Chapter 180: Continuing with Box Office and Audience Reactions
Chapter 180
"Not necessarily," the agent comforted Lin Yuan. "Nothing has happened yet, has it?"
Lin Yuan nodded: "That's true."
Blame it on the fact that "Bloody Past" did well at the box office.
In fact, even though Lin Yuan was the lead actor, the box office of "Bloody Past" far exceeded his expectations.
He always felt that fans weren't interested in this kind of subject matter.
However... since the movie was released, other viewers have gradually joined in, and not all of them are his fans.
For industry insiders, the box office performance of "Bloody Past" was equally astonishing—in just four days, "Bloody Past" had accumulated a whopping 70 million yuan in box office revenue.
Considering the film has already recouped its costs, after deducting distribution fees, theater revenue sharing, and other expenses, the 70 million yuan still yields a considerable profit.
The problem is that this isn't a movie that the general public would expect to make money from.
The box office performance of "Bloody Past" has, to some extent, gradually deviated from the category of art films.
Given this situation, it's inevitable that industry insiders will analyze it. After much analysis, the conclusion can only be that Lin Yuan might really have magic.
"Hilarious, can't you find any other reason besides this?"
"Honestly, during this release window, isn't Lin Yuan the only movie actor with real box office appeal?"
The subtle relationship between Lin Yuan and Chen Cong has been more or less sensed by the media and marketing accounts.
At the film festival event, the organizers were so disrespectful to Chen Cong that no one knew why at the time. But as things calmed down, some participants gradually revealed the reason.
This kind of thing is not uncommon in the industry, but the fact that the protagonists are Chen Cong and Lin Yuan makes people feel that Chen Cong is overestimating himself.
To some extent, this can be seen as a clash between a talent with real ability and someone with connections.
Lin Yuan had the upper hand.
The simultaneous release of "Grandpa's Courtyard" and "Bloody Past" doesn't seem to have much to offer in terms of marketing, but Chen Cong sees it as a revenge battle against Lin Yuan.
He promoted "Grandpa's Little Courtyard" with the belief that he was certain of success.
Chen Cong's agency also released several press releases, hoping for steady box office growth for "Grandpa's Little Courtyard," and emphasized that "films that only focus on awards will not gain public attention."
This level of comparison and denigration is nothing compared to the similar press releases from all three new films – the box office battle is always a fierce and life-or-death struggle.
The problem is that if "Grandpa's Courtyard" had performed as expected at the box office, that would have been fine, but it didn't.
The box office of "Thunderstorm" has dropped to about the same level as "Grandpa's Courtyard", but "Thunderstorm" is an overseas film with no domestic actors. So the media only made a few comments, which did not affect the lead actors at all.
"Grandpa's Courtyard" is different. Chen Cong has high expectations for its box office performance and has made many bold statements.
Its box office is declining day by day, while "Bloody Past" is catching up. The voices online complaining about the lack of screenings are getting louder and louder, and Chen Cong is getting angrier and angrier.
"Did I decide the screening schedule?" Chen Cong sneered. "Why are all Lin Yuan's fans just like him?"
The film festival had already made him lose face, and now he's lost face again. Although Chen Cong relies on resources, the failure of "Grandpa's Courtyard" has had a limited impact on him. However, he hates the feeling of being trampled on by Lin Yuan.
"Hasn't 'Bloody Past' still not surpassed its box office record yet?"
Chen Cong had no idea why Lin Yuan's fans were so excited. In his opinion, since "Bloody Past" was a fan film, it would collapse sooner or later, while "Grandpa's Courtyard" was able to develop in the long run.
However, the long-term prospects he had hoped for did not materialize.
On its fifth day of release, "Bloody Memories" surpassed "Grandpa's Courtyard" at the box office for the first time, even leaving "Thunder Hurricane," whose numbers were plummeting, behind and boldly occupying the second place on today's box office chart.
Although, so far, "Bloody Past" has only just surpassed 20 million at the box office, and its total box office has not even reached 100 million.
However, in terms of cost, marketing, and public perception, "Bloody Past" should not be in its current position.
The fact that it's ranked second is enough to pique the audience's curiosity.
Curiosity led to increased box office revenue.
If you ask viewers who have seen "Bloody Memories" what their opinion of the film is, they will all give the same answer—"shocking".
More talkative viewers would say, "Even if the storyline isn't very rich, just watching Lin Yuan's performance is enough to get through almost two hours."
Many viewers believe that Wei Liang, the central character in "Bloody Past," drives the story forward.
Lin Yuan's portrayal of Wei Liang is realistic enough that viewers will naturally feel a sense of identification when watching the story.
However, the audience had the opposite feeling about "Grandpa's Courtyard". They felt that Chen Cong's performance was too fake, so much so that they could not get into the story for a long time.
Naturally, the fact that "Bloody Past" only had 10% of screenings also attracted attention.
More and more viewers are complaining that the theaters are giving "Bloody Memories" poor screening times.
"We're already second on the charts, can't we get more screenings?"
"+1, isn't the box office and ratings for 'Grandpa's Courtyard' both declining?"
"I've wanted to see 'Bloody Memories' for ages. It's one thing that the cinema near my house doesn't show it, but when it does, is this the kind of time slot they're showing it to ghosts?"
"Is 'Bloody Past' really that good? I heard the plot is pretty hollow."
"No, no, no, it is a bit slow-paced, but it is not empty at all. If you ask me, 'Grandpa's Courtyard' is the real deal. What era are we living in? Family dramas are still being made like this."
"Grandpa's Courtyard" had already been targeted by "Sniper Wars" before, and now it has the supporters of "Bloody Past" to join in.
The audience's demands are reasonable and well-founded—the box office performance of "Grandpa's Courtyard" was indeed very poor, so why should it receive such a high number of screenings and occupy such a good time slot?
