“You mean…to increase the screening of ‘Chasing the Light’?” Ye Zhou had a strange look on his face when he heard the words from the other end of the phone.
After receiving an affirmative reply from the other end, Ye Zhou hesitated for a moment and cautiously reminded, “But ‘Chasing the Light’ is a niche topic and may not have such a wide audience.”
He had said so much, thinking the other party would not insist further. Unexpectedly, the person in charge of the cinema chain laughed cheerfully, their voice filled with an inexplicable trust in him.
“We believe in Director Ye’s ability and that ‘Chasing the Light’ will bring us surprises.” The person in charge did not wait for Ye Zhou to say anything more and added, “Even if ‘Chasing the Light’ ultimately fails to perform well, it is our own choice, and the profit or loss has nothing to do with Director Ye. You do not need to feel any psychological pressure.”
The person in charge had gone to such lengths, and if Ye Zhou refused again, it would be too ungrateful.
Hanging up the phone, Ye Zhou was stunned for a while, almost dumbfounded by this sudden pie in the face. As the director of the film, he did not even have such strong confidence in himself. Where did their faith in him come from?
This phone call seemed to be just the beginning. Before Ye Zhou could figure out the key, one call after another came in successively. Just this morning, he received no less than seven or eight calls from the heads of various cinema chains.
Moreover, their intentions were almost the same: to ask Ye Zhou to prepare to increase the screening of ‘Chasing the Light.’ Among these cinema chains was even the top-tier Xingliu Entertainment Cinema, which Ye Zhou had struggled to secure a high screening rate for his previous film, ‘A Farce.’
After the morning passed and the last call ended, Ye Zhou took a long breath, went to the bathroom, and splashed some water on his face. The cold touch of the water made Ye Zhou finally realize that the calls this morning were not a dream but a reality.
Ye Zhou could roughly guess the thoughts of the cinema chains. It was probably because the box office performance of ‘A Farce’ was so unexpectedly good that the cinemas that missed the opportunity last time chose to bet on him this time.
But what made Ye Zhou laugh bitterly was that if ‘Chasing the Light’ had been a comedy like ‘A Farce,’ he could still understand the cinema chains’ actions. However, what kind of topic was ‘Chasing the Light’? It was a niche and rarely marketable tragic drama!
Ignoring the big-budget blockbusters released during the summer season, they chose to bet on him instead. Was it him who had gone crazy or the heads of the major cinema chains? It was simply too bizarre.
During the time before the film’s release, Ye Zhou had been waiting for the major cinema chains to back out, but until the premiere day, they remained silent, with no intention of withdrawing.
As Ye Zhou had expected, among the big-budget productions with popular or powerful actors and the foreign sequels that had already been released, ‘Chasing the Light’ did not have a high box office or attendance rate on its premiere night.
Most of these were fans of Geng Bochuan buying tickets to support their Gege, as well as some passerby audiences with relatively niche tastes who preferred this kind of film. There was also a portion who couldn’t get tickets for other movies and wanted to watch a film, so they randomly picked this one.
After the box office figures for the first day were released, the professional anti-Ye Zhou group led by ‘Flying Melon’ couldn’t wait to post multiple microblogs filled with sneers and ridicule, as if celebrating a festival, happily mocking him everywhere.
Under the pens of these critics, Ye Zhou was an incompetent lucky fool who had achieved his previous success in ‘A Farce’ purely by chance. Once he lost that stroke of luck, there he was, exposed for who he truly was.
The story was poorly told, and he tried to imitate other directors by playing with suspense. While the first half was watchable, the second half was a bloody mess, with a plot that was shockingly nonsensical.
Additionally, the critics dug up Ye Zhou’s past controversies again, trying to prove that the success of ‘A Farce’ was not only due to luck but also because he had a capable assistant director.
They frenziedly implied that although Ye Zhou was the credited director of ‘A Farce,’ it was actually the assistant director who was responsible for the filming behind the scenes.
However, Assistant Director Meng extinguished this fire with a cold bucket of water before it could truly ignite. A longtime friend of the assistant director, whom he hadn’t contacted for a while, came to him a couple of days ago with money, trying to subtly guide the assistant director to say things unfavorable to Ye Zhou, though not directly.
The assistant director saw through it immediately. He threw the fruit drinks and money the person brought outside, along with the person themselves. Right after kicking them out, he called Ye Zhou to recount what had happened, warning him to be careful of those with ill intentions.
A couple of days later, during the ‘Chasing the Light’ promotional tour, Assistant Director Meng unusually accepted an interview with reporters. In front of the cameras, he stated to all viewers and netizens that for both ‘A Farce’ and ‘Chasing the Light,’ he was Ye Zhou’s assistant, learning a lot from working with the director. There was absolutely no truth to the claim that he had helped Ye Zhou direct the films.
