After the screening of "The Vanished Murderer," Ding Xiao was still discussing the plot with her roommates. The final revelation of the mystery was not abrupt, because there were only five actors in the movie, and everyone from Cheng Yuan to Yu Qian was suspected.
When the ending was revealed, each of the four people in Ding Xiao's dormitory could grasp some evidence that Cheng Yuan was the murderer—this evidence existed throughout the development of the plot, but the film's perspective led them to focus on Tang Shi, Qin Yuan, and Yu Qian.
Naturally, the audience was drawn away.
"I've decided, I'm going to play another round tomorrow." Ding Xiao's roommate, Pan Rongrong, stretched. "I feel like I missed a lot of details today. Sister Xiao, are you coming?"
"Come."
Everyone in their dorm knew that Ding Xiao was interested in this kind of subject matter: "It's just a pity there are too few shows."
On their way home after watching the movie, they specifically looked at online reviews of "The Vanishing Murderer." One expert even went to two different cinemas and did a post-mortem analysis of the movie's plot. In the expert's opinion, for Li Yuan's plan to ultimately succeed, he must have had an accomplice among the four characters.
Cheng Yuan's injury doesn't seem fake. Although it was intentional, how could he possibly launch a counterattack against Xue Song and Tang Shi while injured?
The expert believes that Qin Yuan is Cheng Yuan's accomplice.
It could also be Yu Qian.
And—as the plot of "The Vanishing Murderer" progresses, all five characters have memories of November 7th. Their memories seem to be consistent, but there are still differences in the details. Is it possible that the characters have embellished their actions?
Although the story has come to an end, the audience's doubts have not disappeared. In fact, this is probably a suspense deliberately left by the production team of "The Vanishing Murderer," waiting for the audience to interpret it in their own way.
"The only regret is that the movie theater near my home only showed it once a day, and it was a screening after 10 p.m.
"I've already bought my ticket for tomorrow. Now I know who the murderer is. I'll watch it again tomorrow and check the details."
Many viewers went to the cinema because of Ji Yan, but after watching the movie, they were completely captivated by the plot. The movie was full of mysteries that completely drew the audience in.
...
On the 20th day of the first lunar month, among the four new films released, "Around the Moon" took the lead with a 49.8% screening rate and grossed a total of 59.86 million yuan on its opening day. The second-place "Look Back at the Abyss" and the third-place "Turning Point" did not even reach one-third of "Around the Moon", because these two are more stream-of-consciousness films and their casts are not very outstanding.
On this day, the second and third place films at the box office were still "Precision Machinery" and "Battle Zone," both from the Spring Festival season.
On the day's box office charts, "The Vanishing Murderer" ranked ninth, with a total box office of only 5.389 million yuan.
The only noteworthy aspect of "The Vanishing Murderer" is its per-theater box office performance. Considering the limited number of screenings and the fact that the screenings were not scheduled during prime time, "The Vanishing Murderer" achieved a remarkable occupancy rate of almost 70%, despite having a much lower number of screenings than other new releases.
More importantly, it's about the film's reputation.
On Dolphin.com, China's most authoritative movie rating website, "The Vanishing Murderer" ranks first with a high score of 9.7. Although the low number of viewers may be a factor, among the movies released at the same time as "The Vanishing Murderer", "Around the Moon" currently has a score of 7.3, while "Look Back at the Abyss" and "Turning Point" have scores of 8 and 8.4 respectively. "The Vanishing Murderer" is far ahead.
"A movie worth watching twice."
"Ji Yan's performance in the movie really shocked me. I personally think that the role of Tang Shi is the only flaw in this movie. His acting was too contrived, and it felt like he hadn't fully immersed himself in the role."
"The movie's concept is ingenious; I like it."
The magazine "Film Magazine" also gave "The Vanishing Murderer" a high score, and even suggested that theaters give "The Vanishing Murderer" more screenings, saying that the film could become a dark horse like "Decipher".
As a result, despite the lukewarm reception on its first day of screenings, "The Vanishing Murderer" still garnered positive reviews from moviegoers.
The next day, the number of theaters showing the film increased slightly, but the occupancy rate did not decrease. Instead, it soared to over 70%—the highest occupancy rate among all films released that year, regardless of whether they had preview screenings or not.
Typically, films with high attendance during preview screenings tend to perform well at the box office after their wider release. However, considering the film's production costs, theaters are still very conservative in scheduling screenings for "The Vanishing Murderer".
But on this day, "The Vanishing Murderer" had already reached sixth place on the daily box office chart, and its total box office revenue had reached an impressive 8.92 million.
The top spot on the charts that day remained "Around the Moon," but on its second day of release, the film inevitably experienced a decline in viewership. The pairing of Xiao Yang and Lu Zhizhi failed to save the movie; on the contrary, their awkward acting and deliberately created sweet moments made the audience want to dig their toes into the ground in the theater.
