Chapter 678 Pull one group and beat another
It turns out that Teacher Lin is a very generous leader.
When Yu Hua was found gossiping behind others' backs, not only did he not suffer any retaliation, but Teacher Lin gave Yu Hua very selfless guidance and help in literary creation.
As a result, Yu Hua's inspiration has been flowing like a spurt in recent days, and he has to stay up all night every day to write.
"Take a break, don't tire yourself out."
At Yu Hua's home, Cheng Hong was more than seven months pregnant and her body was getting heavier and heavier. She went to bed early at night. When she got up in the middle of the night, she found her husband still writing at the desk. She poured Yu Hua a cup of tea and persuaded him gently.
When Yu Hua heard what his wife said, he said, "No, I have an inspiration now, I have to hurry and finish writing."
"We are not short of money now, why are you so anxious?" Cheng Hong expressed confusion.
Yu Hua shook his head, "You don't understand!"
He knew Teacher Lin too well. He had taken the initiative to write a book in order to apologize for his crime. Given Teacher Lin's personality, how could he be allowed to leisurely write a novel for a year or two?
There is a saying that goes, "It is easy to change the country but difficult to change one's nature." Although Mr. Lin is now the editor-in-chief, he still uses the method of locking people in the small dark room.
At the end of last year, Jia Pingwa was locked up by him for fifty days and he wrote "Wasted City".
Teacher Lin’s sword has not been unsheathed for several years. When he drew his sword last year, it was still as sharp as ever.
Yu Hua didn't want to be locked in a small dark room when his child was born.
Therefore, he had to finish the novel before his child was born so that he could feel at ease.
He touched Cheng Hong's pregnant belly and thought it must be a son. Once he gets the little bean bun, he won't have to suffer so much as your father!
"Farewell My Concubine" has been released for more than a week. After the premiere and roadshow were held at the Capital Cinema in Yanjing on the 18th, the film's creative team went to the Grandview Cinema in Shanghai. The roadshow scene was almost identical to that in Yanjing.
Wherever the creative team went, there were crowds of people, and countless fans and moviegoers flocked to follow.
After spending a week traveling to several major cities in the country, the main creative team has now arrived in Hong Kong.
"Farewell My Concubine" was released in Hong Kong a week later than in mainland China, which was just enough time to hold another premiere to boost publicity.
During the week that the creative team promoted the film in mainland China, various news media including newspapers, magazines, radio stations and television stations provided comprehensive coverage of the release and promotion of Farewell My Concubine.
Before Farewell My Concubine, no other Chinese-language film had spent so much money and effort on promotion.
With so much money and effort invested, the results achieved are also remarkable.
In this era, box office statistics were not calculated through computer systems like in later generations. Instead, they had to be manually counted and calculated, which was very troublesome.
Usually, it is a remarkable thing to be able to summarize the box office once a week.
On June 27, the tenth day after the release of "Farewell My Concubine", cinema chains around the country finally released the box office statistics for the movie's first week.
68.697 million yuan.
Lin Weimin received a call from Xu Feng, saying that the box office statistics were out and she wanted to give him the good news. He was quite skeptical in his heart, thinking that it would be at most 20 or 30 million RMB.
But when he heard the number "68.697 million" from Xu Feng, he fell into rare silence.
68.697 million yuan, what does this mean?
At the beginning of the year, "Once Upon a Time in China 3: Return of the Lion King" earned 150 million yuan in the mainland box office. Based on the fact that the first week's box office accounted for one-third of the total box office, it is probably around 50 million yuan.
It is now June 1993. The ticket price for "Farewell My Concubine" in Yanjing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and other places is 4 yuan per ticket, which means that within a week, at least 17 million viewers in China have watched this movie.
This is still a conservative calculation, because movie ticket prices in places like Yanjing and Shanghai are already expensive, and other places will only be cheaper.
Another thing is that theaters in various places concealed or underreported box office revenue, which was commonplace in movie theaters in the 1990s.
All of Chen Xiaoer's films were box office hits, but they all lost money. Many cinema chains were almost unscrupulous in concealing or underreporting box office revenue.
By this calculation, the number of viewers of "Farewell My Concubine" in the first week of its release is likely to exceed 20 million.
When "Shaolin Temple" was released in 1982, it sold more than 100 million yuan at the box office with a ticket price of more than 1 cent, and the number of viewers exceeded 1 billion, which was simply a miracle.
"Farewell My Concubine" certainly cannot break the record of "Shaolin Temple", after all, "Shaolin Temple" was released for more than half a year. But looking at the number of viewers in the first week alone, "Farewell My Concubine" can indeed compete with "Shaolin Temple". If inflation is not taken into account, it is not difficult to surpass "Shaolin Temple" at the box office, but the number of viewers cannot be exceeded.
Not to mention one billion people, even one-tenth of it is impossible. The market environment is already very different, and the two are not on the same level at all.
After the shock and joy, Lin Weimin's mentality returned to normal. He was of course happy about the high box office, but he was afraid that this momentum would not last long.
"You must be prepared for a sharp drop in box office next week." Lin Weimin reminded Xu Feng.
"I have contacted several cinemas and the box office decline is ideal. Although the second week is not as good as the first week, the box office should not be bad either."
Lin Weimin sighed, Xu Feng still didn’t understand the mainland market well enough.
In the 1990s, there was a group of vultures in the film market. They relied on the mountains to make a living, and relied on the water to make a living. They relied on the theaters to conceal and underreport the box office.
