director of the millennium

"16.8% of the screenings, and the first-day box office exceeded 3 million?"

“This result is already very good!”

"After all, Journey to the West: The Demons Strike Back is a joint work of Stephen Chow and Tsui Hark, so it's normal for it to have a leading opening performance."

When Wu Yuan received the call from Li Xiaoping announcing the good news with a hint of regret, he was very calm.

The first-day box office of "The Great Wall", including pre-sale box office, successfully exceeded 3 million, but compared with "Journey to the West: The Demons Strike Back", it is still tens of millions short.

As of the official release at midnight on January 1, the first day of the Lunar New Year, the total pre-sale box office of the movie "Journey to the West: The Demons Strike Back" had reached 28 million yuan, breaking two records in Chinese film history: the highest pre-sale box office and the highest first-day pre-sale record for a Chinese-language film.

The film's box office quickly exceeded 19.5 million yuan within 3.12 hours of its release, breaking the record for the highest single-day box office for a Chinese-language film in Chinese film history and firmly sitting at the top of the Spring Festival box office.

As of 23:3.56, the film grossed million yuan on its first day of release, becoming the single-day champion of Chinese-language films in mainland China.

In comparison, "The Great Wall" was slightly inferior to "The Monkey King 2" in terms of pre-sale box office and box office on the day of premiere. The final opening box office was nearly 40 million less, and it could only rank second in the daily box office of the day.

This is influenced by both objective and subjective factors.

The objective factor is that the cast of "Journey to the West: The Demons Strike Back" is indeed more appealing. Now is the beginning of 2017, and this era is the era of the four returning sons. It can be said that the four returning sons are currently the top stars in the domestic entertainment industry.

Among the four returning students, Feng Sefan is currently the most popular and the one with the best development.

Coupled with Lin Gengxin, who has been doing well in the film industry in the past two years, the cast of "Journey to the West: The Demons Strike Back" is obviously more attractive than that of "The Great Wall".

After all, the cast of "The Great Wall" is mostly made up of tough guys who often play military roles. Ordinary audiences may be familiar with them, but it is impossible to say how many people are their fans and will mindlessly rush to buy tickets for them.

Moreover, the male lead of "The Great Wall", Liu Dehua, has indeed let the audience down in recent years, and is somewhat labeled as a "bad movie actor" in the minds of audiences and fans.

In this case, even if the director of "The Great Wall" is Zhang Yimou, and the trailer looks very cool, with the feeling of a Hollywood special effects blockbuster, it cannot compare with "The Monkey King 2" in pre-sales and first-day box office, which has the popularity of its predecessor "The Monkey King 2".

Wu Yuan was not surprised at all that the film lost to "The Monkey King 2" at the opening box office. He even had a premonition about it.

But this does not mean that the box office of "The Great Wall" cannot exceed that of "The Monkey King 2".

It doesn't matter if you laugh first. The one who laughs last is the winner. This principle also applies to the film industry.

Just like this time, "Journey to the West: The Demons Strike Back" broke the pre-sale box office record and single-day box office record, but can this movie break the mainland film history box office record of "The Mermaid"?

Not to mention breaking the record of "The Mermaid", the 30 billion yuan mainland box office record of "Ready Player One" is not something that "Journey to the West: The Demons Strike Back" can touch.

The pre-sale and first-day box office of Ready Player One are not as high as those of The Monkey King 2! Wu Yuan is very clear that the reason why The Monkey King 2 achieved such good pre-sale and first-day box office results is due to the popularity of Feng Yifan.

We have to admit that Feng Xianfan does have a large number of brainless fans at the moment who will blindly go to the cinema to boost his box office results, but this is only limited to the first two days of the movie's release.

Two days later, whether the daily box office performance of "Journey to the West: The Demons Strike Back" can continue to be impressive depends on the film's own strength.

In this regard, Wu Yuan is full of confidence in "The Great Wall". The level of "The Monkey King 2" really cannot be compared with its predecessor, let alone "The Great Wall".

He believes that "The Great Wall" can, like "The Wandering Earth", surpass others by relying on its own hard power!
The fact was exactly as he predicted. After the craziness on the first day, the daily box office performance of "Journey to the West: The Demons Strike Back" dropped rapidly. Although the box office exceeded 3 million in 6 days, the box office on the second and third days combined could not compare with the box office on the first day.

Of course, this is also because the first day’s box office includes the pre-sale box office results and cannot be simply counted as the box office for the day.

But in comparison, the subsequent box office performance of "The Great Wall" was very impressive. On the second day of its release, the daily box office still reached 2.1 million yuan. On the third day, it even increased instead of decreasing, reaching 2.8 million yuan. The box office for three days combined exceeded that of "The Monkey King "!
This is undoubtedly a box office performance that goes against common sense. Generally speaking, the box office performance of a movie on the first day of its release is usually the highest daily box office, and the box office will only get lower and lower every day thereafter.

But "The Great Wall" broke this convention, relying on the word-of-mouth from fans after watching the movie!

On the first day of the Lunar New Year, countless fans who had watched "The Great Wall" excitedly shared their thoughts on the Internet!

Zhang Yimou has given a big surprise to all mainland movie fans!
The movie "The Great Wall" is not at all a "Zhang Yimou-style" movie as the public imagines it to be. If you cover up the director's name, nine out of ten people who watch this movie will think that it was directed by a famous Hollywood director or Wu Yuan.
It’s true that this movie is too "Hollywood-style" from the rhythm to the storyline, which is very different from Zhang Yimou's style of telling poor stories in commercial films!

To be honest, the story of "The Great Wall" is not complicated at all, and the main line is also very simple. It is a story about fighting against monster invasion.

But the good thing about it is that the story is simple and clear, the main line is clear and easy to understand, and the characters are vivid!
Who watches commercial blockbusters with their brains?

People go to watch commercial special effects movies just for fun, just like reading online novels, all they care about is a fast food culture.

This time, Zhang Yimou brought a very good fast-food commercial special effects blockbuster to Hollywood.

This is not a derogatory term, but a compliment!

During the Spring Festival, a time of national celebration, no one wants to watch an art film like "Coming Home". Everyone just wants to watch some refreshing blockbusters and have a visual feast.

And "The Great Wall" did it!

From the simplicity and refreshingness of the story to the gorgeous and shocking pictures, "The Great Wall" is better than "The Monkey King 2: The Legend Begins", and the actors' acting skills are even better than the young actors in "The Monkey King 2: The Legend Begins".

This advantage is enough to make most ordinary audiences who follow the crowd choose to watch "The Great Wall" when they go to the cinema with their parents and grandchildren.

As for comedy films like "Kung Fu Yoga", "The Mermaid", and "Journey to India"?
There are a lot of comedy films every year, and over the years, we have seen at least a dozen excellent comedy films, but China’s own commercial special effects blockbusters are rare!
Is it still necessary to make a decision?
The Great Wall is a box office hit! (End of this chapter)