Depressive Screenwriter

Inside the theater, a crowd watched as the song "Rain" slowly began to play.

At the end, the people in the theater got the post-credits scene they were waiting for.

In the finale, male lead Takao Akizuki finished making the shoes for Yukino, who then left the city. The two, with their vastly different backgrounds, would never meet again in the park pavilion on a rainy night.

However, Takao Akizuki's inner monologue made it clear that one day, when he became the mature man he aspired to be, he would seek out Yukino.

It wasn't the 'happily ever after' ending the audience had hoped for, but all in all, it couldn't be called a tragedy.

Even so, everyone felt a faint sense of emptiness rising within them.

"The Garden of Words" didn't provide a definitive future for Takao Akizuki and Yukino Yukari in its ending.

It was more of an open-ended conclusion.

Of course, in Su Yan's past life, Shinaki Makoto's later works, such as "Your Name," included a glimpse of Yukino.

After leaving the city, she went to teach in the countryside, specifically to Itomori Town, where Mitsuha Miyamizu, the female lead of "Your Name," lived.

If not for the male lead's efforts in "Your Name" to reverse the outcome of time, Yukino would likely have died in that meteor disaster.

As for whether she and Takao Akizuki eventually got together, there was no definitive answer in Su Yan's past life, let alone for the current moviegoers in Xia.

At this moment, the audience in the theater felt a mix of sadness, discomfort, frustration, and yet, also感动!

Everyone walked out of the theater with these emotions.

Their minds were still echoing with the final scene where the male and female leads embraced, and Yukino spoke those genuine, heartfelt words.

An excellent movie isn't necessarily one that's non-stop action from start to finish, keeping you in a constant state of excitement.

Rather, it's one that, at a certain moment, resonates with you, allowing you to empathize and feel moved, even if only for a second.

If there's just one second where you cheer for the characters and the story, then the movie is a success.

Clearly, these first viewers, silently leaving the theater, could feel these emotions.

The gentle, slow narrative pace in the beginning, followed by a sudden climax at the end, and then concluding with a fitting theme song.

At this moment, the first wave of viewers that night logged onto the internet to comment on related topics.

Besides web series, Xia's four major online broadcasting platforms also stream many theatrical films after their release. On the surface, they are the four largest video websites.

But at the same time, they are also Xia's four largest film and television drama discussion forums.

With the premiere over, the next battlefield was about to begin.

"'Seashore' made me cry. The best romance movie this year."

"'Otter' is really funny, hurry up and go see it if you haven't already!"

"Did anyone watch 'Blood Mirror' tonight? Damn, I can't sleep now that I'm home."

"You shills, stop hyping it up. I went to see 'Seashore' tonight, and it was a huge pile of garbage. I'll just say this: the female lead was pregnant with the second male lead's child and married the male lead, forming a family of three!"

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"What era is this? How can there still be such an outrageous movie?"

"It made me want to throw up."

"That 'Blood Mirror' too, I guessed the villain half an hour in. I thought it was a red herring by the screenwriter, that the real villain was someone else, but the ending was so anticlimactic. My girlfriend fell asleep halfway through."

"'Art Student' isn't bad, but it's just okay. Watchable, but not particularly good."

"'Tree Mystery' is quite interesting, I think it's good, but my roommate thinks it's boring. It's a bit picky with its audience because it has a lot of hardcore scientific knowledge. I, as a science student, can understand it, but my liberal arts roommate was confused the whole time. I recommend science and engineering students to watch it, but not elementary school students and the elderly."

"I don't know if the other five movies released tonight are good or not. I watched 'The Garden of Words' tonight, and I can only say that if you have time this weekend, you should definitely go see it."

"Finally, someone's talking about 'The Garden of Words.' I'm going to rave about this movie!"

"It's been a long time since I've seen a romance movie that touched me so deeply!"

"Romance? There's no romance, it's just that the male and female leads have feelings for each other!"

"My heart is still a little numb. This movie has a real lingering effect!"

"Compared to Su Yan's previous works, it's so much better. At least the ending gave everyone something to look forward to, perhaps Takao Akizuki will still go find Yukino Yukari."

"Yeah, no one dying is the best ending. A happy ending? Don't even think about it."

"I was even hoping that Su Yan and Gu Qingyuan, playing a couple for the first time, would have a happy ending, but my hopes were dashed again."

"Then maybe you'll see it when his new drama 'Tokyo Love Story' airs in October! Su Yan's urban romance works are really great; other people's romance works just don't have the same feel!"

"Wait, what's with all the Su Yan mentions? Why are so many people popping up as soon as someone mentions 'The Garden of Words' on the forum? Is this movie really that good?"

"Highly recommended, it's super great! I've only seen 'The Garden of Words' out of the six movies released tonight, so I can't comment on the other movies. But I've seen most of the movies released in July, and it's much better than 'Grave of Guns' and 'Firefly'."

"Really? 'Grave of Guns' aside, 'Firefly' is still very interesting! Is it even better than 'Firefly'?"

"I can testify, it's really good."

"Indeed, I almost fell asleep during the first hour of 'The Garden of Words.' But the emotional scenes in the last two minutes, I would call it the most touching of this year's romance movies!"

"It's just that the marketing for this movie is very poor. It's so good, but it's not famous at all. The cinema near my house even put its poster in the corner of the theater!"

"There's no way around it, marketing is all about money. Su Yan's company only looks like it has a high net profit margin, but the capital recycling has a cycle. Besides, he's produced too many things in the short term, so there's no way to free up much funds for 'The Garden of Words'."

"Everyone, push it up! A movie like 'The Garden of Words' shouldn't be buried!"