The assistant director said this with a straight face and added a cold joke with a wry smile, “If I really had that kind of ability, I would have gone independent long ago instead of being an assistant director.”
With the assistant director’s strong clarification, the rumor that had barely gained any traction immediately collapsed on its own, the fire extinguished before it could truly burn.
Seeing that this smear campaign was getting nowhere, the critics and paid trolls managed to stay quiet for a few days. However, they soon regrouped and launched another wave of attacks.
In the following days, although ‘Chasing the Light’s’ box office gradually started to recover, rising each day, the growth was still relatively slow. Compared to other films in the same period, ‘Chasing the Light’ was significantly underperforming.
After the first week’s box office data came out, the dejected critics immediately returned in full force, engaging in an unprecedented frenzy.
What the critics failed to realize, however, was that despite ‘Chasing the Light’s’ low box office numbers and lack of competitiveness compared to other films of the period, its word-of-mouth was not plummeting as they had expected. Instead, it was increasing rather than decreasing as the screening time went on.
On the two largest online ticketing platforms in the country, ‘Chasing the Light’s’ rating had risen from an initial 9.0 to 9.3 after a few days of word-of-mouth. Additionally, its score on Guaguo Online, the most influential film review site in the country, had increased from 8.5 to 8.8, which was definitely considered a high score on the notoriously strict Guaguo Online.
Many professional film critics also gave the movie high ratings after watching it. This undoubtedly gave a strong boost of confidence to the audiences who had initially adopted a wait-and-see attitude, dispelling their doubts and making them willing to buy tickets and enter the theaters.
Despite the positive word-of-mouth, the box office growth remained slow, and no one seemed to have ‘Chasing the Light’ or Ye Zhou on their radar. Even the competing films released during the same period did not see this niche movie as a threat, until…
‘New Film & TV Weekly’ is a prestigious magazine in the country that analyzes box office and viewership data for films and TV shows with accurate and authoritative data analysis each week on popular releases.
Initially, this magazine only served industry insiders for more precise and intuitive data analysis, but it quickly gained popularity among general audiences after its release.
With its accurate data and professional analysis, ‘New Film & TV Weekly’ had somehow become an industry benchmark and a representative of tangible achievements among fans.
If an idol’s movie was featured in ‘New Film & TV Weekly,’ fans would excitedly spread the news for a long time.
Today, in an age of declining print media, ‘New Film & TV Weekly’ still enjoys unrivaled sales compared to other magazines of its kind, holding the top sales for film and TV analysis magazines for many years.
On the 10th day of ‘Chasing the Light’s’ release, Ye Zhou was woken up early by phone calls, and he received two pieces of news that left him dumbfounded.
The first call was from Assistant Director Meng, whose voice was trembling with excitement.
“Director Ye, our movie is featured in ‘New Film & TV Weekly,’ and it’s even the cover story this week!” The assistant director’s hands were shaking as he held the magazine, looking at the promotional poster of their film on the cover.
Although Ye Zhou was now awake, his mind was still blank. He could clearly hear every word the assistant director said, but he couldn’t comprehend what he was saying when put together.
Despite his mental blankness, Ye Zhou would politely respond with “uh-huh” after the assistant director finished speaking each time. As the call was about to end, Ye Zhou finally snapped out of his half-awake state. Just as he was about to listen carefully to what the assistant director was saying, the other had already finished speaking, leaving only the words “You must check out ‘New Film & TV Weekly’!” before hanging up.
Keeping those words in mind, after having breakfast with Boss Jiang, Ye Zhou went to a nearby bookstore to ask if they had ‘New Film & TV Weekly’ for sale, only to be told it was sold out.
Not believing it, Ye Zhou went to several more bookstores, receiving the same sold-out response. After a few hours of searching, he finally managed to buy a copy from an inconspicuous small newsstand.
The cover was so eye-catching that Ye Zhou immediately recognized it as the poster for ‘Chasing the Light’.
Although he had never bought this magazine before, he was well aware of its influence. When ‘A Farce’ unexpectedly became a dark horse hit during the National Day holiday season with nearly 3 billion yuan at the box office, it had only received a small analysis section on the magazine’s interior pages, not even the cover. Now, ‘Chasing the Light’ was directly given the cover?
Did something happen yesterday that caused ‘Chasing the Light’s’ box office to explode without his knowledge??
Ye Zhou was taken aback and quickly checked yesterday’s box office figures on his phone. Confirming that the increase was only slightly higher than before and not outrageous, he became even more puzzled.
