"Should we stop now?"
Located in the best location in Beijing, on the top floor of an office building, a man in a suit and tie leaned back on his "throne", stroking the table with his hands, revealing a sarcastic smile.
Standing before him was none other than the director of Whale Sea Chronicle. The man who had previously acted so arrogantly and powerfully in front of the media now appeared somewhat humbled.
"Stop?" The man lowered his eyelids indifferently. "I spent hundreds of millions to secure this screening. If I can't even win the Spring Festival box office, won't I become a laughing stock?"
"But 'The Lotus Lantern' has such a great reputation and its attendance is way ahead of the rest. Anyone who understands box office sales knows that based on 'The Lotus Lantern's' current figures, its screening schedule should at least be on par with ours, if not surpassing it. But now it's 6% lower than ours, and people are criticizing it online."
"Just curse! Do you think that cursing will increase the number of screenings? Don't say I spent money. Ask Zhou Yiyang, didn't he also pay the entrance fee? It's just that he's too proud to spend so much money to secure the screening schedule!"
The man felt a little upset when he thought of this. Zhou Yiyang, who spent less money than him, was now getting smaller and smaller at the box office, which made him look more and more like a clown.
However, when he thought about the fact that the investment in his film was far less than that of "The Lotus Lantern", he relaxed again.
I just used the money I saved for special effects to do something more practical.
"I hope Zhou Yiyang can understand this time that the Spring Festival period is no longer the same as it was a few years ago when he first started developing it. Word of mouth alone can determine everything. He needs to take care of everything that needs to be taken care of."
He paused, then added, "Come to think of it, can't the cinemas remove those movies that no one watches and let them schedule 'The Lotus Lantern' instead? Forget it, forget it. The Spring Festival box office champion is still ours."
"By the way," his eyes changed, suddenly becoming fierce. "Isn't the reputation of 'The Lotus Lantern' too good? This isn't normal. How can a movie not have negative reviews? You're in the film industry, so you're always going to find fault, right?"
When the director left the room, his heart ached for at least half a minute. But when he thought about his share of the profits, the slight sense of guilt instantly vanished.
Anyway, the screening will only last until the seventh day of the Lunar New Year. After that, the word-of-mouth of your "The Lotus Lantern" will spread, and it won't matter if the box office makes a comeback.
What they want is just the Spring Festival box office champion, not the annual box office champion.
As for the director, he didn't feel that he had done anything wrong to Zhou Yiyang.
…
Su Yin could never have imagined that the controversy surrounding the movie would last from the first year to the third year of junior high school, and even had a tendency to intensify.
A marketing account revealed that "Whale Sea Chronicle" set up ghost theaters in some cities in order to ensure box office and attendance, thereby maintaining the false prosperity of being the number one film in the schedule.
Soon, many viewers appeared on Douyin and began to criticize the plot of "The Lotus Lantern", believing that it was nonsense, fabricated, and historical nihilism!
Even Ye Kongjing couldn't help but become curious:
"I feel like there are more people eating melons than watching movies now."
Su Yin put down her phone, feeling a little unhappy.
She is not a fool. She knows that the people who created "Whale Sea Chronicle" are finally not satisfied with just building hype for themselves and have started to throw mud at their peers.
However, compared with the solid evidence Zhou Yiyang found, the so-called bad reviews of "Whale Sea Chronicle" seemed clownish in Su Yin's eyes.
"It's all about money. Judging from today's box office, 'The Lotus Lantern' is sure to break 300 million, and 'Whale Sea Wars' is also sure to exceed 400 million. The box office is completely converging on these top films, and the films behind them have completely fallen behind. Now both sides are vying for the screening time these films have given up."
"However, the capital behind 'Whale Sea Wars' is quite strong. No matter how much the screening schedule of 'Lotus Lantern' increases, they can maintain a 6% lead."
Ye Kongjing frowned. "What's the point? We spent all this money to buy the screening schedule, but in the end, aren't the theaters the ones who make the money?"
"They probably spent money before it was released," Su Yin said with a sigh. "But they didn't expect that a cartoon that not many people were optimistic about would have such a good reputation in the end. Seeing that it was about to take the title of box office champion, the people behind it naturally couldn't sit still."
Ye Kongjing suddenly thought of something: "Before your movie was released, weren't there a lot of marketing accounts trying to spread rumors? From what they said, it seemed like your movie was terrible!"
"Of course it is," Su Yin nodded. "Isn't this the anti-explosion device that fans love to use? At the beginning, our popularity wasn't that high. But they never expected our reputation to be so good, and it was completely unstoppable."
Su Yin stood up at this time and said to her mother confidently:
"Even with this gap in screenings, our box office will definitely be able to make a comeback. By then, 'Whale Sea Chronicle' will have lost both the wife and the army!"
Ye Kongjing hummed and said with a smile, "But this time, Mr. Zhou doesn't seem to be planning to just let this matter go."
"I support Brother Yang's decision," Su Yin's eyes lit up. "The other side is so shameless, why should we endure it? And I think Brother Yang might have some tricks up his sleeve!"
…
Zhou Yiyang never thought that he would be working in his room on the third day of the Lunar New Year.
He once thought that he would just stay in a hotel and relax during the Spring Festival, waiting for the box office revenue to come into his wallet.
What he didn't expect was that there would be so much news during this Spring Festival period, forcing him to end his vacation early and start working.
After taking a look at the documents in front of him, Zhou Yiyang rubbed his brows helplessly.
"Mr. Zhou."
Guan Fei's voice was a little hoarse on the other end of the phone. In the past two days, she had handled a lot of work and inquired about news everywhere, and had hardly had any rest.
"Well, have you discovered anything new?" Zhou Yiyang asked softly.
"Basically, I've found out. 'Whale Sea Chronicle' signed an agreement with the cinema before the film was released, providing nearly 600 million yuan to guarantee that it would be the top-ranked screening for the entire seven-day holiday."
"Wow," Zhou Yiyang laughed. "So much money? They want so many screenings just to win the Spring Festival championship, right?"
"Well, I think there's some kind of gambling agreement, and the requirement is to win the Spring Festival box office championship." Guan Fei paused. "Box office theft, ghost screenings, rumor-mongering, and ratings fraud. I've found all of this evidence and am compiling it now."
Zhou Yiyang nodded, not surprised.
Guan Fei was able to do all this because of Zhou Yiyang behind her.
With his connections and background, some things are much easier to investigate.
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