Since he had slept early the previous night, Ye Zhou woke up at 6:30 a.m.
When he turned on his phone, a string of text messages, call alerts, and notifications from various social media platforms popped up, causing his usually smooth phone to experience a rare lag.
The lag lasted about half a minute before the interface finally returned to normal.
Ye Zhou browsed through the call logs and messages one by one. After a simple glance, he had a rough idea of the result of last night’s premiere.
Without rushing to return the calls, Ye Zhou opened the browser on his computer and typed in the movie’s name. Immediately, many headlines popped up below.
“The Year’s Fragrant Blockbuster,” “Premiere Theater Share at 10%,” “Word-of-Mouth Warming Up”…
There were too many such headlines to keep up with. He skimmed through a few and found that after the midnight premiere last night, the movie’s word-of-mouth online was steadily fermenting.
He then searched two major domestic online ticketing platforms and easily found the comment section for ‘A Farce.’ To his surprise, the movie’s scores on the two platforms were 7.5 and 7.8, respectively.
He checked the daily box office numbers, and so far, it had just broken 600 million. The top spot was taken by the renowned director Qin Xiaorao’s ‘Hidden Dragon,’ which accounts for 31.3% share of screenings. It garnered a cumulative box office of 260 million and a 43.3% share of total box office revenue.
The second spot went to ‘Cherished Love 2,’ the second film directed by a famous actor-turned-director in the industry. Thanks to the decent performance of the first installment, it had accumulated a good amount of word-of-mouth and fans for the sequel. It had a 24.7% share of screenings, a cumulative box office of 89 million, and a 14.8% share of total box office revenue.
Next was ‘A Farce,’ a film with rather peculiar data. It had a measly 10.5% share of screenings, yet its cumulative box office was a dazzling 65 million, accounting for 11.8% of the total box office revenue.
For a film with such low screening share to stand out from the crowd and make it into the top three was already enough to leave people in awe.
The movie trailing behind them was the romantic comedy ‘Ultimate Gentleman,’ starring the popular young actress Feng Yue and the rapidly rising young idol actor Kong Qiwen. It took in 63 million at the box office, neck and neck with ‘A Farce,’ and could easily overtake it with the slightest misstep.
But, ‘Ultimate Gentleman’ had a 17.5% share of screenings.
Ye Zhou closed the box office data and turned to the review section for his film, unexpectedly finding that the level of acceptance for this movie was much higher than initially expected.
Although he knew the ratings would inevitably decline as the screening duration increased, this result had already made Ye Zhou very satisfied.
As he scrolled down further, Ye Zhou’s hand gripping the mouse suddenly paused.
His gaze fixed on a movie called “The Pursuit” at the bottom of the webpage. This film had only a 7.3% share of screenings and a meager box office of just over 8 million, which was quite poor performance for a holiday period with the Golden Week boost.
However, what caught Ye Zhou’s attention was not its box office, but a familiar name he spotted on the movie poster.
Well, well, if it isn’t an acquaintance!
Isn’t this the assistant director Wang Hong from “The Pursuit,” who had tried to cause trouble for him when he had just transmigrated into this world?
After the backfire from the malicious smear campaign last time, Wang Hong had seemingly gone through a lot of twists and turns, and now Ye Zhou had unexpectedly come across his name again. How bizarre!
Curiosity piqued, Ye Zhou clicked on the movie’s page, and a few minutes later, he was surprised to find the name of the protagonist Cheng Ran listed as the producer!
Whoa, so these two had teamed up to make a movie?
Since Cheng Ran had appeared, how could Jiang Yu, the protagonist gong, be far behind? Of course, he wouldn’t be.
After finding the two old acquaintances, Cheng Ran and Wang Hong, Ye Zhou discovered another surprise in the investors section.
Jiang Yu’s one-year-old film and television company, along with Summit Entertainment, were hand in hand, sitting together and enjoying the fruits.
Ye Zhou raised his brows, his eyes showing a look of realization.
He had wondered how Wang Hong dared to cause trouble after knowing about his relationship with Boss Jiang, even attempting to drag Boss Jiang down with him.
Now, seeing them gathered together, Ye Zhou no longer had any doubts. What else could it be other than having the backing of the protagonist gong and shou?
What puzzled Ye Zhou, however, was the film’s low screening share.
He knew Jiang Yu had depleted his savings to acquire the rights to ‘Battle City 2,’ but later invited Summit Entertainment as a co-producer by giving up a portion of the profits. Summit Entertainment was not short on money.
This company was infamous in the industry as a bloodsucker. Just looking at Zhu Ning’s experience was enough to catch a glimpse. Zhu Ning was a top-tier idol, yet even after becoming a top player in the industry, he was exploited like this. One can only imagine how unknown minor artists under the company were treated.
Ye Zhou vaguely remembered that not long after Zhu Ning’s death from overwork, a small boy group under Summit Entertainment had all five members climb to the rooftop and jump off Summit Entertainment’s building.
They should have been in the prime of their lives, yet they chose to end their lives in this manner. Three of the five died on the spot, and one was resuscitated in the intensive care unit for half a month but ultimately didn’t make it.
The last one, who should have survived, regained consciousness, but no one knows what Summit Entertainment said to him. That night, the young man removed his medical equipment and passed away.
At the time, many fans held a silent protest outside Summit Entertainment’s building, demanding justice for Zhu Ning and the artists exploited by Summit Entertainment. Even so, Summit Entertainment only restrained itself slightly, with no fundamental change.
According to the memories of the original body, up until the original’s death, Summit Entertainment was still thriving, not only avoiding bankruptcy but growing ever stronger after benefiting from the Jiang Corporation.
Could such a company that would drain people dry be short on money? Of course not.