He put away his phone, hastily opened the cover, and skimmed through the magazine. To his surprise, despite ‘Chasing the Light’ having only grossed a little over 100 million yuan in its first 10 days of release, ‘New Film & TV Weekly’ had dedicated a detailed four-page analysis to it.
Following the usual practice, the analysis first examined ‘Chasing the Light’s’ opening day box office, single-day box office, first week’s total box office, single-day box office growth rate, seven-day box office growth rate, daily screening share, and attendance rate.
These figures were unimpressive compared to other films of the same period, not even qualifying as a small hit, at best described as having a relatively high box office for a niche topic.
However, the analysis spanning the next two pages was truly shocking.
Ten days into its release, while the box office of other hit films in the same period, such as ‘The Vanguards’ which had grossed 1.6 billion yuan so far, began to decline daily as screening time increased, the daily box office of ‘Chasing the Light’, which had barely crossed 100 million yuan, was increasing higher than the previous day, with the line graph consistently showing an upward trend.
Furthermore, while other films’ screening shares kept increasing as their box office grew, ‘Chasing the Light’s’ screening share was decreasing due to its low box office. However, its attendance rate was skyrocketing as the screening share decreased.
Of course, these data alone did not prove much. What was truly shocking was the thousand-word in-depth analysis accompanied by illustrative charts.
The charts showed the daily box office statistics from domestic online ticketing platforms since the release of ‘Chasing the Light’. For easier understanding, the author organized the data into bar graphs, using different colors for each day.
The bar graph on the left showed the normal weekly ticket sales, while the one on the right started adding the color from the previous day from the second day onwards, resulting in two colors. On the third day, the colors from the previous two days were added, making it three colors, and so on.
As time went on, the bar graph became more colorful, until the seventh day’s bar graph was covered by a vibrant array of six colors.
The author’s analysis of these two bar graphs was as follows:
“Before introducing the two graphs, let me first explain the term ‘repeat viewing rate.’ This refers to the behavior of audiences who have already watched a film purchasing tickets to watch the same film a second, third, or even nth time. In other words, what is commonly referred to as ‘re-watching’ or ‘multiple viewings.'”
“After understanding this concept, let’s look at the repeat viewing rate of ‘Chasing the Light’ as shown in the two graphs. On the left is the seven-day online box office, for which we have used seven different colors, with each color representing the single-day box office for a different day. Remember the color corresponding to each day’s box office, and then let’s look at the graph on the right.”
“The bar graph for the first day is red, the second day is blue, but blue only accounts for three-fourths of that day’s box office. The remaining one-fourth red portion represents the same IP addresses purchasing tickets as the previous day. The bar graphs for the following days follow the same pattern, with different colors on the same bar representing repeat ticket purchases on different days, or in other words, the repeat viewing rate we mentioned earlier. After understanding this, don’t you feel quite shocked?”
“When I received this data, my reaction was no different from yours. I was so stunned that I almost knocked over my water glass. After a rough calculation, the current repeat viewing rate for this film has reached 30% of its total box office. What does this data signify? It means that out of the 80 million yuan box office, 24 million yuan came from second, third, or even multiple viewings.”
“Personally, I don’t enjoy tragic films, and to be honest, I didn’t have a good impression of this genre. The few viewing experiences I’ve had were not great. However, after seeing this data, that very evening, I decided to buy a ticket for ‘Chasing the Light’ out of curiosity, wanting to see what magic this film possessed to generate such an astonishing repeat viewing rate.”
“Initially, I watched with a critical and fault-finding attitude, even spending the first half constantly noting and compiling the film’s shortcomings and flaws. But at some point, I found myself completely immersed in the film. When I came to, I had already bought a ticket for a second screening.”
“For the next two days, aside from eating and sleeping, I spent nearly all my time in the theater. By the time I submitted this article, I counted my ticket stubs and was shocked to realize that I had watched the same film five times within those two days.”
“I suppose this is why I ended up writing this analysis.”
Ye Zhou read through the analysis several times, his entire being in a daze, with an expression of utter shock on his handsome face.
“It’s that impressive?”
Just as he was in disbelief, a phone ring snapped him back to reality. Seeing the caller ID, Ye Zhou pinched his thigh hard to quickly regain his senses before answering.
“Hello, Manager Miao…”
“Director Ye, I have something very important to tell you. Please remain calm.”
“Before the film’s release, I submitted it for consideration at the Golden Lemon Film Festival. I just received a call from the organizers informing me that ‘Chasing the Light’ has been nominated.”
Ye Zhou: “Huh???”
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