China Entertainment Mythology 2004

Chapter 230 Source Code Premiere

The release date of "Flying Swords of the Dragon Gate" is December 12th, and "Source Code" produced by Huashang Media is scheduled for December 15st, which is 12 days later than the schedule of "Flying Swords of the Dragon Gate". The results of two markets, China and North America, are considered.

In the Chinese market, "Source Code" avoided Xu Ke and Li Lian's "Flying Swords of the Dragon Gate". It's not because they feel that they can't compete. It's just that the time span of the New Year's Eve is so long. It's actually relatively easy for filmmakers to avoid a certain movie. .

After the Spring Festival file officially becomes the first schedule in China, there is no need to consider avoiding other movies at all. The Spring Festival file is only a few days away, and all the films that compete for the Spring Festival file will be released on the first day of the new year. No matter how strong the opponent is, there is no reason to avoid it. If you want to avoid it, don't choose to release it during the Spring Festival!
But the Lunar New Year film is different. The time span of the Lunar New Year film is more than two months. If it is not necessary for the film studio, no one will choose to release it on the same day as another blockbuster film.

Besides the North American market, December 12 is still the Christmas schedule for the North American film market.

In the United States, the Thursday of the fourth week of December is the Thanksgiving holiday. From Thanksgiving to Christmas, there are generally 12 days off. Many North American families will choose to take the whole family into the theater to watch movies during this period. A relatively good movie schedule.

Regarding the publicity plan for the film "Source Code", there are certain differences between distributors such as Huashang, Guangxian, and Bernard.

As mentioned earlier, when Zhou Xingchi was filming the movie "Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons", Li Mu was invited to play the role of the empty son, and in exchange, Li Mu also invited Zhou Xingchi to play the comedian in "Source Code" .

Zhou Xingchi's box office appeal in the mainland market is needless to say. "Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons" was the box office champion in the mainland in 2013, which was nearly 5 million higher than the box office runner-up; The box office champion of the year, with a total box office of 2016 billion yuan, the box office runner-up that year had a total box office of 33.86 billion yuan, and the box office of "Mermaid" was more than twice that of the runner-up - this is the box office appeal of Zhou Xingchi's movies in mainland China!

Now the question is, since Master Xing participated in "Source Code", and Master Xing's box office appeal is so strong, should he use the banner of Master Xing when promoting his own movie?

In fact, there is no problem with "Source Code" playing the banner of Master Xing. Although the role of Master Xing this time is only a cameo, but the playing time is not at all. The movie "Source Code" is a film about "time and space cycle". Almost all the main scenes of the movie are in the exploded train carriage, and there are only a few people in the train carriage. Every time the protagonist returns to the starting point, the people in the train carriage will appear on the scene again, although Zhou Xing does not The supporting characters have lines, but it is inevitable that they will appear in each cycle.

Since Master Xing appeared on camera almost throughout the film, so what's wrong with using Master Xing as a selling point when promoting the film?
Even just being a selling point is not enough, it is best to reserve a place for Stephen Chow on the movie poster.

Li Mu specifically called Zhou Xingchi for this reason. He is the boss of Huashang Media, and he is also a businessman in essence. As a businessman, he would not reject making more money. Since using Zhou Xingchi as a selling point can sell more box office, Li Mu is right. Of course he will be moved by this, but he will not act on his own without consulting Zhou Xingchi.

As expected by Li Mu, Zhou Xing held a negative attitude towards this.

According to what he said, he is just a small supporting role in the film, and he shouldn't take up too much of a role in the film's promotion, let alone appear on the film's promotional poster.

Li Mu finally decided to respect Zhou Xingzhi's opinion, but Guangjian and Bona had different opinions.

First of all, Zhou Xingchi said that it should not take too much weight in publicity, he didn't say that it should not be used for publicity at all!
Secondly, with Li Mu's current prestige in the film industry, Zhou Xingzhi will not be able to get dirty with Li Mu just because he borrowed his name in the promotion of the film, as long as he pays attention to his sense of proportion and does not go too far.

In fact, the opinions of Guangjian and Berner are also understandable. Whoever it is, a little publicity through someone’s name is likely to increase the box office revenue by tens of millions. Whoever it is, who can resist it ?

Others don't know, but Li Mu can definitely!

In the end, it was still up to him to make the decision: when promoting the movie, don't take Zhou Xingchi's cameo as the selling point of the movie!
The publisher still felt a little pity, but Li Mu had the final say on this matter. Since Li Mu had made the decision, they could only do it no matter how pity they felt.

