Dreamworks.

And this also marks the rise of Huaguo's animation industry. It's not spring that is thriving, but spring is full of flowers.

Maybe it's because the relationship between the two is really good, maybe it's because it's been less than a year since they graduated, and they haven't reached the level of birth, or maybe it's because both of them are in top animation companies——Zhou Junpeng is not assigned to the special effects department, but It's in the animation department.

The circle of animation is really small, and both parties may be very concerned about maintaining this kind of network resources.

In short, Zhou Junpeng and Zheng Wei still maintain relatively close contact through WeChat and phone calls.

Last night, Zhou Junpeng watched "Matrix III" with his colleagues. Today, when he was in contact with his old classmate during the break, he learned that the other party hadn't watched it yet, so he had a strong Amway.

Of course, this kind of Amway also has some kind of showing off.

Because when "Journey to the West: The Legend of Demons" hit theaters in the summer, his old classmates showed off in front of him.

This is also understandable, because at that time, DreamWorks was indeed their number one choice for this major. Zheng Wei did not get an offer from DreamWorks and went to Helios, feeling like he lost to Zhou Junpeng.

After Helios releases a successful animation film, he will naturally want to subconsciously prove his choice. His company has a bright future, not inferior to DreamWorks, and he is not inferior to his old classmates.

"Okay, don't spoil me, I already bought tickets for the evening with my girlfriend, if it doesn't look good, ask you to reimburse me."

Although Zheng Wei is not a fan of Chen Jingxing, he also likes to watch DreamWorks film and television dramas. He has also watched the first two "Matrix", so in fact, no matter whether Zhou Junpeng is safe or not, he will watch it.

"Tsk tsk, when did you hook up? It's been less than half a year since you broke up with Xiaoyun, right? You kid can do it."

Graduation season is usually also the season of breaking up. It is not common for Zhou Junpeng and his girlfriend to both get offers from the company in Beijing. Not everyone can tolerate long-distance relationships. Zheng Wei and his girlfriend broke up because of work.

Zheng Wei showed a frightened smile: "I just hit third base last weekend, and we've confirmed our relationship. Who told us to rest on weekends? There's plenty of time to date and fall in love. Unlike you, you have to work overtime today and Saturday. ?DreamWorks has also learned 996? As expected of a company that lives in Zhongguancun, the Internet genes get very fast."

Zhou Junpeng retorted: "We are dedicating ourselves to art. Who wants the audience to watch our DreamWorks animated film every year during the Spring Festival? In order to allow "Inside Out" to meet the audience as scheduled, we have to work extra one month. , if your "Rebirth of the Lingzhu" is sensible, you should withdraw it quickly."

Zheng Wei was just joking before. After all, the eldest brother doesn't talk about the second brother. The animation company has no face to blame Internet 996. It's just that the project team he is in is not busy right now. If it is really busy, it is not something 996 can describe.

Moreover, the salary of Dreamworks Animation and Special Effects Department is completely at the level of the big Internet companies, which is almost out of stock in the industry. Even though the Internet giant stands behind the Sun God, with strong capital, the salary is considered very generous in the animation industry, but There is still a distance with DreamWorks.

It’s just that Zhou Junpeng brought up the animation film war in the Spring Festival next year, and Zheng Wei couldn’t admit defeat: “Hehe, it’s still unknown who will win. "Rebirth of the Pearl" is different from "Young Lei Zhenzi". "Lei Zhenzi" is real. Its investment is only 5000 million, and it is produced by an outsourced studio.

"Lingzhu Rebirth" was produced by our company's Ace Studio. The previous internal viewing received a standing ovation from all. I kid you not, it is no worse than your "Kung Fu Panda" in terms of production level and story completion.

Unless you can make another "Wall-E", if your company is as arrogant as you, be careful to overturn the car. "

Zhou Junpeng didn't panic at all: "Hey, look at you guys, you've made a "Journey to the West·Zhou Mo Zhuan" and you're so cocky? I really can't bear to hit you. You should go home during the Spring Festival, right? Let's make an appointment together at that time Go downtown to see our "Inside Out" and your Sun God's "Lingzhu Rebirth".

Let you see why DreamWorks is the king of animation, what is good animation, what is brain hole, and what is imagination. "

Seeing Zhou Junpeng's determination, Zheng Wei was both suspicious and dissatisfied.

"So what about the king of animation? It's just a step ahead, and it's just a technology that is fed back by the profits of the movie. Our sun god is here to grab the throne.

If the box office is not as good as ours at that time, don't feel sorry for yourself. When you want to change jobs to our company in the future, I will clean up for you by the West Lake.

Don't delay your overtime work, the girl ticket and I went out for dinner..."

After the two naive ghosts complained to each other, they interrupted the video call.

Zhou Junpeng snorted coldly, and then he also quit his work station, and went to the cafeteria downstairs to prepare for cooking.

By the way, while walking, I took out my mobile phone to swipe the comments and feedback of "Matrix III".

……

On December 12, the box office on the first day of Friday was 20 million.

5.5 million on Saturday.

4.7 million on Sunday.

The three-day box office in the first weekend was 13.4 billion!
The momentum surpassed the "Matrix II" released last summer, and the three-day box office was second only to "Tang Detective III" in the Spring Festival. Of course, the box office trend in the later period was superior to "Tang Detective III". The most powerful animated movie in history, "Wall-E", has an amazing diving range.

