Chapter 854: Selling like crazy
"The five-star red flag flutters in the wind
How loud the victory song
Sing our beloved motherland
From now on to prosperity
..."
At about 20:00 on June 30, 1997, a vanguard of the People's Liberation Army stationed in Hong Kong entered Hong Kong. At 23:42, the handover ceremony of power in Hong Kong between China and Britain officially began.
At the same time, in Yanjing, thousands of miles away, countless citizens spontaneously took to the streets early in the morning.
In Tiananmen Square, the numbers on the countdown board for the Chinese government to resume its sovereignty over Hong Kong are decreasing every second.
As the numbers on the countdown board continued to jump, the crowd began to shout in an orderly manner.
"10, 9, 8..."
Everyone is united, like a tsunami.
Such scenes occurred in every city in China, and the vast and loud voice spread across the country.
At 00:00:00 on July 1, 1997, the national anthem of the People's Republic of China was played on time, and the five-star red flag fluttered in the wind at Golden Bauhinia Square on the banks of Victoria Harbour in Hong Kong.
When the five-star red flag fluttered over the harbor of this city that had been away from home for 154 years, countless Chinese people burst into tears.
That afternoon, a grand reception was held in the People's Hall, with more than 4,000 people from all walks of life attending. Lin Weimin joined everyone in having a "state banquet".
That evening, a "Conference of All Circles in the Capital to Celebrate Hong Kong's Return to the Motherland" was held at the Yanjing Workers' Stadium.
The celebration lasted for two hours and ended at around nine o'clock in the evening.
At the return ceremony last night, Lin Weimin was so excited that he couldn't sleep the whole night. He walked around the street with the large group for half the night.
He went home to rest for a few hours in the second half of the night and went into the sea again this morning. The continuous excitement for more than 20 hours made him exhausted. Now that the celebration meeting was over, he wanted to go home and have a good sleep.
Unfortunately, things did not go as he wished. Before he could leave the stadium, he was called back to the sea by a comrade from the General Office. The leaders also had a private celebration tonight and watched "Hero" in advance.
It was almost dawn when the movie ended, and Lin Weimin couldn't help yawning when he went out to sea.
"The movie is very well made and it is perfect to release it at this time."
He recalled the comments made by his senior leader after watching the movie, and a relaxed smile appeared on his face.
Just based on this review, it wouldn't be excessive for the box office to increase by 50 million, right?
July 1st is not only the day when Hong Kong returns to China, but also the day when "Hero" is released.
The overwhelming publicity campaign more than a month before its release has made "Hero" popular even before it was released.
Especially with the support of the concept of "tribute film", even many ordinary people who were originally not interested in movies paid attention to this movie.
Today is the first day of the release of "Hero". Before evening, long queues for buying tickets formed in front of cinemas across the country.
The scene was even more popular than when "The Opium War" was first released. Even many imported blockbusters had never reached such a level of popularity.
"The wind is whistling and the Yishui River is cold; the hero never returns once he leaves." The concept of "Hero" is derived from this sentence.
Watching Hero in the cinema was a treat.
The assassin in red is majestic and fierce as fire; the waist drum of Ansai resounds through the sky; the loess gullies on the plateau are crisscrossed.
Three years ago, Feixue and Canjian teamed up to assassinate Qin. The huge Qin Palace was filled with green curtains, which fluttered with the three people's moves. The fluttering curtains rendered the film's scenes and touched the hearts of every viewer.
They are failed assassins who are trying to survive, but the passion in their hearts is still there.
Three years later, the assassin Wuming returned. This time, he brought the heads of three of his companions as a token of his loyalty, and was destined to never return.
The Qin King's Palace is vast, and the black palace city is a place forged with blood. The Qin King swept the world, ambitious to unify the world, and was about to complete his hegemony by stepping on countless bones.
The black Qin Palace is depressing and solemn, giving people a strong sense of oppression, and the decisive battle is about to break out.
But the people of the world have suffered from war for a long time. If the King of Qin is killed, the world that is about to be unified will fall apart again, wars will break out, and people will suffer.
At the last moment of the movie, Wuming let go of his obsession and sacrificed himself for the sake of the world.
Feather arrows were fired all over the sky, and the eternal assassin finally came to an end.
At the end of the film, Wuming was carried out of the palace by many Qin soldiers. With the grand and sad music as a backdrop, the audience's hearts were all sad.
The Chinese people understand the compassion and righteousness of caring for the common people of the world. Throughout the dynasties, China has never lacked such righteous people.
It is what my heart desires, and even if I die nine times, I will not regret it.
The movie ended, the end credits were still rolling, but the audience in the theater was still immersed in the emotions woven by the movie.
At this time, the lights came on, and a splendid and magnificent journey through time and space ended.
The audience, distracted from the movie, spontaneously applauded, and after a moment the applause became thunderous.
A few minutes later, the audience left one after another, and everyone was still excitedly discussing the movie that had just ended.
“This movie is so exciting!”
"It's good, but the ending is too sad."
"You know nothing. This is called sacrificing one's life for justice. You have learned history and Chinese in vain. This is what Chinese romance is all about!"
…
The first day of the release of "Hero" has ended. During the night, almost all cinemas across the country were full. Even without statistical data, people in the theaters could see the box office potential of this movie.
