Chapter 33 (033): Release of "The Immortal"
Chapter 33
It was noon when the movie ended. The sun was shining brightly outside the theater, and Wei Jin finally felt alive again—he was still shaken by the oppressive feeling that Gu Yilou had brought him.
It seemed that whenever he was in the dimly lit environment of the movie theater, he was shrouded in Gu Yilou's shadow.
"Thousand Mountains" was much better than he expected. The pacing was excellent, and as for the casting, there wasn't a single actor who made him feel out of place throughout the entire film.
Because he didn't have high expectations for Gu Yilou, he was pleasantly surprised after watching the whole film.
Wei Jin checked again, and indeed, Lin Yuan's resume did not include any film or television works; "Thousand Mountains" was his first film.
That's amazing.
This must be what they call a genius.
After watching the movie, Wei Jin opened the ticketing app and silently gave "Thousand Mountains" a 10 out of 10.
The movie has only had limited screenings, and the reviews are so few as to be negligible. The box office is also very low so far.
It's late April now, which is the off-season for the box office, and there aren't many popular movies choosing to be released during this period.
Any production team with even a little ambition has scheduled its release for the May Day holiday.
Ten new films will be released during the May Day holiday, including two urban romance films, one fantasy film, two action films, and "Thousand Mountains," making the competition extremely fierce.
However, major film release periods have a clustering effect on audiences. During the off-season, when only one or two movies are released, audiences have no intention of going to the cinema. On the contrary, during popular periods like May Day, watching movies becomes a must, and each film can benefit from it.
Wei Jin glanced at the list of films to be released and found that the film with the most "want to see" votes was actually "The Immortal".
On the pre-sale charts, "The Immortal" is also far ahead.
Wei Jin originally thought that the pre-sale results of the action film "Poison Gun" would be better.
The pre-sale box office for "Thousand Mountains" is quite good, currently ranking third. In any case, the pairing of Li Mobei and Hua Lin is still somewhat attractive.
Of course, it can't compare to the 100 million yuan in pre-sale box office of "The Immortal".
When did fantasy and martial arts themes become so popular?
The Wei and Jin dynasties were somewhat confused.
He usually doesn't pay attention to the various uproars in the fan circle, and only assumes that the audience is genuinely interested in "The Immortal".
...
"Pre-sales have exceeded 100 million! Number one during the May Day holiday, this movie 'The Immortal' is definitely going to be a hit!"
"Xiaoyu's appeal is absolutely amazing!!"
"Congratulations to Xie Yu on becoming a member of the club for films with pre-sales exceeding 100 million yuan! Everyone doubted you, but you proved them wrong!!"
"Breaking news! The box office forecast for 'The Immortal' has been raised to 1.5 billion! Xie Yu is too amazing!"
On the current pre-sale charts, "The Immortal" is indeed ranked first.
Xie Yu was surprised by the impressive pre-sale results of his debut film, and DA Entertainment was equally delighted.
The reason DA Entertainment chose this movie for Xie Yu was because it could make him a star. In "The Immortal," Xie Yu plays Li Yunsheng, an immortal whose skills are the best in the immortal realm, and his tragic love story with Wei Wushuang moved many readers.
The original novel of "The Immortal" is "The Peerless Warrior of Mortals", which has been selected multiple times as one of the top ten most popular Xianxia (fantasy martial arts) romance novels. Li Yunsheng is also ranked high on the list of most popular male protagonists.
As it turns out, Xie Yu made the right choice in casting Li Yunsheng.
With pre-sales exceeding 100 million yuan, this is clearly on the verge of becoming a huge hit!
DA Entertainment didn't initially have high expectations for "The Immortal," but after seeing the pre-sale box office figures, their minds started to race—
Although there are many movies released during the May Day holiday, no more than five can compete with "The Immortal". With its pre-sale results, "The Immortal" is sure to win a lot of screenings.
With more screenings, the total box office will naturally increase.
DA Entertainment acted immediately—
#Pre-sales for "The Immortal" exceed 100 million yuan#
#The author of "The Immortal" says Xie Yu is the most perfect Li Yunsheng#
#The Immortal Becomes the Top-Selling Film for the May Day Holiday#
Suddenly, promotional videos for "The Immortal" were everywhere—on Weibo, video platforms, ticketing platforms, gossip forums, and more.
