director of the millennium

"Honey, has your company been having trouble lately?"

In the cozy home, Liu Yifei was spraying disinfectant back and forth in the living room with spray alcohol, then turned to Wu Yuan, who was sitting on the sofa, watching TV with a frown, and asked.

On TV, a news report about the launch of the Beijing health code was being broadcast.

"Hmm?" Wu Yuan was stunned for a moment before he reacted and turned to look at his wife: "It's not difficult."

"You're lying, aren't you?" Liu Yifei wrinkled her pretty nose. She was already in her thirties, but she still looked like a young girl. "People on the Internet are saying that the film industry has been hit hard."

"Especially movie theaters. I don't know how many movie theaters have closed down across the country. Will your Guangying Times Cinema Chain be unaffected?"

"I'm not lying to you." Wu Yuan shook his head: "It won't have any impact for now."

He wasn't totally lying.

It is true that many cinemas in the country have closed down or been sublet in the past half month, but most of them are franchised cinemas and small independent cinemas.

After all, when there is a crisis in the industry, small businesses are always the hardest hit.

For large cinema chains, they can definitely survive three to five months of closure and it is not time to start closing stores.

At least in the early stages it can be afforded to be delayed, and the same goes for Guangying Times Cinemas.

What really worries Wu Yuan is that this black swan event lasted for too long. Although the time when the theaters were actually required to stop work was not long, after the theaters were allowed to open normally, there were actually few customers, and no movies dared to be released.

It will take almost a full year for the public to return to the cinema, and by the Spring Festival of 1, the film market will have almost recovered.

For this, we have to thank the appearance of "Hello, Li Huanying".

The high box office of "Hello, Li Huanying" received a lot of ridicule at the time, most of which came from outside the industry.

Many people who are sour grapes say that this movie has good marketing, sells sentiments, and was promoted by female boxing girls. Even many men just don't like the fact that a fat, funny clown like Jia Ling can make more than 5 billion yuan at the box office with a movie. They are mentally dark and have to criticize her.

But in fact, in the industry, I don’t know how many people are grateful for this movie.

Because throughout 2020, the Chinese film market was gloomy, with the annual total box office only 200 billion, a decrease of 2019 billion from 400. This was not just a halving, but a direct evaporation of two-thirds.

At this time, the entire industry is hoping that a savior will appear.

Then "Hello, Li Huanying" came.

All major cinema chains were overjoyed because this movie brought in 50 billion box office revenue for cinemas that had not made any profit for a year and were almost about to close down, which is equivalent to creating a quarter of the output value in 2020 in one month.
Major film companies were also crying with joy. They were not jealous at all of "Hello, Li Huanying" making money because the movie brought movie fans back to the cinema.

One has two.

The emergence of such a good start to the year can be said to have activated the film market for all the films released later, and also made major film companies breathe a sigh of relief and arrange the release of films normally. It can be said that before "Hello, Li Huanying" became a hit, all film companies were uncertain. Everyone was afraid of encountering the kind of film winter in the 90s. After all, many people have become accustomed to watching videos on their mobile phones at home. It is easy to leave, but it is difficult to pull people back.

In fact, by 2024, there will be a large number of people who used to go to the cinema frequently but have never entered a cinema since the black swan incident in 2019.

That's the scary thing about habits.

Therefore, until 2024, the domestic film market has not yet recovered to the good market in 2019. For China's major cinema chains, the next few years will be very difficult.

This is what Wu Yuan has always been worried about, not the short-term suspension of work for three to five months.

Compared to the difficulties in the next few years, this little thing is really just an appetizer.

But there were also things that made him happy.

For example, Guangying Times also participated in the investment of the movie "Hello, Li Huanying", and Shen Teng helped to connect them.

In 2016, in order to express her longing for her deceased mother, Jia Ling created the sketch "Hello, Li Huanying". Later, Jia Ling came up with the idea of ​​adapting the sketch into a movie.

The preparation and shooting of the film took three years. During this period, Jia Ling took the initiative to reduce a lot of work, formed a screenwriter team, learned how to be a director, and looked for companies to attract investment.

After hearing about this, Shen Teng helped to contact Guangying Times, and Guangying Times has indeed expanded its strategy of investing in movies in recent years, transforming from its previous focus on self-production to a route of casting a wide net and investing more without participating in production.

So the two parties hit it off, and Jia Ling set up her own Big Shot Film to cooperate with Light and Shadow Times, and shared the investment in "Hello, Li Huanying". After all, this was a low-cost comedy.

In fact, neither Jia Ling nor Guangying Times ever thought that the box office of this movie would set a record. They just regarded this movie as a comedy to test the waters. Success would be the best, but failure is no big deal, just treat it as a trial and error.

So the filming of this movie started in full swing, and it started smoothly in September 2019 and was completed in January 9.

However, the black swan occurred just after the filming was completed, so naturally everything was temporarily suspended. The subsequent release date, trailer release and other things were cancelled. Only Jia Ling led the editing team to do the post-production editing, but there was no rush.

Now the entire film industry is in a downturn, and no one is in a hurry to release new movies. To a certain extent, this has also cast a gloom over the production team of "Hello, Li Huanying".

However, Wu Yuan was very relaxed. Instead, he called Jia Ling to comfort her and made a verbal agreement with her that the film would be released during next year's Spring Festival.

Others may not know, but he knows it very well. Because of this black swan event, everyone is still in fear and dares not test the market reaction. Therefore, by next year's Spring Festival, the competition will be the smallest in the past five years, and only "Detective Chinatown 3" can be considered a capable opponent.

Such a good opportunity to steal the chicken must not be missed!

To be honest, if "Hello, Li Huanying" was released at a different time, if it was not during the Spring Festival period when competition is extremely low, it would be a sheer dream to achieve a box office of more than 50 billion!
If this movie was released during the Spring Festival period of 2019 or 2018, it would definitely be popular. After all, Wen Qing is very lethal during the Spring Festival. But the box office would be at most over 20 billion, because there are other movies like "The Wandering Earth" competing for the box office!
It can be said that "Hello, Li Huanying" can only and must be released during the Spring Festival in 2021 to achieve the best returns!

However, these things are not urgent for the time being. After all, it is only March 2020, and Wu Yuan is still enjoying his daily life with his baby. He wants to hear his daughter call him daddy more than arranging the release of a new movie. (End of this chapter)