Ye Zhou’s guess was correct. Summit Entertainment had money and invested two-thirds of the funds for this film, while Jiang Yu took only one-third.
What he didn’t expect was that the Golden Week, which comes once a year, had a fixed market share. “The Pursuit” was originally planned to have a 10-15% screening share during Golden Week. Jiang Yu had begged and spent a lot of money to get more screenings, and Summit Entertainment had helped a lot too.
If Jiang Yu hadn’t mentioned Ye Zhou in front of Cheng Ran, he should have been comfortably waiting for the box office revenue share now.
Ye Zhou, a salted fish1a slang term for someone who is lazy, unmotivated, or has given up on life., initially didn’t plan any marketing and didn’t even intend to release the film during the National Day holiday.
But Jiang Yu and Cheng Ran couldn’t stand to see Ye Zhou do well. After hearing about Ye Zhou’s film screening, they insisted on causing trouble by bribing some film critics to give him negative reviews.
Yes, the blogger ‘Flying Melon’ who started the dispute, and ‘Liu Xiaochuan’ who later spewed the harshest insults, were Cheng Ran’s doing.
They had initially planned to make things unpleasant for Ye Zhou, but who could have imagined that after being cursed like dogs, Ye Zhou would still be able to turn the tide?
When the heat first started, Cheng Ran and Jiang Yu had a chance to back off, but not only did they not want to, they even hired internet navies to amplify the heat.
The situation started getting out of control when Zhu Ning’s fans joined in.
However, Cheng Ran was busy negotiating with theaters that day and didn’t notice the situation was off. By the time he and Jiang Yu realized something was wrong, it was too late.
Ye Zhou was provoked and decided to go all out.
Cheng Ran and Jiang Yu then watched helplessly as the heat further spiraled out of control under Ye Zhou’s guidance. Originally, they could console themselves that no matter how good the marketing, without quality, it would eventually die an ugly death, and they could look forward to laughing at Ye Zhou’s joke.
Little did they expect that Ye Zhou’s joke never happened. Instead, the theaters they had negotiated with suddenly changed their minds due to the increasing online heat of ‘A Farce.’
When Cheng Ran and Jiang Yu received the call, they were stunned. They tried to make amends, but on one side was a blazing hot topic with overwhelming popularity, and on the other were favors they had pulled through several connections.
When it came to interests, favors naturally became less important.
All in all, Ye Zhou’s film’s popularity was… not without Jiang Yu’s and Cheng Ran’s efforts!
Once it had a good start, the originally balanced scales began tilting toward the positive reviews.
The first day, with a 10.5% screening share, it raked in 68 million.
The second day, with a 15.6% share, it grossed 87 million.
The third day, with a 21.3% share, it grossed 120 million.
…
On the seventh day, ‘A Farce,’ which had turned the tide against all odds, grabbed a 43.6% screening share, far exceeding ‘Hidden Dragon,’ and wildly harvested 370 million box office on that day alone.
Before its release, no one could have imagined that this controversial film, which had already caused an uproar before its premiere, would actually become the brightest dark horse of this year’s National Day holiday releases.
At 11:58 pm on October 7th, many in the industry stayed up late, keeping an eye on the data platform, waiting for midnight to see how much this low-budget film, plagued by poor word-of-mouth, had managed to claw its way to after a bloody battle, despite an investment of less than 20 million.
After midnight, the data platform reset, entering the settlement phase.
About five minutes later, a long table reappeared on the previously blank platform.
Everyone unconsciously searched for the shadow of ‘A Farce’ on that long list, but they didn’t need to exert much effort, as the names of the top three box office films for the week were all highlighted in red, strikingly prominent.
After the bright red title of ‘A Farce’ was a number that was quite daunting:
1.798 billion.
Surpassing ‘Hidden Dragon’s’ 1.346 billion yuan, with over 400 million more.
“Insane, this is truly insane!”
Although they had expected it due to the crazy trend during this period, seeing this number still made them gasp in surprise.
Was this box office high? Perhaps not compared to top domestic blockbusters.
But with a mere 20 million budget, for a poorly-received low-budget comedy, this number was astounding.
What was most admirable was that although the holiday2The raw says Double Eleven holiday. I’m not sure why they said Double Eleven is over when it specifically said that the date is October 7. Double Eleven, as the name suggests, is 11.11 or November 11. I’m supposing it’s a mistake,and they still meant the National Day Golden Week holiday. had ended, it didn’t mean this film would be taken off screens. At its current blazing popularity, it would likely continue screening for at least another ten days or half a month.
If the subsequent box office could keep up, applying for an extended screening run was not impossible.
Compared to harvesting 1.798 billion yuan in seven days, it still had infinite possibilities in the long period ahead. This… was the most terrifying part.
Despite divided praise and criticism online, despite the film’s score fluctuating between 6 and 8 during its screening, despite everyone mocking that the film had just gotten extremely lucky.
No matter how much doubt, it could not change the fact that it was an absolute dark horse.
As industry insiders had guessed, due to its continued decent performance, ‘A Farce’ extended its screening for another week. After the National Day holiday ended, its box office growth slowed but still surged every weekend.
Its final box office before ending its screening froze at 2.836 billion yuan.
Ye Zhou looked at the text message showing his bank balance and felt an unprecedented complexity of emotions. He took out a pack of cigarettes from the original owner’s cupboard, lit one up, and looked haggard.
Why, despite his efforts to spend it, had the money doubled instead?
Not just doubled, but multiplied several times over!
With so much money…
How should he spend it?!
When would such days…finally come to an end?
If all else failed, maybe he should try some investments. With luck, he might hit the jackpot and go bankrupt at once!
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