Chapter 405 I can’t offend Gu Wei for you
On July 25, the premiere press conference of the movie "Legend of the Gods" was held in Beijing, titled "The Ceremony of the Gods".
The event was attended by Xiang Huaqiang and his wife from China Star Cinema, Mr. Yu Dong, President of Bona Film Group, as well as Xu An, director of The Legend of Gods, and actors Li Lianjie, Fan Bingbing, Liang Jiahui, Xiang Zuo, and Andy On.
Various media outlets arrived at the event, and the main creators appeared to talk about the plot of Fengshen in detail and chat about interesting behind-the-scenes stories.
When asked on the spot why he agreed to act in the movie, Li Lianjie answered with a smile.
"In fact, Mr. Xiang approached me to film 'Investiture of the Gods' five years ago. He told me that he wanted to make a legendary story that could showcase Chinese magic. I was very moved when I heard that, so I came here."
"As far as we know, this is Mr. Xiang Zuo's first major role on the big screen. What do you think of a young actor like him?"
Although Xiang Zuo's name was always ranked behind a group of stars during the promotion, as the son of Mr. Xiang of China Star Films, he collaborated with big stars such as Li Lianjie in his first acting role, so the media still paid close attention to him.
Li Lianjie smiled and looked at Xiang Zuo who was standing beside him.
"I have great confidence in him. As far as I know, Xiang Zuo has been practicing martial arts for ten years and has put in five years of hard work.
Looking at his current figure and posture, he looks very much like a young Wong Fei-hung."
I don’t know if he was sincere or because his father was there, but Li Lianjie praised Xiang Zuo throughout the whole process.
Later, when the media interviewed Xiang Zuo, he returned the favor and said that Li Lianjie had been his idol since childhood, and that he learned kung fu because of the influence of his movies when he was a child.
In "The Legend of the Gods", Li Lianjie plays Jiang Ziya, who leads Lei Zhenzi and other extraordinary people to fight against Daji and King Zhou.
In real life, Li Lianjie is also his idol and life mentor.
Later, he was so excited that Xiang Zuo even performed a set of boxing on the spot. He did it in a very professional manner, which attracted applause from the guests present.
However, there was not even a two-minute routine in total. Xiang Zuo was sweating all over after the fight. It seemed that his persistence in practicing martial arts for the past ten years did not make his body very healthy.
Later in the press conference, another reporter asked investor and producer Xiang Huaqiang what his expectations were for the film's box office.
Mr. Xiang is full of confidence.
"Our film is an absolute blockbuster, from the cast to the special effects, it is no less than a Hollywood blockbuster. I have full confidence in The Legend of the Gods.
Our goal is to match last year's summer blockbuster "Monster Hunt".
I expect the box office to reach 2.5 billion."
This statement caused a burst of exclamations from the media present.
Although the domestic film market is becoming increasingly large, "The Mermaid" at the beginning of the year achieved an astonishing box office of 3.3 billion.
However, there are only three domestic films that have actually reached the 20 box office, including "The Mermaid" with 3.3 billion, "Monster Hunt" with 2.6 billion, and "The Richest Man in Xihong City" with 2.2 billion.
In other words, "The Legend of the Gods" is aiming for the top three in the domestic film box office rankings.
Because of the scale of investment and the cast, no one dares to say that "The Legend of the Gods" will not be good before the movie is released.
In the past two years, there have been too many domestic films that have achieved high box office results. For example, "Charlotte's Troubles", which cost 20 million yuan, has a box office of over 1 billion yuan.
"The Monkey King: Hero is Back", an animated film, grossed 1.7 billion yuan, and "Investiture of the Gods" was a big production with a budget of 500 million yuan, starring international superstar Li Lianjie and a number of domestic first-line stars. It is normal to have higher expectations.
The media present were surprised, but not too surprised.
At this time, no one noticed that Yu Dong, who was standing at the edge of the stage and was the co-producer and head of the publicity and distribution company of the film, had a slightly stiff smile on his face and his mouth twitched slightly when he heard Xiang Huaqiang's words.
His wife Jin Qiaoqiao, who was standing next to him at the event, noticed something was wrong with her husband.
"What's wrong?"
She asked in a low voice.
"Uh~ It's okay."
After hearing this, Yu Dong quickly adjusted his expression.
The premiere press conference of [The Legend of Gods] lasted about 2 hours and ended in a harmonious atmosphere.
The film company achieved its publicity purpose, and the media got the news they wanted, and everyone was happy.
To be honest, today's premiere press conference was a bit small compared to the big-budget movie "Legend of the Gods" with an investment of 500 million yuan.
No audience was invited, no film was screened, and even no celebrities from the circle were invited to congratulate the event except the main actors to increase its fame. It was just a pure press conference, and it ended with some interviews with some media.
It doesn't look like a big-budget movie at all.
