This director needs to apologize

Chapter 379 How Much I Want to Break the Record
The reporter who asked the question certainly would not let Chen Yiming get away with it so lightly. He chose to go straight to the point and asked from a moral high ground, "Assuming that the midnight show is true, Director Chen doesn't have a basic position and attitude towards it? As far as I know, many viewers during the Spring Festival decide which movie to watch by looking at the list, including myself. Isn't this behavior a kind of fraud?"

After saying this, he raised his head and chest and looked around. Unsurprisingly, he attracted the attention of many students. Young people really loved this kind of value debate.

Chen Yiming, who was forced into a corner, was not panicked at all. "My position is very simple. I call on higher authorities to regulate the market as soon as possible and limit competition to a healthy range.

Before that, I can only guarantee that Platinum will not do this, and other companies will not listen to me, right?"

The reporter was obviously still unwilling to give up. He raised his voice and asked, "Director Chen, have you ever thought that if there were no midnight shows, the current Spring Festival champion would probably be The Thirteenth Floor. Are you still indifferent to this?"

Chen Yiming spread his hands and smiled, "I can't control who the audience watches and who they don't watch, but after five or six years in the industry, I do have some insights into the psychology of filmmakers, which I can share with everyone here.

I have always said that the size of Chinese audiences is expanding significantly, and along with this expansion, the requirements for film quality have been significantly reduced.

I often go to the movies alone, and my tastes in movies are very diverse. If they are interesting, I will study them with full concentration. If they are boring, I will just treat them as a place to kill time by turning on the air conditioner. Once I finish watching a movie, that's it. I seldom express my opinions. I think this attitude is very representative.

I am even considered relatively demanding among ordinary audiences. When I talked to my relatives when I went home for the New Year, their reactions were even slower. If they really encountered a bad movie, the most they could do was to say that they were unlucky.

This journalist friend seems to want to refute what I said. I understand what you mean. In the era of mobile Internet, opinions are more concentrated and word-of-mouth effects are more prominent. This is obviously contrary to my point of view.

However, we cannot ignore that while online public opinion has become increasingly harsh, the choices for offline audiences have actually narrowed. Movie theaters are a place with limited competition. There are only five or six movies released in the same period. Due to factors such as scheduling, publicity and promotion, there are even fewer relatively competitive movies. It is an extremely rare case that five movies are released side by side during this year's Spring Festival.

In this case, no matter how bad the word-of-mouth is or how low the score is, there is a lower limit to the impact on the basic market. Conversely, if the word-of-mouth is booming and the score reaches its peak, there is also an upper limit to the stimulating effect on the box office.

In other words, the external market environment has actually become more relaxed, and the constraints of audience choice on film creation are weakening. As a result, professional fields will gain greater freedom. This is easy to understand, right?

Think about it, a soft science fiction movie like "The 13th Floor", a subject that has never made money in China in the past, can rank second during the Spring Festival. If I start another project in the future, can I let myself go even more?
Who can force me to step on the brakes at this time? Obviously only the regulatory authorities above.

However, supervision has always lagged behind the development of reality. When a change occurs, it needs to be observed, studied, discussed, and negotiated. By the time the entire process is completed and officially released, the industry and the audience may have gone through several rounds of iterations.

So the question is, when a creator enjoys great freedom and is subject to very few restrictions, how should his actions be inferred?

Will he position himself as a service-oriented guide or an educational leader?
I believe that everyone has their own answer in their hearts. There is no need to say it out loud. Just put yourself in the other person's shoes and ask yourself.

However, as a filmmaker who has benefited from it in all aspects, I still have a bucket of cold water to pour out.

All the gifts bestowed by fate have been secretly marked with a price. Those who do not know how to restrain themselves will sooner or later suffer backlash.
Many times, our experts and practitioners have the idea that the audience needs guidance, and this guidance may be reflected in many aspects such as cognition, preference, and aesthetics.

But I think this is an illusion. Audiences do not need to be educated, and they have no obligation to spend real money to cater to the subjective demands of filmmakers.

I just said that supervision will lag behind the market. Similarly, professional judgment will also have a lag effect, and this feedback is more direct.

The good days of the film industry may not last as long as we imagine. The audience's patience is limited. Movies have only become a kind of social necessity in recent years. There are many entertainments in modern society, and this demand can be replaced at any time.

If we squander the audience's trust and force them to always choose between several lumps, it is only a matter of time before they leave. At worst, they can just not choose any of them. It's okay for them to not eat them.

I also know that when the industry is generally moving in an upward direction, these words are unpleasant to hear and particularly unpleasant, and probably no one will listen.

But I sincerely hope that Chinese films will develop better and better, and that the prosperous market will last as long as possible, because this is in everyone's long-term interests.

So I still have to say what I should say. As for whether others listen or not, that is their business. I have no right to force them."

Chen Yiming seemed to have said nothing, but in fact he said everything.

The higher-ups don't care, the market tolerates it, and of course the sellers can sell the goods however they want. After all, Anyue only made a few big claims this time, and their products are definitely not counterfeit or shoddy products.

