director of the millennium

Light and Shadow Times headquarters building, general manager’s office.

"Both South Korea and Japan will release the film on July 7."

“It will be released in Singapore and Malaysia on July 7th.”

"Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines, Laos, Indonesia and other countries will also release the film in August."

"Most importantly, this time Ready Player One attracted distributors from many countries around the world, especially South America, because South American countries are an important radiation circle for Japanese comics."

"In countries like Brazil and Argentina, comic books like Dragon Ball, Naruto, and One Piece are well-known to the public."

"There are a lot of Japanese comic characters in Ready Player One, and the film distributors in South America are very keen to introduce this film."

"The response in Europe was mediocre. Science fiction movies have always performed poorly at the box office in Europe. Old Europeans only like art and cultural movies and have never been interested in themes like science fiction and games."

Li Xiaoping was holding a document and excitedly reporting to Wu Yuan.

Having worked as a general manager for more than ten years and having been in charge of the release of dozens of films, for Li Xiaoping, there are very few film releases that can make her excited.

But Ready Player One is the exception.

Since its release a week ago, the movie's box office in mainland China has exceeded 16 billion yuan. Although it is not as good as "The Mermaid"'s 8 billion yuan in 19 days, the box office of 7 billion yuan in 16 days is enough to stand out from the crowd.

More importantly, the box office potential of "Ready Player One" is very high. Although the phenomenal viewing generated by this movie is also impossible to replicate, it is not like "The Mermaid", which is a miracle created by overdrawing the reputation accumulated by Stephen Chow over decades and using the marketing of "I owe Stephen Chow a ticket".

The phenomenal box office of "Ready Player One" is mainly due to the large number of Easter eggs in the movie that attract people to discover, watch it twice, three times, and four times. It is also due to the hard power of this movie, that is, the special effects level that surpasses the entire mainland film market!
The level of special effects in "Ready Player One" is even better than that of "Warcraft", and is not inferior to Marvel's "Avengers" series. It is also one of the top special effects blockbusters in Hollywood.

The cost of the film alone was $1.5 million!
You have to know that this is a Chinese movie, not a Hollywood movie, and the costs in all aspects are different.

Even if the prices for movie special effects production are the same, from preparation to shooting, a Chinese movie with an investment of 1.5 million US dollars will cost at least 2 million US dollars to produce in Hollywood!
If you don't know what level of special effects this price brings, you will know by doing a horizontal comparison.

The cost of "The Wandering Earth 1" is about 3.5 million yuan, of which the shooting cost accounts for the majority, including scene construction, special effects production, actor pay and other aspects.

And the 3.5 million also includes 1 million in publicity costs, which means that the actual cost spent on filming is about 2.5 million.

As for "The Wandering Earth 2", its shooting cost was approximately 4-5 million yuan (excluding publicity and promotion), with a running time of nearly 3 hours. It has a star-studded cast and dazzling props. The big scenes are several times more than the first one, with a space elevator and a moon bombing, which directly raises the level of the movie to the cosmic level.

The space elevator crisis, the moon fall crisis, and the solar helium flash crisis add up to a total of 6000 special effects shots, but it only cost 5 million yuan.

Of course, the efforts of director Guo Fan cannot be ignored.

For example, under Guo Fan's lobbying, XCMG not only sponsored the equipment for free, but also sent more than 7 employees to provide guidance for half a year for fear that the crew would not be able to operate it. If the director was not Guo Fan, if he had not "borrowed" and begged for money everywhere, the filming cost of this movie would actually be around 1 million yuan, or more than million US dollars, which is the basic cost for the mainland to make a top Hollywood special effects blockbuster.

This takes into account the fact that Hollywood's top actors often receive 1 to 2 million US dollars in pay, plus labor costs, a movie shot in China with $ million is almost equivalent to a movie shot in Hollywood with $ million.

Don’t underestimate the small indicator of “labor cost”. A science fiction film crew has nearly 1 employees.

Since most of the plot of Wu Yuan's "Ready Player One" was shot in the studio and there was no need to blow up the moon or go into space, the crew staff used was not large, with only about 500 permanent staff members and a total of more than extras.

而《流浪地球2》1189位拍摄期间常驻工作人员，5000+的华夏群演、17000+的外籍群演、22000+的参演群众演员……

With the average salary in China, hiring so many people, even if many of the extras only worked for three to five days, would cost tens of millions a month.

If it were set in Hollywood, with the same number of people, the cost would be the same, but the unit behind it would change from RMB to US dollars, and it would cost tens of millions of dollars.

So, although the cost of "Ready Player One" was only 1.5 million US dollars, the level of this movie is actually comparable to the top Hollywood blockbusters with an investment of 2 million US dollars.

(If The Wandering Earth 2 were filmed in Hollywood, it would probably cost $2.5-3 million, as it would use too many people.)

Such a top special effects blockbuster, with its hard power, its gorgeousness and exquisiteness, and the overwhelming special effects pictures that create a virtual world "Oasis" full of futuristic technology and imagination, is enough to impress any fan who goes to the cinema to watch this movie.

Coupled with its enduring and still classic "Dragon Quest" plot, as a commercial blockbuster, this movie is undoubtedly excellent.

Compared with Stephen Chow's "The Mermaid", the box office performance of "Ready Player One" is a little worse, but the box office revenue it obtained was all earned by its strength. It did not overdraw Wu Yuan's reputation, and even continued to accumulate reputation for him, deepening his status and influence as a top international science fiction director.

This is what Wu Yuan is most satisfied with.

He is only in his thirties this year, and he doesn't want to be like Stephen Chow, who overdraws his popularity and reputation for the sake of a movie's box office.

Now this result has made him extremely satisfied.

From the current perspective, there is a great probability that the box office of "Ready Player One" in mainland China will exceed 30 billion, mainly because a large number of viewers have watched this movie repeatedly, and there are a lot of viewers who have watched it two or three times. Although the audience base is smaller than that of family-friendly movies for all ages such as "The Mermaid", the box office generated is not much different from that of the film.

This was something Wu Yuan had not predicted before the movie was released, and it pleasantly surprised him. With this group of fans who watched the movie repeatedly, the box office performance of Ready Player One, which Wu Yuan originally predicted to be around 25 billion, can be increased by another 5 million!
In fact, when "Ready Player One" sparked a "national Easter egg hunt" trend in China and became a phenomenon, it was a foregone conclusion that the box office of this movie would exceed 30 billion.

On the 11th day of the movie's release, the total box office of "Ready Player One" in mainland China successfully exceeded 20 billion. By the time the movie was released for half a month and 15 days, the box office of this movie in mainland China had exceeded 23 billion.

By this time, Japan and South Korea, the two overseas box office bases for "Ready Player One", have also been releasing the film on a large scale for a week. With a large number of Easter eggs and Japanese comic elements that Asians can appreciate, the film has also been very successful in the Japanese and Korean markets, attracting a large number of Japanese and Korean movie fans to watch the film.

On the last day of July, the total box office of Ready Player One in Asia successfully exceeded 7 billion! (End of this chapter)