For example, last year's Lunar New Year film "Old Cannon" produced by Huayi had a production cost of only 40 million yuan. More than 4,000 spectators were invited to the premiere ceremony before its release, and nearly half of the stars in the entertainment industry were in attendance. The scale of the event was comparable to that of major domestic film festivals.
Moreover, after the movie was screened at the premiere, it attracted enthusiastic support from the 4,000 audience members, and the publicity effect reached its peak.
In the end, "Old Cannon" also achieved a good box office of 900 million yuan in last year's Lunar New Year holiday thanks to good publicity and super high reputation.
It is second only to "The Ghouls" and Gu Wei's "The Assassin 2" released in the same period.
Compared with [Old Cannon], the publicity and promotion of [Legend of the Gods] gives people a feeling of being secretive.
It is obviously a big production with high investment and starring big stars. However, apart from releasing new posters and promotional videos two months ago, there has not been a single preview of the movie, which has whetted the audience's appetite.
"Mr. Yu, there's been a lot of publicity for Gu Wei's film Detective Chinatown 2 lately. I think it's having a huge impact on our film."
After the press conference, Xiang Huaqiang's smile faded and he spoke to Yu Dong beside him with some concern.
"There's nothing I can do, Mr. Xiang. The distributors for Gu Wei's film are China Film Group, Light Media, and Wanda.
As far as I know, the publicity and promotion costs are a real 100 million yuan.”
Yu Dong emphasized the word "really".
“You know, our film is only said to have a 500 million investment, so our publicity and promotion costs are definitely not as high as others.
Bona tried its best, but a good cook cannot cook without rice."
Xiang Huaqiang felt a little embarrassed after hearing what Yu Dong said, but he also knew that what he said was correct.
You can't spend one dollar and expect someone to achieve the results of ten dollars.
“I understand, and I don’t mean to blame Yu Dong.
The key is that our two films are released too close to each other, and I’m afraid that [The Legend of the Gods] will suffer in terms of screening schedule.”
Yu Dong thought about it.
"I understand Mr. Xiang's concerns, but the only truly hit movie in the market recently is Jackie Chan's Skipjack.
It is now the second week of its release, and the daily box office is only around 50 million, and the share of screenings is also slowly declining.
Even if Detective Chinatown 2 gets the highest filming share when it’s released, our Legend of the Gods will definitely have a place in the schedule.”
"We have so many big-budget movies with big names, Mr. Yu, do you think that the screening schedule will definitely not catch up with Detective Chinatown 2?"
Xiang Huaqiang frowned slightly and asked somewhat unwillingly.
"I'm not trying to boost others' morale and diminish my own prestige. Although we have many stars, Detective Chinatown 2 is, after all, a sequel to a blockbuster movie. The first film grossed 1 billion yuan, and theater chains are very optimistic about the second film.
In addition, in addition to China Film, Light Media, and Wanda, the producers of "Detective Chinatown 2" later introduced five other companies: Youku Film, Beijing Yaolai Media, Jinyi Pictures, Dadi Times, and Hengdian Film. Except for Youku Film, the others have theater resources.
So it’s almost impossible for us to get a screening schedule that exceeds that of Detective Chinatown 2.”
Yu Dong's words were well-reasoned and Xiang Huaqiang couldn't refute them.
After saying that, Yu Dong patted Xiang Huaqiang on the shoulder and said with a smile:
"Mr. Xiang, don't be discouraged. The domestic film market is huge now. No matter how popular a movie is, it can't take up all the market share. As long as the audience likes it, our movie can also be a big hit.
Last summer, even with the huge success of Monster Hunt, it didn't prevent The Pancake Man and Charlotte's Troubles from achieving high box office returns.
Yu Dong said it very nicely on the surface, but in his heart he didn't have much hope for [Legend of the Gods].
The main reason is that he had already seen the finished film.
As one of the bigwigs in the film and television industry, Yu Dong has seen countless films since he started his career. It cannot be said that he can tell whether a film is good or bad with 100% certainty, but "The Legend of the Gods" is indeed too bad.
The actual effect of the movie does not match the 500 million investment in publicity and the participation of so many big stars.
Therefore, the publicity and promotion strategy he formulated was that no matter how he promoted it, he would definitely not arrange preview screenings.
He hopes to use the fame of Li Lianjie and others to make the movie achieve as good a result as possible, which can be regarded as him fulfilling his responsibility as a publicity and distribution party.
As a co-producer, Bona Film Group invested very little money in The Legend of the Gods. He had already earned the money from publicity and promotion, so even if the movie ended up losing money, it would have little to do with Yu Dong.
Moreover, he didn't want to offend Gu Wei at all because of "The Legend of Conferred Gods". After all, this movie was a "China Star" movie, and Boss Xiang intended to use it to promote his son.
The film "Operation Mekong" that will be released in the second half of this year is the film that Bona is in charge of, and Yu Dong is still counting on Gu Wei to help him make money.
(End of this chapter)
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