This is so unfair to other movies.
It's obvious to anyone with eyes that "Sniper Wars" and "Bloody Past" still have some room for growth, while "Grandpa's Courtyard" has little room for further growth.
Today, although "Grandpa's Courtyard" has brought enough profits to the theaters, the audience is not buying it. Instead of continuing to give "Grandpa" a high number of screenings, it would be better to increase the number of screenings for "Sniper" and "Bloody Past". This way, the theaters can get even higher profits.
In fact, theaters that deliberately showed more of "Bloody Memories" during this period did make more money.
Because there are fewer screenings, the audience is more concentrated, and the attendance rate is naturally higher.
A few days after its release, some cinemas quietly adjusted the number of screenings for several films, with a surprising effect—"Sniper" and "Bloody Past" saw their box office soar, firmly occupying the first and second places, while "Grandpa's Courtyard" declined all the way down, with its box office dropping quite significantly.
Not only did the box office drop, but "Grandpa's Courtyard" even affected the reputation of the previous film, "Grandma's Persimmon Tree." Audiences were reluctant to believe that the two films were actually made by the same director and screenwriter.
"Or is Chen Cong actually box office poison?"
"He is indeed a sequel enthusiast, but has anyone noticed that the sequels he starred in are far inferior in quality and success compared to the originals?"
"Maybe he's just not destined to be famous, no matter what he tries, he just can't become popular?"
"Personally, I think it's because he doesn't have audience appeal. Cai Qian's performance in the previous film was quite heartwarming, but as soon as he appeared, I felt that the atmosphere of the whole movie was a bit off, so I didn't really want to watch it."
"He's so aggressive with his face recognition that I'm now at the point where I don't really want to look at his face anymore."
With Chen Cong joining the cast, the cost of "Grandpa's Courtyard" was much higher than that of the previous film "Grandma's Persimmon Tree". Excluding the actors' salaries, it cost around 50 million yuan.
Not only has it not yet broken even, but considering the significant profits ceded to theaters due to its high number of screenings, "Grandpa's Courtyard" is likely losing even more money than expected.
However, it wasn't a high-investment commercial blockbuster, so the losses were limited.
Chen Cong's reputation, however, suffered as a result.
In the past few days, whenever you click on anything related to "Grandpa's Little Courtyard," you'll find a lot of criticism of him.
The production team of "Sniper Wars" was quite satisfied with this. The producer openly and subtly indicated that a production team that goes against the audience's wishes will inevitably face punishment from the audience.
Whether Chen Cong himself cares or not is unknown, since he doesn't rely on the audience for a living.
“He may not care, but the production crew might not think so,” Feng Zeng said confidently. “In a few days, the production crew will probably start making a fuss.”
Lin Yuan silently looked at his agent.
The crew of "Bloody Past" has been quite happy these past few days. The box office has exceeded 100 million, and the director's mood is visibly good.
Outsiders think that Ren Maoxing doesn't care about the box office at all, but that's not the case. If he didn't care at all, there would be no need to release "Bloody Past".
Since they were already involved, the director figured he could earn whatever he could.
The director had no idea that "a little" was much more than he had imagined.
When Lin Yuan signed the contract with the production team, he signed an additional clause. Generally speaking, the standard set by the production team is that the box office exceeds 1 billion or 2 billion, and how much Lin Yuan, as the lead actor, can get. However, the starting line for the "Bloody Past" production team was only 100 million.
But in the director's view, this was an almost impossible task.
It's much easier for other directors to earn 1 billion at the box office than for him to earn 100 million.
Director Ren Maoxing didn't want to say it, but that's the truth.
Recently, the director treated Lin Yuan to many meals and even introduced him to film projects—finally, it wasn't a film about himself anymore, which made Lin Yuan very happy.
The director would often be glued to his phone, grinning like an idiot. Lin Yuan would sneak a peek and see that it was always the real-time box office data from a certain platform.
Lin Yuan: "..."
He believed that director Yam Mau-hang should regard money as dirt more.
"No one in this world doesn't love money." Director Ren patted Lin Yuan on the shoulder, "especially film directors."
He doesn't disregard money; he simply doesn't have the opportunity to.
"Bloody Past" gave him a rare opportunity.
A blockbuster film can have a ripple effect, such as increased investment and the ability to shoot more grand scenes.
One more thing—the opportunity to prove yourself.
Everyone knows that Ren Maoxing's movies are critically acclaimed but not commercially successful, but the director himself may not be happy to hear this.
Critical acclaim is expected, but box office success is determined by the audience. This is a classic dilemma faced by filmmakers: box office or critical acclaim?
Objectively speaking, box office success might be better, because it means there can be a sequel, even if the audience doesn't necessarily buy into it.
But if it's just good reputation, it might not even have the chance to start a sequel.
Ren Maoxing has no shortage of film roles; he has considerable influence overseas, and each of his films has earned him some money.
However, in the process of gradually building a reputation, he was indeed troubled by box office issues, and he truly experienced the days of racking his brains to attract investment.
In a way, "Bloody Memories" is a film that redeemed him, both in terms of the Wall Award and its box office performance.
The director was very satisfied and even full of motivation for his next film.
Meanwhile, on the other side of "Grandpa's Little Courtyard," just as Feng had predicted, internal strife began.
The agent sent Lin Yuan a screenshot of the latest news article.
Without special attention, this news would probably have been buried in a corner and ignored by everyone. But Feng Zeng happens to be a person who is quite sensitive to public opinion.
The news has only one focus—Chen Cong was not originally slated to star in "Grandpa's Little Courtyard".
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Author's Note: Update! [starry-eyed][starry-eyed][starry-eyed]
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