Ji Yan, who was described as a "genuine pervert," blinked and then stopped searching for the keyword "behind-the-scenes manipulation" and instead searched for "pervert."
Then, unsurprisingly, he discovered that Li Yu's name was almost always listed under the word "pervert".
Ji Yan: "..."
Great, he's about to make his debut in the world of perverts.
In movies or TV series, the characters that are most easily remembered by the audience are often those with extreme personalities. They are either extremely gentle and pure, like He Tang, or extremely perverted, like Li Yu. In the movie "Black Curtain", Li Yu is definitely the character with the highest presence. Ji Yan even saw a fan write a long article of a thousand words to scold Li Yu.
No one in the "Black Curtain" production team was sure what the final box office figures would be.
It's summer movie season now, and anything can happen. It's not uncommon for movies with budgets of tens of millions to rake in dozens of times their budget at the box office, while there are also cases where movies highly anticipated by the industry flop.
Even the box office results on the first day don't prove anything.
A few years ago, when foreign films were conquering the Chinese film market, it was not uncommon for a film to gross 500-600 million yuan one day and then drop by 50% the next. According to the crew of "Black Curtain," this situation is unlikely to occur, since "Black Curtain" does have a plot, and its focus is not entirely on exciting fight scenes and special effects. Looking at the domestic film box office rankings, it is clear that audiences prefer plot. A film is best when it has both content and visual appeal in order to accumulate strong box office revenue.
On the first night of its release, "Black Curtain" received scores from two rating websites. On Douban, "Black Curtain" opened with a score of 9.7, with the vast majority of viewers giving it 5 or 4 stars. Even the occasional negative reviews were due to some viewers feeling that the character Li Yu was portrayed as too invincible and not like a real person. On the other rating website, "Black Curtain" opened with 4.5 stars. The summer holiday audience is huge, and even on the first day of the film's release, there were still quite a few viewers rating it.
Even after the scores were released, a steady stream of viewers continued to rate "The Curtain".
Since the summer movie season officially kicked off at the end of June, "Black Curtain" has been leading all other films in terms of opening ratings. The only film that could rival it was "Daylight Crisis." After "Black Curtain" was released this week, the screening ratio of "Daylight Crisis" dropped significantly, but the film still managed to secure nearly 20% of the screenings. As a high-quality disaster film, "Daylight Crisis" has undeniable box office potential. Despite its production cost of several hundred million yuan, the film has already successfully recouped its costs after just one week of release, and it is now making money every day it is showing.
On the one hand, it's because of the excellent plot of "Daylight Crisis" and the shockingly realistic special effects; on the other hand, it's also because of the positive word-of-mouth that has been building since the film's release.
Another film with a production cost of 200 million yuan was released on the same day as "Daylight Crisis". That film originally wanted to achieve a win-win situation with "Daylight Crisis" during the summer season. However, because the quality of the film was much worse than that of "Daylight Crisis", it only posed a threat to "Daylight Crisis" on the first day of its release. After that, the film's box office plummeted. It may have barely recovered its costs, but only by purchasing online rights through video platforms. From this perspective, the summer season is indeed cruel.
...
As of 10 p.m. on Friday, the box office figures for the opening day of "Black Curtain" were officially announced – 268.66 million yuan.
The crew's anxiety subsided somewhat.
Regardless of how the film's box office performs in the future, at least the box office revenue on the first day has exceeded the total production cost. The film still has enough time to run, and during this period, it should have no problem making a profit.
On Weibo, fans who had seen the movie "Black Curtain" were also discussing it heatedly. On that day, many topics related to "Black Curtain" made it to the top of Weibo's trending searches. The top trending topic was "Why is Li Yu so perverted?" Not only were movie fans discussing this topic, but they also tagged Ji Yan in their discussions, trying to get the reason for Li Yu's perversion from Ji Yan.
Ji Yan: "..."
He genuinely didn't know the answer to that question.
More importantly, Li Yu's perversion does not equate to him being a pervert.
Regardless, the discussion surrounding "The Curtain" has indeed taken off. Fans are focusing on the character Li Yu and his confrontation with Gu Chao. The final, exhilarating fight scene also left fans feeling very satisfied. Ji Yan also noticed that many posts discussing the plot of "The Curtain" included comments asking whether the film was actually good or not.
After the premiere that day, he went back to his apartment and didn't go to Teacher Ning's place. He was quite busy with the movie's promotional period and would continue to do roadshows the next day. He wouldn't necessarily stay in City A for a while, as he needed to visit cinemas in several major cities across the country.
Ning Wei didn't say much, only reminding Ji Yan to take care of his health.
But when they parted, he held Ji Yan's fingers for a long time, clearly showing his reluctance to separate.
