After a hard afternoon of playing mahjong, Fu Ming, relying on his mahjong skills honed since childhood, dominated the game and won 152 yuan. In high spirits, Fu Ming didn't hold back on dinner and ordered a whole table of takeout. The four of them enjoyed a hearty meal, which cost Fu Ming 680 yuan. This made the usually frugal Fu Ming regret it so much that he almost slapped his thigh in frustration.

However, even if he regretted it, time didn't give Chen Ming too many chances. After finishing his meal and cleaning up the dishes, Chen Chen opened the ticketing backend of Yuewen Cinema. After a year of debugging, the entire ticketing backend of Yuewen Cinema was connected to the technical room. Chen Chen could sit in the technical room and watch the ticketing situation of all Yuewen Cinemas across the country in real time. The daily ticketing summary of Yuewen Cinema was also compiled by the technical room before being released.

The large screen displayed the current ticket sales information, showing the box office figures for eight new movies and two older movies still showing, a total of ten movies, displayed in a rectangle, which was very clear.

The two old films were in their final days of screening. After nearly a month of screenings, most of the people who wanted to see them had already seen them. The cinemas only gave them a very limited number of screenings because it was still early, and most of the screenings were given to eight new films.

Because "Five Ghosts Transporting Fortune" was their own film, Zhao Liang gave it the maximum authority, with 22% being the limit. Other cinemas only gave it between 8% and 12%. This was the result Zhao Liang had to beg for, otherwise, 6% would have been quite good. After all, "Five Ghosts Transporting Fortune" was a non-mainstream film, and the various cinemas were not very optimistic about it.

Aside from the two older films, the other eight films all started at 7:30. It's just past 7:00 now, and the real-time ticketing system already shows a large number of moviegoers waiting to buy tickets. Of course, most of the pre-sale tickets are also being redeemed and purchased at this time.

"Alien" truly lives up to its reputation as the king of pre-sales. At this point, it had already sold over ten million tickets, which was very eye-catching on the screen. Moreover, the numbers were still changing. The screen showed that the first screening was sold out, and many people had already started buying tickets for the second screening at 8:15. It looked like it wouldn't be long before it sold out as well.

Despite having anticipated this, Fu Ming still felt extremely envious. At this rate, the box office would easily exceed 100 million yuan tonight, and China Film Group, which imported the film, would probably make a fortune. However, this was something he couldn't envy, since they held the power of life and death over film imports, and not everyone could enjoy an exclusive deal!

Second on the list is "Bonnie and Clyde," a Hong Kong crime thriller with an astonishing appeal. In terms of pre-sales, it is only ten million behind "Alien," which has over nine million in sales.

Similarly, tickets for the first show are sold out, and tickets for the second show are now on sale. The numbers are not much smaller than those for "Aliens," after all, the cast consists of local stars, and their fame is considerable.

"These two movies are probably going to be a battle of titans, and it's anyone's guess who will come out on top in the end."

Watching the box office of these two films grow rapidly, Chen Chen shook his head. The two films had a huge advantage from the start, and they were willing to spend money on promotion. Although they could not be called household names, everyone in the hearts of movie fans knew that these were two top films.

"Let's go take a look in a couple of days. It'll be a good opportunity to learn from their strengths."

Fu Ming has no friends in Shanghai, but he's been getting along quite well with Chen Chen these past few days, so he wanted to invite Chen Chen to come along. It would be a bit awkward for him to go alone.

"If you're going, find two more people to go. It's too awkward with just the two of us men."

Although Chen Chen wanted to go see the movie, he didn't want to go with just the two of them. Most people who went to the movies were families or young couples. What kind of image would it be for two grown men to go to the movies together? He felt awkward even standing in the ticket hall.

"No problem, two more people will make it more lively. You can make the arrangements. Let me know in advance so I can buy the tickets."

Fu Ming was clearly aware of this problem and accepted Chen Chen's suggestion.

"These three popular celebrities all did quite well at the box office tonight, didn't they?"

Chen Chen stared at the screen and suddenly sighed. Fu Ming also saw it. The box office was close to eight million. Tickets for the first showing of the three movies were sold out, but it was unclear whether they were newly added tickets or pre-sale tickets. The system had not yet given feedback.

"The fans are really supportive. I guess most of these are pre-sale tickets that have been converted into physical tickets, right?"

"That should be the case, and it's normal. The box office performance of films starring popular celebrities in the first three days is usually good. This is why many directors like to hire popular celebrities to accumulate box office revenue in the first week as quickly as possible. Even if the box office collapses later, it won't affect the recovery of investment costs, and they can still make a big profit."

Chen Chen saw through all this clearly; it was all just fast-food culture. As for what would happen later, that was irrelevant. As long as the costs were recovered and there was a large surplus profit, that was something to brag about. Reporters would follow up with interviews, and after a week of glory, the lead actors' value would increase, and their image as box office guarantees would be established. What happened after that? Anyway, no one would care if it wasn't made public.

"In that case, big-budget films might be risky. If they can't recoup their investment within a week, there's a risk of them going bankrupt later on, right?"

Fu Ming had heard about the ins and outs of this. In fact, the so-called large investment was caused by the excessively high prices of popular celebrities. For example, the movie "The Rich and Powerful" had a total investment of 320 million yuan, but the lead actor Zhou Kun took 80 million yuan and the female lead Tan Yali took 50 million yuan. Their salaries accounted for 40% of the total investment of the entire film. It is conceivable how much money was actually invested in the filming.

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