The director and heroine Yang Ziqiong left for North America, and the publicity task for the new film mainly fell on the heavenly king Andy Lau who stayed in China.

Liu Tianwang paid special attention to this. Not only was he on call for the promotional activities arranged by the film crew, he even offered to participate in more variety shows and talk shows in the mainland.

No wonder Liu Tianwang tried his best to publicize this time as a model worker. In fact, he was holding his breath in his heart, waiting for this new movie to make a comeback.

Andy Lau belongs to the evergreen tree in the entertainment circle. He has maintained a very popular state since his debut for many years, but the box office results of the films starring him have always been very mediocre, especially in recent years.

Released in 2008, "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms: Seeing the Dragon Remove Armor" had a Douban score of 5.6 and a box office score of 6396 million. The box office reputation was not satisfactory.

The Douban score of "Future Police" released in 2010 was only 4.1, and the box office was only 5897 million.

"I Know Women's Hearts", which was released in 2011, scored 5.6 points on Douban, with a box office score of 6500 million. The box office reputation was also not satisfactory.

The film crew of "I Know Women's Hearts" first looked for Andy Lau and Gong Li. Later, Gong Li starred in the film "Gravity" directed by Li Mu and became a global sensation. Fan Binbin came to the rescue, but Fan Binbin still did not change the fate of the film, and even the box office of the film was lower than that of the original time and space, and it only achieved a box office score of 5900 million.

Counting Liu Tianwang's films in recent years, since 08, "Di Renjie: Tongtian Empire" directed by Xu Ke has performed well. Other than that, most of the films have not escaped the fate of unsatisfactory box office reputation, especially The successive failures of the two films "Future Police" and "I Know Women's Hearts" have caused some netizens to call them "box office poison".

The damage to an actor is actually very huge. With Andy Lau's status and nationality, of course, two films in succession will not cause no one to pay attention to him, but his own commercial value will inevitably suffer a great impact.

In addition to the impact on commercial value, the successive failures of starring films will also have a certain impact on the actor's psychology. I clearly feel that the film is okay, but it just doesn't sell well. If things go on like this, actors will inevitably fall into self-doubt.

Later generations of Andy Lau once said in an interview with Lu Yu that "Rescue Mr. Wu" actually hit him hard. It's not bad, but it just didn't meet Andy Lau's psychological expectations. He obviously thought it should be better, but in fact the result can only be considered not bad, which was a big blow to him.

The current "Source Code" is the film that Andy Lau will definitely sell. He hopes to use this film to sweep away the decline of the previous "Future Police" and "I Know Women's Hearts". He thinks this film is very good and can fully afford it. The important task of reversing the evaluation of "box office poison".

Even his expectations are more than that.

The screenwriter of the film is Li Mu. Every filmmaker understands the meaning of "Li Mu's screenwriting works". In a sense, the word "Li Mu" is synonymous with box office miracles.

In the past, this kind of miracle only happened to other filmmakers, and now it is finally his turn. Liu Tianwang hopes that this time he can also use the influence of Li Mu and Huashang Media to push his career to a higher level. That's why he took the initiative to do it himself when promoting the film this time.

Liu Tianwang's fans also held back their enthusiasm.Some time ago, the media put the label of "box office poison" on Liu Tianwang, but the fans of Liu Tianwang were so angry that many fans couldn't help but swear, but it is indisputable that Tianwang's movies have not performed well in the past few years. In fact, although the fans are very angry, they are somewhat lacking in confidence. Now everyone is looking forward to "Source Code" to make the king feel proud.

Liu Tianwang has a lot of fans, but it still only accounts for a small part of all the fans who pay attention to "Source Code". Most of the fans who plan to watch the movie are actually rushing to the title of "screenwriter Li Mu" of.

In the recent period, the number of films produced by Huashang Media has actually been increasing. From "33 Days of Broken Love" to "Beijing Meets Seattle", from "Cohabitation in Time and Space" to "The Hunger Games", all of them have double box office reputation. Good harvest, but what is the most dazzling label on Li Mu?
It's science fiction!
In the minds of many Li Mu mysteries, "Cohabitation Beyond Dimensions and Space" is not a typical Li Mu work no matter how high the box office is. , Gravity, and The Martian!
But since "The Martian", domestic sci-fi fans and Li Mumi have not seen a real sci-fi movie released for a long time.