The box office of "Farewell My Concubine" in the first week was nearly 70 million. If inflation is not taken into account, this number definitely set a record for the first-week box office of a domestic film. For those vultures, how could they easily give up such a feast?
After hearing what Lin Weimin said, Xu Feng couldn't believe it, "It shouldn't be that serious, right?"
"You can communicate with Director Cheng and see what he thinks."
Lin Weimin did not persuade Xu Feng, but asked her to ask Cheng Zhigu, the director of Yanying Studio. He was a veteran in the film industry and knew more about the film industry than Lin Weimin.
Not long after the phone call was hung up, Lin Weimin received another call from Xu Feng, and Cheng Zhigu's statement was almost the same as Lin Weimin's.
Xu Feng couldn't help but feel extremely anxious. The box office of tens of millions a week, even one-tenth of it would still be millions. It was so easy for some lawless elements in the cinema to steal it away. It made her feel more uncomfortable than killing her.
Xu Feng called again naturally to ask for advice. Cheng Zhigu didn't have any good ideas for the issue of concealing or underreporting box office figures. Over the years, this behavior has become a deep-rooted bad habit in the film industry. His suggestion was to find an example and make an example of it.
But killing a chicken to scare the monkeys, not to mention the timeliness, the deterrent effect is a problem. Will the cinemas be afraid of the film producers?
Even if this matter is to be done, the Film Bureau has to take action.
Facing Xu Feng's anxious tone, Lin Weimin sighed and said, "How about this, I'll find a way with the Film Bureau, and you go organize a team of 100 people to monitor the votes."
"What do you want people for?"
"We will cooperate with the Film Bureau to launch a special operation to combat 'concealment and underreporting' of box office revenue. We will provide the manpower and funds, and the Film Bureau will provide guidance."
Xu Feng just didn't understand the mainland film market, but she was also a smart person. After listening to Lin Weimin's words, she immediately understood what he meant.
To put it bluntly, if the Film Bureau is asked to provide manpower and funds for such a thing, they may not be willing to do it even if there are results, after all, it will offend people.
But if the film company pays for the money and the people, the Film Bureau only needs to say something and the work results will be in hand. They will naturally be happy to cooperate, and offending people will not be a big deal.
Lin Weimin said that if they organized a team of 100 people to monitor the votes for a month, even if each person spent 1,000 yuan, it would only be 100,000 yuan. Compared with the millions or even tens of millions of box office revenue that might have been concealed or underreported, it would be a drop in the bucket.
Xu Feng took action without saying a word, and Lin Weimin also called Teng Jinxian.
He has a good relationship with Lao Teng, but it is not feasible to always rely on personal connections and harm others for personal gain. Mutual benefit is still necessary.
The production team of "Farewell My Concubine" provided manpower and funds to cooperate with the Film Bureau in carrying out a special operation to crack down on "concealing and underreporting" box office revenue. For Director Teng Jinxian, this is not only a political achievement, but also a way to give a warning to distribution companies across the country.
In the first half of this year, in order to promote film reform, the Film Bureau has given these local distribution companies a lot of sweet treats. Now that they have had enough benefits, it is time to let them understand the rules.
Anyway, there are thousands of city-level and county-level distribution companies across the country, and now that the channel has been opened, the Film Bureau has no worries about lack of cooperation in promoting film reform.
In political struggle, we should pull some people in and beat some others, so that we have more people and the other side has fewer people. This is the truth.
Sure enough, after Lin Weimin finished talking about the situation of Farewell My Concubine and his own demands, Teng Jinxian immediately understood the mystery. He told Lin Weimin, "Don't worry, I'll make a call and give you news later."
After saying that, he hung up the phone, then called Tian Congming and told him Lin Weimin's request and the whole story and the hidden mysteries.
After listening to this, Tian Congming pondered for a moment and sighed, "I really can't bear not to bring Lin Weimin over here!"
Teng Jinxian smiled and said, "Then you can talk to the organization department. We should respect personal opinions, but individuals must also obey the organization's arrangements."
Tian Congming laughed and said, "Old Teng, aren't you afraid that Lin Weimin will find out that you are doing bad things behind your back and will stab you in the back?"
"I'm doing this for his own good. He's still young and has had such a smooth journey that he doesn't know how difficult it is to be an official."
Tian Congming nodded sympathetically, and then said, "Okay, let's do it this way. Since we are going to do it, let's do it on a larger scale. I will contact comrades from other departments and strive to make this action in-depth and practical. We can't just make a lot of noise but do little. This is also a good opportunity for us. It's time to deal with some disobedient brothers."
Tian Congming's tone was light, but Teng Jinxian could hear a murderous aura.
To be able to reach this position at the age of thirty, Tian Congming is by no means an easy man. In the first half of the year, he moved around among various forces, pretending to be nice to them and playing along with the situation, but it was not for the purpose of being humble and compromising.
Now that the situation of film reform has become increasingly clear, Lin Weimin just happened to hand over a knife.
With the right time, right place and right people, Tian Congming didn't mind teaching a lesson to some of the "princes" who thought they were separatist.
Teng Jinxian put down the phone, thinking of the possible fate of some of his colleagues, and couldn't help but mourn for them.
If the water is too clear, there will be no fish. As a veteran who has been deeply involved in the film industry for 30 years, how could Teng Jinxian not be aware of the dirty things in the film industry?
Some people don't know the importance of things and think they can fight against the organization by joining forces.
Little do they know that this is the way to death.
(End of this chapter)
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