Buying box office is nothing new in the film industry.
Even now, the industry has developed into the 2.0 era.
Now I basically use money to lock in some non-prime time and non-prime seat tickets in exchange for movie scheduling support from theaters.
For example, if you give 1 million to several theaters on the first day, these theaters must guarantee how many movies will be scheduled on the first day and how many prime time shows will be occupied.
Then this million will buy a million box office, and the theater will return a certain amount of cash.
The proportion varies depending on the film's prospects, some will return 500,000, some will return 300,000, or even less.
This is no longer a hidden rule, it is almost an obvious thing.
As for how to tell, it's easy. You can tell by looking at the proportion of tickets issued at the counter.
The over-the-counter ticket purchase rate for the bad movie "Youth 2" reached a peak of 72%, and one-third of the tickets were abnormal.
A niche film like "Rock and Roll Tibetan Mastiff" has no box office, which makes it even more serious if you buy it. Almost all of it is bought.
The box office was 3 million the day before, and the ticket purchase rate on the platform was 25%. The box office the next day exceeded 10 million, and the ticket purchase rate at the counter increased to 70%.
Some producers will also explain that Evergrande came out to explain "Rock Tibetan Mastiff" at the beginning, saying that they held an event and bought some tickets at their own Evergrande Cinema to give to the owners.
What a good gift to give, but to give such an unpopular movie, and at that time Evergrande and Huayang Media were still working closely together on a 100 billion cultural tourism real estate project.
You'll know what's going on at a glance.
The same was true for "Warcraft" when it was released by Wanda, and Wanda Plazas across the country were holding mid-year celebrations.
It was released in the middle of the year, so we had a mid-year celebration. It is estimated that there will be a new year celebration and a year-end celebration in the future.
For Mid-Year Celebration, Wanda Plazas across the country are giving away free tickets.
There is an explanation for this, and some people are too lazy to explain it to the public. Anyway, the theater issued the tickets and it was included in the box office. There is no problem with the data.
This and the ghost field that lasts for several minutes are completely fake.
This is a borderline operation, which means that it is ultimately unreasonable. Optoelectronics has also issued documents, requiring the intensity of the discount, the number of tickets, the time, etc. to be clearly stated, including the destination of each ticket.
The Distribution and Exhibition Association is investigating this aspect. As long as the tickets are self-purchased without the provenance, all tickets are defined as false box office.
Although the various associations in the country seem to be just decorations, if they really want to do something, they still have a lot of energy.
In 2017, franchise theaters across the country were inspected, and hundreds of theaters were fined and closed.
As soon as this move was made, for the sake of the overall interests of the summer season, the cinema temporarily stopped accepting Penguin's self-purchased box office cooperation.
This move was also unexpected by the industry.
"Fortress" purchased its own pre-sale box office. The purpose was to make the first-day pre-sale more interesting and then get more film schedules.
After all, in addition to "The Wandering Earth", there are also "Heroes of Fire" and "Anti-Drug 2" which are doing very well at the box office, so the competition pressure is very high.
But now, with the Distribution and Exhibition Association taking action, the first-day pre-sales cannot be filled.
Movie theaters basically base their film schedules on pre-sales, and this also applies to the audience. Pre-sales basically represent the audience's expectations for the movie.
Pre-sales cannot be improved. If the actual pre-sales on the first day are not high enough and the film schedule is not enough, it is likely to trigger a chain reaction and the movie will immediately fall to its knees.
Just when the industry felt that Li Qian hit Penguin's seven inches with one move, something unexpected happened.
On the second day after the Distribution and Exhibition Association took action, the pre-sales of "Fortress" only increased by 2 million, but the pre-sales surged by 10 million the next day.
This time there was no Penguin and I didn’t go to the theater to buy box office tickets. I bought millions directly from Maoyan.
Moreover, it is all real and does not contain any moisture.
You pay as much as you buy the tickets. Unlike the theaters where you get rebates, it's like booking the theater for yourself.
The next day, the pre-sale was another 13 million.
It seems that the plan is to buy it and release it from now on, or to steadily increase it, giving the audience the illusion of high pre-sales.
"What a big deal!"
The industry was also shocked by Penguin's wealthy and crude methods. No other company had done this before.
The back and forth between Li Qian and Chen Wu can be regarded as refreshing the horizons of all filmmakers.
In reality, Li Qian asked the officials to take action, but Chen Wu directly threw money at him.
And Huang Zhongjun, who had been worried for the past two days, finally turned from cloudy to sunny.
Huayang Media was the largest investor in "Fortress", and Ma Xiaogang jumped on the street again, so he turned around with this film.
"Sure enough, the power of capital still needs to be stronger."
Huang Zhongjun was filled with emotion, so what if Li Qian asked the authorities to take action? Penguin could just throw the money at him. Let alone tens of millions, even hundreds of millions would be small money to Penguin.