And it's not even Christmas yet.

Of course, the domestic Christmas box office is usually not outstanding. Although Christmas is also Valentine's Day in China, it is far from February 2 or Qixi Festival.

To say that Christmas is not a statutory holiday, neither Valentine's Day nor Qixi Festival is a statutory holiday. In 2019, Valentine's Day was still the Thursday after the Spring Festival holiday, and it still created a box office market of nearly 7 million.

It can only be said that Christmas, no matter in the past or now, is actually just a foreign festival that a few people in first- and second-tier cities pay attention to, and it is just loud.

However, Christmas is still quite popular overseas, especially in Europe and the United States, which is why Universal and DreamWorks have repeatedly considered and finally set the date in late December.

Of course, although the box office results of 13.4 billion in the first weekend were astonishing, and even slightly exceeded Chen Jingxing's expectations, the media and the melon eaters exclaimed that the domestic box office record monopolized by "Spike II" for more than two years is expected to break.

The share price of DreamWorks soared by 8% in three days, and its market value reached 1400 billion Hong Kong dollars.

But Chen Jingxing and DreamWorks remained cautious and rational.

Because Chen Jingxing's positioning of "Matrix III" is very clear, this is a fan movie.

Speaking of fan movies, it is easy to think of domestic movies starring top stars, but in fact, the most powerful fan movies in the world are Hollywood comics.

It can be said that "Matrix III" has gone through the foreshadowing of the first two films, and as the final chapter of the third film, it is not much different from Hollywood blockbuster comics.

The biggest feature of fan movies is fans, or fans are very enthusiastic about watching movies, especially in the first three days, the concentrated watching behavior of fans often produces amazing box office results.

The box office of the first weekend and the first week often accounts for more than one-third or even one-half of the total box office.

"Matrix III" is not a family movie, and it is impossible to compare with "Spike II" in terms of audience.

But although Chen Jingxing is not optimistic that the domestic box office of "Matrix III" will surpass that of "Spike II", it is not impossible to challenge the 40 billion box office mark.

After all, in the current movie market, the number of screens has increased significantly compared to 2017. "Spike II" just reached 2017 yuan when it was released in the summer of 5. After more than two years, this number has risen to nearly 7 yuan.

And the ticket price has also increased a lot.

The effect brought about by the rising tide is that "Matrix III" can challenge the box office record of 43 billion created by "Spike II" two years ago with a limited audience.

Of course, this is also closely related to the fact that "Matrix III" basically has no opponents.

December is regarded as the Lunar New Year period in the concept of the Chinese film market in the past. From the end of November to the beginning of March of the following year, it is about eighty or ninety days. In Hong Kong Island, it is the trend initiated by Cheng Long, and in the Mainland, it is mainly Feng Xiaogang.

But in fact, since 2014, the Lunar New Year stalls have gradually faded out of the attention of the audience and the media.

With the rise of the Spring Festival, National Day and summer holidays, the New Year's holidays have disappeared.

In such an unpopular schedule, "Matrix III" is a giant, and there will be no companies that don't know how to squeeze in to compete in the ring.

Even "Manslaughter", which was cast by Chen Sicheng and the joint theater chain, was promoted because of this, avoiding the edge of "Matrix III".

The domestic box office is amazing, and the overseas market, especially the North American market, DreamWorks also attaches great importance to.

Fortunately, both "Matrix II" and "Matrix III" have introduced Universal's investment. Although Universal cannot interfere with the production of the film, the box office share and other copyright income will be shared with them.

Therefore, Universal also attaches great importance to this, and basically used all its resources to prepare for the Christmas and New Year's holidays.

For the final chapter of this series, North American movie fans also bought it quite a lot, and the popularity on the Internet is very high.

Because the premiere in North America was two days later than the premiere in China. After the domestic release, there were also illegal theater recording videos on the Internet. Of course, the duration was very short, only more than one minute, and because "Matrix III" is 3D Movies, so the images recorded in the video are blurry and are all ghost images.

Even so, this recorded video full of phantoms ignited Internet topics, and it directly became the number one trending search on Twitter's US list the next day.

Such high popularity and Universal Pictures' full distribution directly won the opening of 3792 theaters for "Matrix III", setting a record for the scale of openings of DreamWorks, Chen Jingxing himself, and foreign films.

Universal and DreamWorks also have high expectations for the North American box office, $3 million!
According to the popularity of "Matrix III" on the Internet, and since the movie was announced, the sales of DVD Blu-ray and online on-demand of the first two movies have exploded, which means that the audience of the movie has expanded.

Universal believes that "Matrix III" definitely has the potential to break through 3 million US dollars.

So far, Chen Jingxing's highest box office film in the North American market is "Matrix II", with 2.6 million US dollars.

Although in today's North American market, 4 billion is very common, 5 billion can compete for the annual championship, and 6 million is considered a box office miracle. 7 million seems not enough.

But you must know that the box office results of 4 million and above are basically monopolized by comic films, and only national-level IPs such as "Star Wars" can be higher.

As a non-comic film, "Matrix" is definitely a miracle if it is expected to achieve such a result.

Even for Universal, which has no resources for manga adaptations, the achievement of US$3 million in the North American market is rare. In recent years, the films produced by Universal that can achieve this achievement are also rare.

(End of this chapter)