"Anyway, as soon as I left the theater, I gave 'The Garden of Words' a full score on the rating website!"

"I've never seen this type of romance movie before. It's quite interesting."

"It can already be seen that Su Yan seems to no longer be delving into depressing themes. I can watch his next drama, 'Tokyo Love Story,' with peace of mind."

"By the way, what's the name of the song at the end of 'The Garden of Words'? I've been searching online for a long time and can't find it."

"That's a song composed and written by Su Yan, and sung by Yamamoto Yuto, a famous singer from Sakurajima, called 'Rain'. It should be available on music software in a week or two, just wait!"

"Su Yan is really... another song written and composed by him? I'm impressed!"

"Who exactly is Su Yan?!"

"Why are so many people discussing Su Yan and 'The Garden of Words' tonight? It's piqued my interest."

"I'll go watch 'The Garden of Words' tomorrow. Judging by these people's discussions, it doesn't seem like they were paid shills. Could there really be a hidden gem among the six movies released tonight?"

"So many people are saying it's better than 'Firefly'? I'll check the ratings tomorrow. The highest-rated movie released in the July summer档 is 'Firefly,' with an 8.5, and this movie is also temporarily leading in the box office. It's been released for three weeks, and the total box office is almost 700 million. If 'The Garden of Words' really has a higher rating than 'Firefly' when the website opens tomorrow, then I'll take my girlfriend to the cinema!"

On the night of "The Garden of Words" release, the first wave of moviegoers gave the film high praise as they left the theater.

But the spread of public opinion takes time.

On this day, the total box office for Xia's film market was 250 million. "Seashore", which had the highest number of screenings at 16% of the total, took 14% of the box office, earning 35 million on its opening day and securing the top spot on Friday.

Before the movie's release, Xia's film media unanimously believed that the second-highest-grossing film of the day would be "Otter", after all it had an investment of 59 million, backed by big capital, and had as high as 13% of the screenings on its opening day.

However, this film accounted for only 11% of the box office on its opening day, with only 28 million earned, which was somewhat lower than expected.

The runner-up on today's box office list was "The Garden of Words", which the media hadn't been very optimistic about before its release.

With 9% of the screenings, it earned 12% of the daily box office, with an opening day box office of 30.1 million.

And its seat occupancy rate ranked first among all the new movies released today.

Who is most sensitive to these movie data in this market?

That's right, it's the cinemas.

The film distribution companies can only restrain the major cinema owners in Xia to a certain extent.

The cinema owners invest millions to build a cinema, and rent, equipment maintenance, labor, and utilities all cost money.

It is impossible for cinema owners to arrange fewer screenings for profitable movies and increase screenings for unprofitable movies.

The so-called communication and py deals between distributors and cinemas are limited to before the release.

After the movie is released, the screenings of these movies and whether the cinemas voluntarily give support basically depend on the profitability of the films themselves.

Obviously, the overall performance of "The Garden of Words" on its opening day was absolutely the best among the movies released on the same day.

However, many cinema owners were still watching.

Could this be false data generated by the collective support of Su Yan's TV drama fans on the opening day?

Generally, this kind of fan support will only last for a day or two, and will decline on the third day.

Therefore, these cautious cinema owners in Xia only lowered the screening ratio of "Seashore" to 14% on Saturday, and appropriately increased the screening ratio of "The Garden of Words" to 12%.

Let's wait and see.

These changes were all completed at night.

The next morning,

The fan ratings data for the six movies released on Friday were released.

The lowest-rated movie was the horror movie "Blood Mirror", with a rating of 6.1, ranking at the bottom!

And "Seashore", which everyone had high hopes for before its release, only had a rating of 7.8, ranking third among the movies released at the same time.

As for "Tree Mystery", which had a very poor opening day box office of only 19 million, it had a rating as high as 8.2, ranking second among the six movies released at the same time.

And the first?

It was "The Garden of Words", which had the highest topic and discussion volume on the four major online broadcasting platforms and film forums last night.

It had a rating of 8.9 on its opening day.

Now, many people in Xia's film industry couldn't sit still.

Although it was only the end of July, not a particularly good time slot in the summer, there were still six medium-budget movies released at the same time.

"The Garden of Words" had the highest seat occupancy rate among the six movies, and its screening ratio was even lower than its box office share.

Now even the ratings are the highest?

Obviously, this movie was both critically acclaimed and commercially successful at the same time!

The production teams of the other five movies included some first-line movie stars, first-line directors, and famous film screenwriters.

To put it bluntly, who doesn't have a fan base! Moreover, they have decades of film fan accumulation in the industry.

Su Yan, this TV drama screenwriter, was crossing over to make movies. No matter how much his fans support him, how far can they support him?

But surprisingly, this movie performed the best.

Many people in the film industry had already noticed something was wrong, and immediately bought tickets to enter the cinema on Saturday.

As for Su Yan's fans and a large number of movie fans in Xia who were waiting to see, they no longer hesitated.

On Saturday during the day, the box office growth rate of "The Garden of Words" was even faster than on Friday night.

The day ended.

At midnight, the total box office for Xia's film market on Saturday, August 1, was counted.

"The Garden of Words", with 12% of the screenings, earned 14% of the total box office, which was 41 million. This time, "The Garden of Words" took the top spot in the daily box office.

And "Seashore", with 15% of the movie screenings, earned 13% of the box office share, with a box office of 38 million, ranking second in the daily box office.

Except for the change in the box office rankings of these two movies, the box office rankings of the remaining movies remained the same as on the first day of release.

Moreover, the rating of "The Garden of Words" also increased from 8.9 to 9.0.

Now, people in Xia's film industry saw the signs.

This was not a fan movie!