This director needs to apologize

Chapter 270 The key is to be able to make a sequel

While waiting for Long Biao, the publicity and distribution work of "Mulan" has quietly started.

In the early stage of warm-up, there is no need to wait until the schedule is finalized. Negotiations with theaters and briefings on the Internet can be started in advance.

It was said that he would not be involved in anything other than production, but Chen Yiming still couldn't resist the "pleading" of Niu and Jia, so he came up with a few ideas in advance.

For example, in terms of ticketing, "Mulan" has reached cooperation with two ticket booking websites and created another micro-innovation.

It’s not complicated to say, just change your thinking and transform “booking” into “want to see”.

Prior to this, the booking function was launched, requiring the film publisher to apply to the booking website, sign an agreement to open a dedicated page, and access the backend database.

Next, after the movie schedule is confirmed and theaters open the screenings, unified ticket issuance can be achieved online and offline.

This is true for buying tickets directly and booking in advance.

The two ticket purchase websites, "La Movie Academy" and "Taopiao.com", are actually the product of counterproductive efforts.

Therefore, it's not that others can't think of it, but that they don't have the innate conditions for Platinum Jue.

The inner magic box was opened by Chen Yiming, and he couldn't help himself in the subsequent sprint.

On the other hand, Chen Yiming and "Mulan" are important enough to reverse the rules of the game, and whoever fails to cooperate will suffer the consequences.

In fact, the idea of ​​"want to see" is not surprising, and Chen Yiming is not the only smart person in the industry.

Therefore, taking advantage of the situation, Chen Yiming once again became an industry leader, although he did not come forward at all and only came up with an idea in an internal meeting.

However, the faster the two websites expand, the more problems will accumulate internally. This is an objective law and no one can avoid it.

Many times, the advice given by bystanders is correct in theory, but the authorities just refuse to listen.

Thirdly, the two-headed pattern of the market leads to a game dilemma, and whoever makes the first move will suffer the consequences.

Secondly, the launch of this function only has brand value for the ticket booking website but has nothing to do with revenue, and there will be great internal resistance.

These have nothing to do with Chen Yiming. He is only responsible for coming up with ideas so that "Mulan" can take the lead in marketing like the previous "1951".

Of course, under the brutal growth, there are many internal problems, both technical and management related. Anyway, it is a mess.

The 1951 billion box office of "10" burns the souls of everyone in the industry chain, forcing relevant parties to rush forward without hesitation, not to mention that Internet companies already believe that one company can dominate.

In order to protect "1951", Chen Yiming used the power of Moying to "use "Jianguo" to make Emperor Ying", and gained Han Sanye's influence. Only then was he able to leverage the two major industries of the Internet and movies. plate.

Two Internet giants, Weibo and Penguin, entered the game, one from the south and the other from the north. In a short period of time, they merged and integrated the two ticket purchase websites, and with the support of Imperial Film and Magic Film, they opened up theaters and theaters, allowing large-scale network Buying tickets is possible.

Take the implementation of the "want to see" function as an example. It seems simple, but in fact it is troublesome, because execution requires changes to the underlying architecture, which incurs a high opportunity cost.

First, during the land-racing stage, rashly shaking the fundamentals will significantly slow down the expansion rate.

"Want to See" was launched in a very short period of time. Lao Jia spent a lot of money on advertising and contracted the best advertising space on two ticket booking websites.

Therefore, in the past two years, the field of ticket booking websites has been fiercely fought. "La Movie Academy" and "Taopiao.com" have crazy mergers and acquisitions and expansion. So far, they have formed a two-headed structure, with a combined market share of 55%.

It is not necessary to do it, but it is really impossible.

The latter is neither stupid nor stupid, it is just a reason and not enough for outsiders to hear.

On the one hand, Platinum Jue is the initiator, has the endorsement of Moying, has the relationship bonus in the early stage, and has lower communication and execution costs.

Every viewer who opens the website to order movie tickets will be attracted by Chen Yiming's name, "drop in" to the "Mulan" page to take a look, and then click the red heart without any trouble.

This means that every movie that is currently in theaters or entering pre-sale will be scooped up by "Mulan".

So in a very short period of time, the number of people who "wanted to watch" "Mulan" exploded. Within three days of the advertisement being launched, the total of the two sites exceeded one million.

This momentum is so scary, it means that the box office of 50 million yuan has been easily pocketed. You must know that "Want to See" on the ticket booking website is directly related to "Order". At this time, the movie schedule has not yet been determined.

What’s interesting is that Broadou immediately copied this feature and added a “want to watch” button for free to every unreleased movie that opened the page.

The imagination is beautiful, the reality is very skinny.

Broad Bean was collectively complained by the film crew.

The faster it is copied, the faster it gets cold.

You, Broad Bean, don’t sell tickets, so you dare to be Bai Xiaosheng and prepare the weapons spectrum for the film crew?

Do you deserve it?

When Chen Yiming heard about it, he couldn't help but laugh and cry. He said to himself that it was indeed the era of recklessness where heroes emerged in large numbers. He really dared to think and do it.

