director of the millennium

"The box office results in Japan are very encouraging!"

"After the miracle of Your Name, Ready Player One has become the most popular Chinese-language film in the Japanese film market."

"The current box office in Japan has exceeded 20 billion yen, and the final box office result is expected to be around billion yen."

"The film was released on the same day in South Korea and Japan. Currently, Ready Player One has attracted nearly one million viewers in South Korea, and its box office performance is among the best among Chinese-language films released in South Korea."

"It's a pity that the Korean film market is not big. Last year, the total box office of the Korean film market was less than 100 billion yuan, which is one-third smaller than the Japanese market."

"But considering the population of South Korea, this kind of box office is the market's limit."

Wu Yuan half-closed his eyes and listened to Li Xiaoping's summary of the performance of "Ready Player One" in Japan and South Korea, and nodded secretly in his heart.

Such box office results have met Wu Yuan's expectations and even exceeded them by a lot.

If the box office continues to trend this way, "Ready Player One" should eventually earn more than 5 million RMB in Japan, and Guangying Times' share of the box office will be around 1.5 million RMB.

The Korean market will achieve a box office of around 3 million RMB, with a final share of to million RMB.

These two overseas markets alone can bring Guangying Times a net profit of 2.2 million, which is no small amount of money.

Originally, according to Wu Yuan’s idea, it would be enough for Ready Player One to break even at the domestic box office, and the revenue from overseas markets would be the net profit.

His profit target for "Ready Player One" is around 3-5 million. In his opinion, if the movie can make 3 million, it will not be a loss, and making 5 million will be a big profit.

Sounds pitiful, right?

Judging from the current domestic film market, a blockbuster phenomenal movie or dark horse movie can easily achieve a return of more than 300%, which means that an investment of million yuan can earn back million yuan.

For example, the production cost of "Charlotte's Troubles" was 2100 million, and the publicity and promotion cost was less than 1000 million, which added up to only 3000 million, but it brought back a box office of 14 billion, of which the producer could get a net profit of 5-6 million.

With a cost of 3100 million and a profit of 5 million, this is more than a 300% return.
This is why everyone loves to make comedy movies. Comedy movies are really profitable once they are a success.

In comparison, science fiction blockbusters like "Ready Player One" are actually a thankless task.

The cost of making Ready Player One was 1.5 million U.S. dollars (approximately 11 billion RMB), and even if the box office of this movie in mainland China could reach 30 billion, Guangying Times, as the producer, only made a small profit of 2-3 million yuan, and the bulk of the money went to the theaters.

Even if the overseas market is included, in the most optimistic scenario, this movie can only earn 5-6 million RMB, which is about the same profit as "Charlotte's Troubles", but the investment is nearly 36 times that of "Charlotte's Troubles"!
The cost was 36 times higher, but the profit was about the same. This was when the mainland box office of Ready Player One reached 30 billion. If the mainland box office was only 14 billion, it would even be a loss! Although this was very clear, when Wu Yuan really got the box office report, he couldn't help but sigh in his heart. This science fiction blockbuster is really hard to make. No wonder no one in the mainland dares to make a science fiction blockbuster. No wonder Guo Fan had to work so hard to make a The Wandering Earth, and he almost didn't make it even after begging for help.

He could understand his peers in domestic film companies too well. If Wu Yuan had not been reborn, if he had not had successful science fiction film examples to learn from in his mind, even if he had really achieved this level of success, he would not have dared to make a Chinese-language science fiction film!

This also made him have more respect for Guo Fan. Guo Fan is really amazing, as he is willing to risk everything and try his best to realize his dream of making a science fiction movie!

Wu Yuan's emotion did not affect the release of "Ready Player One".

When it entered August, the film finally began to be released on a large scale in Asia.

There are more than just a few countries in East Asia and Southeast Asia.

Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Indonesia, and even East Timor have begun to release the movie "Ready Player One" in this hot August.

These countries belong to the East Asian cultural circle and are very able to understand and appreciate the various film, television and animation memes in the movie "Ready Player One".

This was a matter that made Wu Yuan both sad and happy.

The sadness is that most of the memes in this movie are more or less related to Japanese pop culture, and only one-third are from Chinese pop culture and history. As the birthplace of East Asian culture, China's modern pop culture influence and radiation is far less than that of Japan. This makes Wu Yuan, who works in the cultural field, feel very delicate.

It is impossible for him alone to create a world where Chinese pop culture is popular throughout Asia, just like it is impossible for Japan to become a global comics center if there is only one book "One Piece" in the comics field.

Although Wu Yuan has successfully produced many Chinese-language films in the past decade or so, with good influence and box office performance in Southeast Asia, his films alone are not enough to create more than a hundred memes in "Ready Player One", even with the addition of elements from other classic Chinese-language films, TV dramas, and games.

But the good news is that after "Ready Player One" was released on a large scale in Asia, the box office results were really gratifying. It was Wu Yuan's second film to become popular throughout Asia after "Your Name".

From Hokkaido in the north to East Timor in the south, the entire East Asia and Southeast Asia were discussing the movie "Ready Player One" this August.

Even though the Easter eggs in the movie have basically been found after being discovered by movie fans in China and Japan, people from other regions and countries where the movie is shown in the evening still enjoy going to the cinema to look for the Easter eggs themselves, as if they are treating this as a very interesting game.

A movie about a game in a virtual world has set off a large-scale game in the real world. This is undoubtedly a very performance art thing.

This trend of forming groups to go to the cinema to watch "Ready Player One" and look for Easter eggs swept across Asia, and also brought a lot of box office revenue to Wu Yuan and Light and Shadow Times.

Throughout August, 8 Southeast Asian countries contributed a total of $1 million to the box office of "Ready Player One". This is undoubtedly a very crazy thing. Even in Hollywood, such a box office result will only appear once in several years. The last time a movie performed so strongly in Southeast Asia was Marvel's "Avengers 2"!
And now, a Chinese-language film has the same influence as Hollywood's top special effects blockbusters!
At least in Asia, it is enough to compete with them! (End of this chapter)