The theme song "Pure White" was also officially released on major music platforms in China at the same time as the movie "Black Curtain" was released. On the "Liuge" platform with the highest traffic, "Pure White" quickly topped the play chart as soon as it was released. Movie fans praised "Pure White" after watching the movie, and some movie fans were even willing to watch the movie a second time to listen to the song again.
"Because the feeling of this song is very similar to that of 'Black Curtain,' Ning Wei's voice, combined with the plot of 'Black Curtain,' creates a suffocating feeling that seems to surround people without them even realizing it."
"It's beautiful. It's probably the best movie theme song I've heard this year. It's a pity that the Color Band is so hard to invite. After so many years, I was really amazed to hear Ning Wei sing it again."
Ji Yan also quietly added "Pure White" to his personal playlist. The day after "Black Curtain" was released, he posted a video of himself covering "Pure White" on Weibo.
"Shocking! The perverted Li Yu sings himself!"
"Although Teacher Ji's cover is very nice, having just watched 'Black Curtain,' I have to say that seeing Teacher Ji's face makes me a little scared... I don't want to feel this way."
"Hahaha, a famous idol was disliked by fans for playing a pervert. @Teacher Ji, stop thinking about your pervert role. Release more albums and make more music videos. If you keep doing this, all your fans will leave."
"I was clearly a fan of my idol, but without realizing it, I started to worry about him."
"Hilarious! Teacher Ji lost fans because of his overly twisted roles, but to be fair, Teacher Ji's cover of 'Pure White' is really good. Why is that? I love every song by Da Ning that Teacher Ji covers."
Ji Yan doesn't post on Weibo often, but he's posted a lot more for the promotion of "Black Curtain." Some of them are quite official, but this cover features him in the video, dressed casually. If you look closely, you can see Xie Mingxuan playing guitar behind him, Lu Wei providing harmonies, and Fang Yu performing some kind of mysterious dance.
Even a simple video can still provide fans with plenty of entertainment.
On the second day of its release, a Saturday, even more people chose to go to the cinema to watch "The Curtain." On rating websites, the film's score dropped slightly as the number of ratings increased, but it still stood at 9.5.
On its second day of release, with similar screenings as Friday, "Black Curtain" raked in 370 million yuan at the box office, showing a counter-trend upward trend. Films released on the same day as "Black Curtain" performed worse, with the second-place film earning 140 million yuan, and the third-place film being... "Daylight Crisis," which has been in theaters for over a week, still managed to earn 119 million yuan this Saturday. If all goes as expected, "Daylight Crisis" will likely be ranked second at the box office by tomorrow.
The competition during the summer movie season is not limited to the film itself; the investment in film promotion and distribution is also crucial. Director Li Xiang has always enjoyed a good reputation in the industry. He has more experience in promotion and distribution than other directors and has a better relationship with theaters. "Daylight Crisis" has all the advantages of timing, location, and people during this summer season. Even though the film has a long run, "Daylight Crisis" still has enough box office potential.
Of course, the success of "Daylight Crisis" has nothing to do with "Black Curtain". The two films did not intend to fight to the death during the summer season. On the contrary, from the beginning, both films hoped to achieve a win-win situation during the summer season. After the box office results were released on the second day, the crew of "Black Curtain" was completely relieved because the film's box office had already been recovered.
In terms of discussion, "The Curtain" is one of the top films of the summer season. The character Li Yu is the epitome of evil, and Ji Yan presents his evil to the audience in a very straightforward way. Many viewers of "The Curtain" are fans of Ji Yan, who came to see the film because of him. However, after leaving the theater, the shock brought to them by the character Li Yu lingered for a long time, to the point that fans couldn't help but leave messages for Ji Yan.
"Teacher Ji, how are you feeling?"
"Teacher Ji, are you asleep? I can't sleep. I can't sleep when I think about Li Yu. How could he be so bad? How could you portray his evil so realistically?"
"Can't sleep +1. Now I want to make a Li Yu doll so I can kick him every day."
Not only fans expressed their feelings, but many film critics and actors in the industry also shared the same sentiment. Ji Yan's acting skills have always been highly recognized, starting with "I, Nameless". When he was nominated for the Chang Kong Award, many people were impressed by his youth. However, after he starred in two films, "Young Love Poems" and "The Vanished Murder", the doubts gradually disappeared when he won the Chang Kong Award.
In the eyes of industry insiders, Ji Yan is indeed a talented actor, and even a representative of young actors.
But in this film, "The Curtain," the industry saw Ji Yan take another step forward. He and Xi Ming fully presented the story of Gu Chao and Li Yu to the audience. The acting skills of the two, and their seasoned performances in the duel, made people feel that these two people seemed to have no limits.
They can deliver the most exquisite performances.
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