bacchusnovels Chapter 156 Box Office Reversal! Explosive Word-of-Mouth!
Chapter 156 Box Office Reversal! Explosive Word-of-Mouth!
On the second day of the Lunar New Year, a day that should have been spent visiting relatives and friends and enjoying food and entertainment, a strange fire broke out on the internet.
Huoyuan is the burly, bearded man who posted a selfie on WeChat Moments crying like a baby.
At first, everyone just treated it as a joke, but by the afternoon, more and more similar "victims" were appearing.
Weibo, Douyin, and WeChat Moments are filled with viewers leaving "A Chinese Odyssey" with tears in their eyes. While they verbally condemn Lin Zhou as a fraud, they are simultaneously raving about it: "Don't ask, it's a masterpiece, you'll regret it for the rest of your life if you don't watch it."
This bizarre "tap water" effect spread rapidly, like a virus.
The Douban rating section witnessed an unprecedented and astonishing reversal.
Originally, the trailer was maliciously downgraded to a passing grade of 6.0, but within just a few hours, its rating skyrocketed like a rocket.
7.5...8.2...8.8...
By evening, the bright red number had stopped at 9.2!
This is a terrifying score that could be recorded in the history of Chinese-language films.
In the comments section, those netizens who once shouted "This movie is destined to be a disaster" are now lining up to prove them wrong.
"I was wrong! I was really wrong! I shouldn't have laughed at Supreme Treasure for being like a dog, because the moment I walked out of the movie theater, I realized that I was like a dog too."
"That golden headband, it's not a magic weapon, it's clearly an adult's responsibility! How can I love you while wearing it, how can I save you without it... Lin Zhou's words were too harsh!"
"This isn't a comedy! It's clearly a tragedy disguised as a comedy! I laughed and then cried, cried and then laughed again. Lin Zhou, you owe me for all those tears!"
Meanwhile, the managers of major cinema chains went crazy.
A Wanda Cinema in Beijing.
Manager Zhang was sweating profusely as he stared at the real-time data in the backend, his eyes practically bulging out of their sockets.
On the big screen, despite having a 40% screen share, Warframe's occupancy rate was abysmal. The expensive IMAX theater was almost empty, with only a few couples engrossed in their sweet nothings in a corner.
In contrast, consider "A Chinese Odyssey".
Despite being crammed into a small hall with only a few dozen seats, and being a late-night show, the occupancy rate was a staggering 99.9%!
Even the most crooked corner seat in the first row, the one where you have to crane your neck to the limit, is occupied!
"Manager! Something terrible has happened!"
The ticket seller rushed into the office in a hurry, waving a walkie-talkie in her hand.
"The front desk is packed! Everyone's asking if there are any tickets left for 'A Chinese Odyssey'! Just now, a guy almost got into a fight trying to grab the last ticket!"
"Some people have complained that we don't have enough screenings, accusing us of discrimination, and they're going to report us!"
Old Zhang slapped his thigh, ignoring the pressure from Dynasty Entertainment and even the so-called "industry unspoken rules."
In the face of absolute profit, all talk of human relationships is utter nonsense!
"Change it! Change it immediately!"
He yelled at the scheduler, spitting as he spoke.
"Cut the Warframe games in half! No, cut them by seventy percent!"
"Clear out the biggest IMAX theater and schedule 'A Chinese Odyssey' for it! Schedule from 8 AM to 3 AM, fill every single showing!"
"Only a fool would turn down money!"
At the same time, at the Lin family villa.
Su Qingge held her tablet, seemingly nailed to the sofa, her fingers constantly refreshing the real-time box office data on Maoyan.
With each refresh, her breathing became more rapid.
"It's surpassed 100 million...it's surpassed 100 million in a single day!"
"My God! Two hundred million! It's going down! It's actually going down!"
When she saw that number break the 500 million mark and continue to climb at an alarming rate, this usually composed diva completely lost her composure.
"ah--!!!"
She screamed, threw the tablet onto the sofa, and pounced on Lin Zhou like a koala.
Her legs were tightly wrapped around his waist, her arms were wrapped tightly around his neck, and she was so excited that she was incoherent.
"Lin Zhou! Did you see that?! Five hundred million! And it's only the second day of the Lunar New Year!"
"We won! We really won!"
"Those who criticized us are now all praising us! They say Zixia Fairy was a stroke of genius! They say you're a genius director!"
Lin Zhou was almost suffocated by her choking, and a grape he had just peeled was squeezed and burst, its juice spilling all over his hand.
"Ahem... Honey, calm down, calm down."
He patted Su Qingge on the back, his tone still lazy, but the smile in his eyes was impossible to hide.
"This is nothing."
"Let the bullets fly a little longer. This 500 million is just the beginning. Our goal is to break the record in Chinese film history."
"Why aren't you excited at all?"
Su Qingge cupped his face in her hands and kissed him hard on the lips, her eyes filled with adoring admiration.
"That's five hundred million! Besides our initial investment, we've already made a killing!"
"Excited? Of course I'm excited!"
Lin Zhou wiped the grape juice on his hands on a tissue, then pulled the woman in his arms tighter and whispered a wicked smile in her ear.
"I'm so excited, I'm even thinking, can we continue the 'punishment' we didn't finish last night tonight?"
Just as the family was joyfully preparing to celebrate their victory...
The top-floor office of the Royal Dynasty Entertainment headquarters was shrouded in gloom and oppressive atmosphere, resembling a morgue.
In front of the huge floor-to-ceiling window, there was a pile of broken glass.
That was a bottle of Romanée-Conti worth six figures that Zhao Jianguo had just smashed.
"Impossible! This is absolutely impossible!"
Zhao Jianguo braced his hands on the desk, his tie askew, his eyes bloodshot, and he was on the verge of exploding.
"A low-budget film with a budget of 200 million! Directed by a gigolo who's never even directed a film before! What makes him so special?"
"Why do you think you can trample our Warframe underfoot?"
"That's a $500 million production! It has a Hollywood special effects team! How could it possibly lose to a monkey show?"
The marketing director next to him hunched over and nervously handed over a data report.
"Mr. Zhao... the data shows that the attendance rate for 'A Chinese Odyssey' is indeed too high, and the word-of-mouth is spreading too quickly; many casual viewers have been persuaded to watch it..."
"I'm not listening to this nonsense!"
Zhao Jianguo slapped the report away, sending papers flying everywhere.
His face was contorted, and his eyes were as sinister as those of a venomous snake driven to the brink of despair.
In his view, this wasn't a reputation comeback at all; it was a complete scam! It was that kid named Lin Zhou who was behind it all!
"It was faked! It must have been faked!"
"Where did his box office revenue come from? It must have been bought with Su Qingge's own money! That's inflated!"
Zhao Jianguo suddenly raised his head, stared intently at the publicity director, and roared through gritted teeth:
"Get me some online trolls! Get me the biggest marketing accounts on the entire internet!"
"Since he dares to use it, I dare to criticize it!"
"Go all out and smear him! Say he rigged the box office! Say he has warped values! Say his adaptation of a classic is an insult to traditional culture! Say he's a bad influence on children!"
"No matter the cost, I'll make sure his reputation is completely ruined before dawn tomorrow!"
"I'm going to turn his billions in box office revenue into a hot potato, and burn him alive!"