"The Vanishing Murder" was the only film that bucked the trend and saw its box office grow that day.
In addition to the newly added audience, there were also viewers who had already seen the film once and came to the cinema to continue solving the mystery.
The film has finally received reviews from professional film critics outside of the "Flower Movie" program.
The common point raised by film critics is that they never imagined this was a film with a budget of less than 20 million.
"The film was shot in a hotel. Despite the limited space, director Lu Ming made the most of it during filming, vividly portraying the atmosphere of terror, the exciting pace, and the psychological battles between the actors."
"As for the actors, Ji Yan, He Qing, and Cen Xuzhi's grasp of their roles is amazing. Yang Le also fulfilled his duties. Song Jing's performance was slightly inferior. Perhaps his acting skills are not enough to handle the somewhat mature role of Tang Shi. The narrower the space, the more attention the camera will pay to the actors, and the more the lack of details in the performance will be magnified."
"The Vanishing Murderer undoubtedly has a good script and a group of actors who work hard to cooperate. They build the ensemble cast of the film and allow the suspense to continue to extend."
Although "The Vanishing Murder" has few screenings in major cinemas, every time it is shown, it will be the highest-returning screening for a cinema in a day.
Naturally, on Sunday, the third day of its release, major cinemas readjusted their screening schedules, and "The Vanishing Murderer" achieved its first large-scale release.
Word-of-mouth has been spreading since Friday and Saturday. In this period after the 20th day of the first lunar month, in terms of word-of-mouth, the other three new films released cannot compare with "The Vanishing Murderer". Despite having only 18% of the screenings, "The Vanishing Murderer" still managed to take in 41.23 million yuan at the box office, which is almost eight times that of the opening day!
Its screenings were still less than those of "Around the Moon," which still had 27% of screenings, but "Around the Moon" only grossed 23.78 million at this time, far less than "The Vanishing Murderer."
Just three days after its release, with a budget of less than 20 million yuan, "The Vanishing Murderer" officially topped the daily box office charts.
In terms of cost, marketing, and cast, "The Vanishing Murderer," which was least favored before its release, achieved a true comeback.
This film is different from "Boyhood Love Poems". Compared to the restraint of "Boyhood Love Poems", this film has a plot and content, and it originally had a larger audience in the film market than "Boyhood Love Poems". Although the subject matter is a suspense film which lacks a market, Chinese audiences have always been very receptive. As long as the quality of the film is up to standard, any film, whether it is a family film, a romance film, a science fiction film, a war film or any other genre, has the potential to gain a place in the market.
Before its release, industry insiders thought "The Vanishing Murderer" would be one of the films whose box office was drained by "Around the Moon," but after its release, "The Vanishing Murderer" has become the mainstay of the box office for that week.
On Monday, the box office of "The Vanishing Murderer" did not decline compared to Sunday. The film's screenings reached 25%, and the box office figures also increased to 67.22 million.
Since its release, the film has grossed a total of 130 million yuan.
This is even with insufficient screenings. Given the current upward trend of the film, barring any unforeseen circumstances, theaters will inevitably adjust the box office figures for "The Vanishing Murderer" this week.
Despite the increase in viewership, the film's reputation did not decline significantly. On the contrary, as the number of viewers gradually increased, mystery enthusiasts conducted a deeper analysis of the film's plot. One mystery master even analyzed seven hidden secrets in the film, leaving screenwriter Fan Cong equally baffled.
However, Fan Cong did not comment on the plot. The more active the audience's discussion, the more it would boost the film's box office, which was something the entire production team was happy to see.
After a week in theaters, "The Vanishing Murderer" grossed a number that the entire production team could never have imagined.
—390 million, just one step away from 400 million.
For a high-budget blockbuster, 400 million is certainly a negligible figure, but for the crew of "The Vanishing Murderer," such box office revenue is 20 times the cost, and the film has already made a huge profit.
Lu Ming has recently become a box office reporting machine, sending Ji Yan screenshots of box office data over and over again.
To be honest, if Lu Ming hadn't witnessed the box office trends firsthand, he would have even suspected that someone had secretly photoshopped the recent box office figures to fool him.
But it's all true.
Moreover, "The Vanishing Murderer" demonstrated remarkable stability, with no decline in box office revenue on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. In fact, the box office revenue increased again on Friday.
For Ji Yan personally, this film not only set a new box office record for his starring roles, but also made him the richest member of "Wings".
His subsequent additional investment earned him a 20% share of the film's box office revenue. Although this figure was after deducting the theater and distribution revenue, based on industry estimates of "The Vanishing Murderer's Intent," Ji Yan should personally receive over eight figures.
Well...very very rich.
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