The next day, which is Tuesday, is usually the quietest time of the week in the cinema, but today seems to be different.
10 a.m. is the time for the first movie screening at the Capital Cinema. Before the staff get into gear, many audiences have bought tickets and walked into the cinema screening room. All of these audiences came to see "Hero".
The staff checked the movie tickets that had been sold. Usually there were three or five people, but nearly half of the audience members were seated in the 10 o'clock show, which was very popular. This phenomenon amazed the cinema staff.
"The quality of 'Hero' is really impressive. The theater is half full this morning, and today is only Tuesday!"
"I watched the movie in my little corner yesterday. Zhang Yimou's film is really amazing! I'm not surprised by how many people come to see it."
“Is this true or false?”
"Nonsense, believe it or not, go and see for yourself if you don't believe it."
The salary for working in a movie theater is not high, but one benefit is that you can watch movies for free. Employees can not only watch movies by themselves, but also bring their families to watch. There is no need to buy tickets. Just bring people in and find a corner to hide.
The 10 o'clock show ended, and before the staff could catch their breath, more audiences came into the cinema.
The vast majority of the audience bought tickets for "Hero", a small number of the rest bought tickets for "Opium War", and one or two viewers bought tickets for other movies that were being shown.
By the afternoon, this trend had become more and more obvious, and the cinema manager decisively called the distribution company to request additional copies.
It’s only been the second day since Hero was released, but now even a fool can see how dominant this movie is.
"The Opium War", which had been released for 23 days, couldn't survive even one round under its control, not to mention other movies released at the same time, which were almost sold out in seconds.
Increase the number of screenings, and you must increase the number of screenings significantly!
If the screening schedule of "Hero" increases, then the screening schedule of other films released at the same time will inevitably decrease. Not to mention the cannon fodder, the one that will be most affected is naturally "Opium War".
"The Opium War" was released on June 9th. It had good momentum in the first few days of its release and achieved a box office of 28.6 million yuan in its first week.
According to previous box office trends, the movie should have grossed at least 40 million in its second week, and would have grossed over 100 million in its third week. This result disappointed the producers, but it was barely acceptable.
"The Opium War" required a huge investment. If the film wants to make a profit from the domestic box office, it would need to have at least 250 million yuan in box office revenue, which is almost impossible in today's film market.
But if the screening is postponed, the final total box office should easily reach 150 million. If the subsequent overseas screenings and copyright sales go smoothly, there is still hope for a return on investment.
But reality gave the producers of "The Opium War" a hard slap in the face.
The film grossed 16.4 million yuan in its second week and 11.2 million yuan in its third week, for a total of 56.2 million yuan.
After 21 days of release, the box office has yet to break 100 million yuan.
"The Opium War" showed its decline, and it even had difficulty getting 100 million yuan at the box office, let alone 150 million yuan.
The unsatisfactory box office performance of the movie is naturally because the audience is not buying it.
After the false enthusiasm in the first few days of its release, the true popularity of the film was revealed.
"The Opium War" is not a film that can be entertaining and educational, and appeals to both the elite and the masses. In addition, the fact that "Hero" has become a huge hit as soon as it was released has almost destroyed all possibilities for the subsequent box office of "The Opium War", which is like adding insult to injury for this film.
Three days after the release of "Hero", the number of screenings of "Opium War" dropped drastically.
Of course, The Opium War is not the only victim whose screening space was squeezed by Hero.
In fact, all movies released at the same time as "Hero" have suffered greatly from this.
Cinema screenings are the most brutal stage of market competition. A cinema of that size needs venues, labor, copies... each of these is a cost, so the cinema's film scheduling naturally has to have a priority.
Whoever can make me money will have more screenings.
On the third day of its release, "Hero" had almost full screening halls for the first show in the morning. How could they not schedule a screening for such a movie?
Not only give, but also give in large amounts and in a special way.
After all, movies like "Hero" are not available every year, so cinemas everywhere will naturally take advantage of this opportunity to make some money.
There was no perfect statistical system these days, and no one knew what proportion of the screenings of "Hero" accounted for nationwide.
But the number of copies sold doesn't lie. In the first few days after the release of "Hero", China Film and Yanying Studio issued hundreds of new copies almost every day.
Just one week after the movie was released, several distribution companies sorted out their data and found that the number of copies of "Hero" distributed had reached 550.
Everyone was shocked to see this number.
You should know that there are only 600 cinemas in the domestic distribution system nowadays, and the number of copies of "Hero" distributed can reach 550, proving that the release scale of "Hero" has covered more than 90% of the movie screens in the country.
Moreover, according to the habits of many city and county-level distribution companies, they are reluctant to supply a copy of a certain film to a single cinema alone, and usually several cinemas share one copy of the film.
Anyway, there aren't that many people watching the movie, so we can just share the burden.
You have to know that movie theaters back then were not like the chain theaters that developed later, which often had several screening halls. Now many movie theaters usually only had one screening hall.
The number of copies of "Hero" reached 550, proving that a considerable number of cinemas must have been showing this movie all day long, leaving no room for other films at all. This is the most terrifying thing.
We are all veterans who have been immersed in the film industry for many years. When we see this number, how can we not understand the message behind it?
"Hero" is selling like crazy!
(End of this chapter)
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