The scene of Li Yunsheng holding Wei Wushuang, his white clothes stained with blood, was played everywhere.
Besides achieving the best pre-sale results, "The Immortal" also ranked first in the number of people who "want to see" during the May Day holiday.
Xie Yu was more low-key this time, not liking trending topics immediately, but when "The Immortal" broke 100 million yuan in pre-sales, he made a point of paying attention to "A Thousand Mountains".
Currently, "Thousand Mountains" ranks third in both the pre-sale charts and the number of people who want to see it, with pre-sale box office of over 40 million yuan. Even if the box office from the preview screenings is included, it still hasn't surpassed "The Immortal".
The few reviews for "Thousand Mountains" are good, but the number of people reviewing them is too small to be considered significant.
Xie Yu couldn't help but feel secretly pleased.
Although Lin Yuan won't be the one to carry the box office of "Thousand Mountains," if its box office performance is any worse, Lin Yuan's plan to break into the film industry could be declared bankrupt much sooner.
Xie Yu did not want to see any of Lin Yuan's works achieve good results.
Moreover, "Thousands of Mountains" had rejected him.
As the male lead of "The Immortal," he slaps the face of "Thousand Mountains," which had rejected him. Isn't this the most satisfying scenario in a novel?
...
As DA Entertainment predicted, on the first day of its May Day release, "The Immortal" secured 21.6% of the screenings thanks to its outstanding pre-sale performance.
The top spot went to "The Poison Gun." The lead actor in "The Poison Gun" has strong box office appeal and is currently the highest-grossing male actor in a film. In addition, "The Poison Gun" had good pre-sale results, approaching those of "The Immortal." Taking all factors into consideration, "The Poison Gun" secured 25.9% of the screenings.
The screening share of "Thousand Mountains" is 15.2%.
With ten new films releasing in the same period, it's already quite good that "Thousand Mountains" has this number of screenings.
After all, although Li Mobei is a film emperor, he is not a recognized actor with strong box office appeal.
"I feel sorry for 'Thousands of Mountains'."
"Luckily, my brother didn't get to act in 'Thousand Mountains.' He already has 'The Immortal,' so who cares about 'Thousand Mountains' anymore?"
"Hahaha, the crew of 'Thousand Mountains' got what they wanted, it's hilarious, they just had to choose Lin Yuan."
"Waiting for 'The Immortal' to be a box office smash on its opening day! No need to give a damn about those film crews who have absolutely no taste!!"
...
The entire crew of "Thousands of Mountains" received notification regarding the film's screening schedule.
In fact, although the number of screenings is currently only ranked third, the crew is very calm. In Qin Panyun's words, this number of screenings is already among the top in his directing career.
"Was it ever better than it is now?"
Similarly, Li Mobei remained calm.
"Thousand Mountains" is not a big-budget film, so the pressure to recoup the investment is not that great. Under normal circumstances, Qin Panyun's films will be submitted for awards of all sizes, and after winning awards, they can reap a wave of profits.
The only criticism "Thousand Mountains" has received so far is that Gu Yilou didn't cast Xie Yu in the role.
The director stated, "Even with 10 billion yuan in pre-sales for 'The Immortal,' there's no way he'd be cast as Gu Yilou."
Lin Yuan gave a thumbs up: "No wonder he's a director, he treats money like dirt."
"Anyway, it's impossible for 'The Immortal' to break 10 billion at the box office."
Lin Yuan: "..."
Does that mean you'll consider it once it surpasses 10 billion?
Besides the director and lead actors having relatively optimistic attitudes, the reason why everyone involved in "A Thousand Mountains" remained calm was—
Before its official release, the film's preview screenings saw a continuous increase in box office revenue; more precisely, the average occupancy rate and box office revenue per screening both rose simultaneously.
Although the preview screenings had low box office numbers, this result indicates that at least some viewers were attracted to "Thousand Mountains".
In fact—
Book fans like Wei Jin couldn't wait to recommend the movie to their fellow enthusiasts after watching it.
Next, it's book fans recommending it to new book fans.
Although this group of book fans is not large, they constitute the first batch of positive reviews for "A Thousand Mountains".