These box office numbers are all real.
...
"Dr. Chen, I can no longer suppress the negative marketing about the male protagonist online. It seems that the other party doesn't care about the reputation of "The Wandering Earth" and is bent on ruining his reputation."
Although Chen Wu paid for the pre-sale with real money, his face didn't look good.
I thought that Li Qian would be so busy working on the reputation of "The Wandering Earth" that he would have no time to care about "Fortress".
But I never expected that Li Qian didn't care so much.
This turns into stealing each other's homes.
Just a hairstyle with long hair has already drastically reduced the expectations of the audience of "Fortress".
It can be seen from the pre-sale that the actual pre-sale is only so much in one day. There are still fans and book fans. If these are sold out, there will basically be only a few passers-by.
"Where are his 60 million fans!"
Chen Wu slammed the table with hatred, he couldn't control the criticism, he couldn't clean the floor, and he wasn't active in pre-sales. Are all those 60 million fans just elementary school students with no money!
No, it’s not that elementary school students don’t have money. Chen Wu is also the vice president of Penguin and has read Penguin’s financial report for the first half of the year.
As far as games are concerned, the contribution of primary school students is not small.
You won’t want to spend money to buy tickets when you get to your idol’s place.
But now is not the time to be angry. Chen Wu can only ask the actor's team and agent to quickly start deceiving his fans, control the voice on the Internet, and then organize to buy tickets.
After a series of actions were arranged, Chen Wu finally breathed a sigh of relief.
Although the bad news is not good, there is still good news.
At least it thwarted Li Qian's attempt. Although he spent a little more money, the pre-sales of "Fortress" went up. Even though the theater knew it was fake, it still arranged the movie.
Because if they don’t schedule the film, Penguin won’t buy their tickets. This is something that everyone understands tacitly.
It just lacks the rebate from the theater, which Chen Wu doesn't like.
However, as soon as I returned to my chairman's office after the meeting, the phone rang again.
This call came from the person in charge of New Maoyan, the new platform after the merger of Maoyan and Weiying.
For some reason, Chen Wu instinctively felt something was wrong.
After taking a deep breath and answering the phone, a somewhat panicked voice came from the other side.
"Director Chen, it's bad, people from the Distribution and Screening Association are here."
"What are they here for?"
Chen Wu frowned. This shabby association can control theaters, but how can it control their platform?
"It's the Film Bureau. The Film Bureau has just issued a document to include the online ticketing platform into the supervision of distribution and screening. People from the Film Bureau are also here..."
Chen Wu's face became increasingly ugly, and finally he couldn't help but burst out with a national curse.
"Grass!"
...
"The sky is big and the earth is big, but it is not bigger than the country. What kind of bullshit capital is just a matter of words when it comes to physical fitness."
At the celebration party for "The Wandering Earth" breaking 4 billion, Li Qian was filled with emotion.
"Director Li was so proud that he persuaded the higher authorities to take action and included the ticket purchasing platform into the distribution and screening system. Now the platform will be subject to much greater supervision."
Xu Zheng, who took time off from the "囧Mom" crew to attend the celebration banquet, was also amazed by Li Qian's energy. With just one sentence, he inspected theaters across the country and even used the ticket purchase platform.
Ning Hao became a little sensitive, "Isn't there some kind of person? How come the higher-ups are meddling in such nosy matters? They generally won't take action on things that don't involve ideology."
"That was before." Li Qian shook his head mysteriously.
"It's because of the reorganization of Optoelectronics and the film bureau was placed under the Publicity Department." Guo Fan, the protagonist of the celebration banquet, spoke up.
Xu Zheng was a little confused and turned to Guo Fan and asked, "What does this have to do with it?"
Guo Fan explained, "Previously, the publicity business of the General Administration was under the Publicity Department, but in fact it was directly under the cabinet and it was the entertainment industry. Now that the General Administration of Press and Publication and the Film Bureau have been officially placed under the Publicity Department, the film will no longer
It’s just the entertainment industry and has become part of the publicity media.”
"So?" Xu Zheng looked confused. Last year, Optoelectronics reorganized its film bureau and no longer owned it, but it had little impact on the industry. It seemed that it didn't matter whether it changed or not.
"Brother Zheng, it's time to care about politics."
Li Qian smiled, "The importance of the entertainment industry and the publicity media are completely different, which shows that leaders are paying more and more attention to the film industry. It is not only the entertainment industry, it is also related to ideology. I didn't find that since the reorganization of Optoelectronics,
Are there more and more theme-themed movies?”
"That's true." Xu Zheng nodded. Previously, he made three movies with the main theme at one time because of the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China and the 70th anniversary of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and Aid Korea.
This was all before the reorganization of Optoelectronics, but after the reorganization last year, several main theme movies such as "Captain of China", "The Climber", and "Heroes of Fire" were commercial blockbusters, which were different from the previous main theme movies and were all approved.