In fact, the stress response of the film crew could not resist the general trend of the industry. It can only be said that Broad Bean was unlucky because it moved too quickly and was beaten by the concentrated fire.

Since Chen Yiming would be dragged to meetings by Bo Jue from time to time, Chen Yiming was unable to retreat this time, and the progress of the "Tang Detective" script was quite slow.

The target of the "magic reform" has not yet been determined.

Changing the background of the story to an overseas Chinatown does not mean that there are no taboos. Old problems still exist, and new problems emerge in endlessly, and they need to be solved one by one. In particular, Chen Yiming was unwilling to take shortcuts by introducing comedy elements. This self-tying behavior further exacerbated the difficulty of magic reform.

This involves the underlying structure of the detective theme.

The structure of a detective film, in a simple summary, is to solve an unsolved case and identify the real culprit.

The crime is revealed at the beginning and the murderer is found at the end. The protagonist leads the audience to search for clues in the process.

Throughout the movie, there are detectives, victims, suspects, third-party witnesses, and the indispensable police.

The tricks of detective films lie in the changes in the above five roles.

However, these are just appearances. Watching a movie is different from reading a novel because you cannot go back in time in the cinema.

Most viewers are not fans of mystery. They cannot understand every clue and every hint. It is impossible to make a movie along the lines of detective novels.

This is also the reason why Detective Benge is gradually declining in the film field and becoming more and more active on the TV screen.

Under the impact of visual effects blockbusters, the refreshing feeling of "the truth comes out" is no longer refreshing enough to draw the audience into the cinema.

Early detective films could also be adapted from detective novels and follow the original detective route. Most contemporary detective films use original stories and introduce more sensory-stimulating elements such as action, politics, and the supernatural.

Due to the lack of soil for detective literature in China, the audience is even more difficult to serve.

Many classic works in Chen Yiming's memory are difficult to plug and play because of the above reasons.

For example, "The Invisible Guest", a well-received film released in 2017, received a Douban score of 8.8 and quietly took in a box office of 1.6 million, which is the best result for a Spanish film in China.

The story itself is neither dark nor serious. It is just a serial murder case that occurred to cover up a traffic accident. It relies solely on reversals to constantly attract attention. It would not be inconsistent if it is not placed in Chinatown and directly replaced with a domestic background.

However, Chen Yiming gave up after thinking again and again.

Because the contingency of brain-burning movies is too high, changing the schedule is likely to lead to a different ending, not to mention that 1.6 million itself is not impressive.

The 2017 million in 1.6 was already outside the th place of the year due to the double expansion of the market and prices.

Calculated based on a profit and loss line of 25% to 30%, the distributable box office revenue will not exceed 5000 million. You can still make a small profit by introducing batches of films, but if you shoot it yourself, your work will probably be in vain.

After all, it is several years in advance and the market capacity has not yet been increased. It is difficult to directly "copy" it with a high probability of exceeding 100 million.

Chen Yiming also thought about the movie "The Devotion of Suspect X", which was released in the same year as "The Devotion of Suspect X". It is an adaptation of the same name by the Japanese mystery writer Keigo Higashino, with a total box office of 3.7 million.

Naturally, there is no Great God Higashino in this time and space, so you can safely make this story "original".

The main story line stems from emotional entanglements, and there are no sensitive elements that would hinder the trial, except for the incompetent police who can only clean up the situation afterwards.

It's just convenient to move the movie background to District 11.

At the end of the original film, the real murderer surrendered, which is in line with the principle that evil will be punished.

It’s just that without the IP bonus of the original novel, the final box office will be almost halved, which is the same level as "The Invisible Guest".

Profit risks are equally high.

The more critical point is that the core of this movie is actually love and dedication. The style of "Little Life" is too strong, and the character motivations are difficult to convince Chinese audiences.

In the same year, there were two original Chinese crime movies, both with box office sales of more than 200 million. For a medium investment, these results are quite satisfactory.

They are "Psychological Crime" and "Memory Master".

The previous one is about criminal psychology profiling, a story about a handsome scholar and a tough policeman teaming up to catch a vampire maniac. If you go one step further, it will be the Twilight Zone.

The latter one has a bit of soft science fiction elements, a story about a strange combination of circumstances under the memory transplantation technology, and accuses domestic violence.

The ratings and reputation of the two movies are both high. One focuses on action and the other focuses on science fiction. They are very good crossovers.

Chen Yiming does not resist "learning from" domestic films. Anyway, they are already in parallel time and space, so there is no need to set up a monument.

He just felt that these two movies were not genre-based enough and would be difficult to extend.

The key is to be able to make a sequel!

That's right, compared to the box office success or failure of a single film, Chen Yiming values ​​the scalability of the story framework, which is the potential of IP.

The "Predecessor" series in the previous life is a positive case. The first two series maintained capital, and the third one exploded. It did not open for three years, but it lasted for three years after it opened.

Chen Yiming believes that this is how mid-budget genre films should be made.

In the early stage, you can cultivate your team and audience at a controllable cost, and make small profits as a win.

When the weather comes, the ripe fruits naturally fall into my arms.

That's why he loves the "Chinatown" story so much.

(End of this chapter)