In addition, Gu Yilou's mystery is gradually being unveiled.
During the film's promotional period, the production team released very little material about Gu Yilou, but any audience member who has seen the film "Thousand Mountains" would never be able to ignore Gu Yilou's existence.
Is Gu Yilou truly outstanding?
"Absolutely! I'm not lying!"
The increase in box office revenue from preview screenings led to an increase in the number of people who "want to see" "Thousand Mountains"—but everything was developing in secret, unlike the hype surrounding "The Immortal".
...
Although it didn't have as many screenings as "The Poison Gun," "The Immortal" still topped the box office charts on its opening day, especially considering pre-sale tickets.
With pre-sale box office of 100 million yuan, by 2 pm that day, the total box office of "The Immortal" had exceeded 200 million yuan.
The production team of "The Immortal" couldn't wait to release a large poster announcing the good news to the audience, and the trending search terms followed suit.
The film "The Immortal" already had a group of fans of the original novel, and some viewers bought tickets because of its ranking. In any case, the higher the box office of a movie, the more worthwhile it is to buy a ticket.
Yan Li and her friend bought "The Immortal" because of this idea. Yan Li is a data enthusiast, while her friend is a fan of the original book.
The two excitedly bought tickets and went into the movie theater. After watching for ten minutes, Yan Li's strongest thought was that she really wanted to sleep.
She's never usually this sleepy, but for some reason, the plot of "The Immortal" made her drowsy.
But Yan Li was too embarrassed to say it, since her close friends really loved the original novel "The Immortal".
Yan Li fought off her drowsiness and thought she should go to the restroom. Just as she was about to stand up, she saw her friend's face turn pale. Suddenly, she leaned close to Yan Li's ear and said, "This movie is a bit strange."
"?What's wrong?"
"Wushuang's screen time has been very short so far," a friend said. "Although their relationship is very tragic in the book, Wushuang is definitely not the kind of person who cries and waits for Li Yunsheng to save her."
Yan Li suddenly remembered that the original work was called "The Mortal Woman Wei Wushuang". Wei Wushuang seemed to be a female character who grew up from the grassroots. She was not born as an immortal, but rather rose from the mortal to the immortal. She was resilient and stubborn, and she did not depend on anyone.
At least among the fans of the original novel, no one felt that Wei Wushuang was unworthy of Li Yunsheng.
She has her own decisiveness and determination. If the female protagonist didn't have so many virtues, the original novel would never have been so popular.
After her friend pointed it out, Yan Li also felt that something was not quite right.
Seeing her friend looking downcast, Yan Li comforted her, saying, "It'll probably get better later."
His friend thought about it and agreed, so he sat down again.
Another half hour later, my friend stood up and said, "I can't take it anymore."
"Who can tell that this is an adaptation of 'The Peerless Female Warrior'?"
Yan Li felt that book fans were probably very concerned that Li Yunsheng had stolen the spotlight from Wei Wushuang, while she, as a non-book fan, thought the movie was incredibly boring.
The pacing is slow, and the plot is boring. It could be changed to "An immortal loses his memory while fighting and falls in love to save the world."
Objectively speaking, Li Yunsheng in the movie is indeed very busy, but it's unclear what he's busy with. In fact, the busier he is, the more his pace seems like a monotonous, repetitive account.
Li Yunsheng wants all the highlights—he has all the popular elements of the fantasy genre.
She has experienced amnesia, descended to the mortal realm, endured a tragic love affair, and been cruelly wronged.
He has fought, been admired by female immortals, shown off, discovered conspiracies in the immortal realm, and saved the world.
Too much highlight is the same as no highlight at all.
The film "The Immortal" completely misses the mark; it's like a film exclusively made for Li Yunsheng by some super fan.
He even knows Buddhist sayings, so the monks are out of a job.
He can still perform geomancy and fortune telling, leaving feng shui masters out of work.
I've been too busy.
Before the movie was over, Yan Li's friend pulled her away.
Yan Li glanced at her phone when she had a moment to spare. There was even a push notification for "The Immortal" on her phone right now—"Xie Yu writes an epic love story."
The female lead has zero presence.
What is all this about?
-----------------------
Author's Note: Update! [doge][doge][doge]
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com