"Source Code" has many deficiencies. Compared with the investment of more than 1 million U.S. dollars in science fiction films directed by Li Mu in the past, the production cost of "Source Code" is actually very small, and the figure announced by the film studio is only 3000 million. Dollar.

In addition, all fans of Li Mu's mystery or pure science fiction know that only the science fiction films directed by Li Mu are "dinner", those science fiction works that are only written by Li Mu or simply provide a script outline by Li Mu, At best, it can only be regarded as a snack, a plate of pre-dinner dessert.

This is undoubtedly the case with "Source Code", although its editor is Li Mu, but the director is Lin Chaoxian - obviously, "Source Code" is not the sci-fi "dinner" that domestic sci-fi fans have long expected ".

But even if "Source Code" has one or another deficiency, it still does not affect it becoming the most anticipated sci-fi work in the hearts of movie fans recently. Without him, who else in China can play it except Li Mu and Huashang Media? Switch to science fiction?

On December 12th, "Flying Swords of the Dragon Gate", directed by Xu Ke and starring Li Lianjie, Zhou Xun, Chen Kun and others, officially entered the national theaters, and broke through the 15 million box office mark in just 4 days.

The word-of-mouth of the film is also very good, and it has won unanimous praise from fans from the director to the starring role.

On December 12st, the premiere of the film "Source Code" was held in Beijing, because it had long been reported on the Internet that Li Mu would attend with Liu Yifei, and Andy Lau, the protagonist, would definitely be present, so the live tickets for the premiere were sold by scalpers. They fetched a high price.

In the eyes of most fans, if they can see the sci-fi movie written by director Li Mu himself and starred by Liu Tianwang in advance, and they can see Liu Tianwang and Liu Yifei on the spot, what does it matter if the ticket price is a little higher?
Li Mu's fan base is also very large, but his fans are obviously different from those of Liu Tianwang and Liu Yifei.To put it simply, Li Mu's fans will go to the theater to watch Li Mu's new movie after it is released, but they will spend money to buy high-priced tickets just to see Li Mu live?
Sorry, I don't have that hobby!

After all, "director" is Li Mu's number one label. He has rarely starred in films, and most of the time he just appeared in some films. There is not much time, and there are not too many "crazy" fans accumulated.

Liu Dehua and Liu Yifei are different, especially Liu Yifei, her popularity in this time and space is several times that of her previous life, so as long as there are places where she attends, there are few places that do not cause a sensation.

"so beautiful!"

"The real person is really beautiful, much more beautiful than the photos!"

"Zhenbai, I feel like my whole body is shining!"

"It's worth it. It's worth it no matter how expensive the ticket price is if you can see my Qianxi on the spot!"

"I really want to go down and beat Li Mu up!"

"Why did you beat him?"

"Jealous! Okay?"

"I'm stupid, don't you even hide it?"

On the day of the premiere ceremony, while the audience were all admiring Liu Yifei's amazing beauty, when many male audiences looked at Li Mu who was sitting next to Liu Yifei with jealous eyes, Li Mu suddenly stood up and walked quickly Walking a few steps towards the entrance of the hall, everyone followed the direction in which Li Mu stretched out his hand. They saw a man wearing a peaked cap also walked a few steps quickly and stretched out his hand to Li Mu. Soon the two held hands. together.

"Master Xing, thank you for coming!!!"

"It should be, Director Li invites me, and I will definitely come."

It was Zhou Xingchi who came.

During the entire preparation and filming process of "Source Code", the film crew has never revealed that Zhou Xing is involved in the show. Of course, there is no impenetrable wall in this world. Some netizens mentioned that Zhou Xing Zhi had a cameo role in Hua Shang's new movie, but the film studio didn't publicize it, so individual revelations didn't attract much attention.

Therefore, many viewers at this meeting were surprised to see that Zhou Xingchi also came to the scene to cheer.

"Master Xing should seldom attend the premieres of other films, right? Look, it's Hua Shang's face!"

"I heard that Master Xing did not appear in his new movie "Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons". It seems that Master Xing will not appear in the movie in person in the future. It is all the fault of the trolls. If "Yangtze River No. [-]" was not too violent in the past. , how come Master Xing doesn't act in movies anymore?"

"I don't know when I can see the movie starring Master Xing himself again. If Master Xing is missing in the movie, is it still a movie of Master Xing?"

(End of this chapter)