So what else can other sellers do except follow suit?

His speech was not about reason but about human nature, and at the end he stood firmly on the audience's side, which naturally won the favor of a large number of students at the scene. I don't know who led the applause, but it became increasingly warm and continuous, blocking the follow-up questions of the reporter. Shen Ming, who was sitting next to him, gave him a thumbs up without any hesitation. As the chairman of the association, Shen was obviously not happy to see the film company's various wrongdoings, but his position was sensitive and it was not suitable for him to speak out casually.

Now that Chen Yiming has been his mouthpiece, Shen Ming naturally gave him a thumbs up. He still has some willfulness in him.

After the meeting that day, Chen Yiming's words were widely circulated, and various interpretations and refutations came one after another, which set off a trend and actually kept pace with the black and red Anyue blockbuster in a short period of time.

Chen Yiming himself was surprised. When did scripture debate become so influential?

Of course, just as he expected, all his words were in vain. After Anyue gave a formal reply of "under investigation", the midnight show continued to go on as usual and the box office was still higher than that of "The 13th Floor".

A considerable proportion of ordinary audiences could not feel this arrogance, but young netizens and Chen Yiming's fans would not let it go. As a result, "The 13th Floor" ushered in a wave of retaliatory viewing, and the average attendance rate rose to a small peak from time to time.

This is outrageous. You have to know that it is already the fifth week since its release. Although "The 13th Floor" can still maintain a double-digit screening schedule, the audiences who have seen it or even watched it twice have already seen it, and the attendance rate of the prime time show in the evening is difficult to maintain at 30%.

The battle between the two films has already been decided. Anyue's blockbuster struggled to cross the 15 billion threshold, while "The 13th Floor" made just over billion. Even if Dazhuang manages to postpone the screening for a second period, there is no hope of catching up.

However, Anyue still has another goal to pursue, which is the honor of being the box office champion in the history of domestic films, that is, "Mulan".

After finally climbing over a hill, I looked up and saw that it was Chen Yiming again!
At this time, the roadshow of "The Thirteenth Floor" had long ended, and the publicity and promotion was still ongoing, but the scale had been significantly reduced and it was almost entering the final stage.

Chen Yiming and several main actors did not completely stop working, and participated in some promotional activities every now and then.

However, Chen Yiming never repeated what he had said before. When he was interviewed, he only discussed the movie itself, and also talked about Platinum's subsequent "The Negotiation Master" and "500 Days of Summer".

Now that he is acting as a cheerleader for the younger generation, the effect is immediately different. With the success of "The 13th Floor", it can be said that he has single-handedly opened the ceiling of domestic genre films. If anyone is still indifferent to this blue ocean market at this time, he is not worthy of being in the film industry.

Chen Yiming thought that this year's Spring Festival movie season would end quietly, but he didn't expect that he still underestimated the efforts of his competitors, who caused another big wave near the end.

On a Wednesday in late March, Chen Yiming had a rare good night's sleep as he had no activities scheduled for that day. After getting up at noon, he was preparing breakfast and lunch when suddenly the phone at his side rang.

Chen Yiming chewed a piece of bread and pressed the hands-free key without even looking at the number. However, the voice that came out sounded strange, and asked him if he was Director Chen.

It’s strange, why does he need to confirm when calling his personal cell phone?

Chen Yiming responded vaguely, and the person on the other end introduced himself as Cheng Yu, a reporter from the Evening News.

Oh, Chen Yiming understood. It turned out to be the reporter Cheng. This was a friend he had known since childhood. Although they didn't have much contact, he would actively inform each other when they exchanged numbers.

Chen Yiming swallowed what he was saying and asked, "Old Cheng, why is your voice so feminine? Did you go to Tailan?"

Cheng Yu seemed to be relieved, and replied in a daze, "Why did I go to Tailan? I just caught a cold. Yiming, there is another wave of rhythm in Anyue, did you know?"

Chen Yiming felt annoyed when he heard this. Why would Boss Lin never stop talking? Couldn’t he just let the movie go quietly?
Cheng Yu seemed to know that Chen Yiming was not interested in understanding, so he took the initiative to explain, "An Yue planned a charity screening event and sent notices to all major media outlets. After I saw it, I estimated that you would not be able to escape, so I came to say hello to you.

The notice said that 2% of the box office revenue would be donated to charity, and some screenings would be set aside as special discounts for people with disabilities, and their 3D blockbusters would be free to watch.

Chen Yiming didn't understand what he heard at first, but when the 2% figure came out, he figured it out. How much do they want to break the record? Now Anyue's blockbuster is only 5000 million away from "Mulan".

The routine is simple but effective. Seeing that there are only a few days left before the release of the film and the market can no longer produce enough oil, they simply produce according to demand and send it directly to Furui.

I'm doing this for charity, so it's not too much to count every show as full, right? The theaters that took on the task of screening the film were Anyue's own and its allied theaters.

With this operation, paying tens or even hundreds of thousands of taxes can add tens of millions to the box office. Isn't it easy to win the championship in the history of domestic films?

(End of this chapter)