They are all adapted from real events, and are all led by the Publicity Department and the Film Bureau. It is obvious that the above have regarded movies as a propaganda medium, both internally and externally, and are no longer a pure entertainment industry.
After thinking about this, Xu Zheng was a little worried, "But if this happens, will the censorship be more stringent in the future?"
"I don't know, but we don't shoot those sensitive things. Brother Zheng, if you can hit the mark when you make a comedy, that would be awesome." Li Qian said with a smile.
"That's true. I only make comedies. It has nothing to do with me. But just because of this, the higher-ups are helping you?" Xu Zheng asked again.
"Chen Wu deserves it. He insists on making a fuss about his patriotism, otherwise I wouldn't be able to persuade Director Wang." Li Qian shook his head.
Chen Wu's black method is to provoke a war of words between the trolls, movie fans, and passersby, raising "The Wandering Earth" to a patriotic level.
Nowadays, there are various counter-narratives on the Internet. If you don't praise "The Wandering Earth", you are unpatriotic and just a cent.
Originally, the content of the movie had nothing to do with patriotism. It was about loving the earth. It was just because it was the first domestically produced science fiction. To be patriotic, at best, it meant supporting domestically produced science fiction.
If you do this, it will naturally make people disgusted.
Most Chinese people are very patriotic, but they resent coercion. Everything is related to patriotism, and some people use this name to cause trouble.
This was indeed the biggest impact on "The Wandering Earth", but it was precisely this that Li Qian persuaded the film bureau.
After all, this aspect is involved, and it is purely malicious speculation.
In addition, it is the first domestically produced science fiction film, and the entire film is engraved with domestic imprints, not Hollywood models and ideas. To a certain extent, this is also an ideology.
As for attacking the platform, the platform has always been included in the supervision of distribution and screening. It was also Li Qian who revealed Chen Wu's second plan to the film bureau.
Chen Wu wants to replace movie theaters with video websites as the new terminal. This is too arrogant.
That is not just a problem in the film industry, it is the rise and fall of a physical industry, and along with the survival of movie theaters there are physical shopping malls.
Many shopping malls actually rely on movie theaters to bring traffic. If movie theaters are replaced by video websites, those half-dead shopping malls will completely collapse, and the impact on the real economy will be considerable.
The Film Bureau and the Distribution and Exhibition Association have notified all major platforms, but the specific regulatory mechanisms and systems will take time.
But at this time, it is estimated that Chen Wu will not commit crimes against the odds.
After all, even though it was bought with real money, the film bureau had issued documents.
However, Li Qian soon knew the result. The pre-sale at Penguin continued to buy, but in a different way.
It is not a self-purchase, but a large number of tickets are distributed across the entire network.
In this way, in this era of online real-name system, every ticket has a place to go.
But it's not that easy to give away tickets, especially now that the audience's expectations are not high, and instead they have to promote it.
Penguin began to invest a lot of publicity resources and gave away the tickets it purchased to netizens.
Coupled with the doubts faced by "Fortress" itself, the male protagonist's hair style has not been cleaned up yet, and the critics cannot control it at all.
Penguin's manpower began to be exhausted, and it took the initiative to withdraw the "Wandering Earth" navy.
These trolls are all here to build momentum for "Fortress". The film critics and self-media are also busy praising "Fortress" in various ways, and they have no time to continue to criticize "The Wandering Earth".
Although there were still some spectators who were led astray and the road turned dark, but without the hordes of navy troops, Li Qian also began to send people to "clean the ground."
Although the crisis against "The Wandering Earth" has not been eliminated, with the box office exceeding 4 billion, there is no organized troll army.
There is also the upcoming "Fortress" for comparison, which is basically solved.
Now, it is Chen Wu who should be worried.
I bought the tickets with my own money, but I still have to spend time and money to send them out, not to mention how frustrating it is.
Moreover, the reputation of "Fortress" has plummeted. The movie has not even been released, and the entire Internet has already questioned it.
"These people are so full and full, why do they care about other people's hair!"
Just a few haircuts have made his reputation like this, and Chen Wu is in trouble.
"It's such a simple matter, find some stills of foreign military movies with long hair, make an illustration of the male protagonist with long hair, and let Jiang Nan post it on Weibo."
Soldiers can have long hair in foreign movies, but not in domestic movies?
The original author has spoken, do you know better than the author?
"Okay, Director Chen, I'll make arrangements right away. The actor's team also wants some tickets to give to fans for promotion."
"Let them buy it themselves!"
Chen Wu gets so angry when he talks about this, 60 million fans are useless.
I can't control the criticism, and I'm not willing to spend money on my idol. I can't support it at the box office, and now I'm asking for tickets.
But despite criticism, tickets still need to be given, and fans are still needed to promote the movie.
I just hope that these 60 million fans can give him some support after the movie is released, so as not to disappoint him again.