Chapter 222 Box Office Bomb
The release of "Red Cliff" can be said to have all the right timing, right location and right people.

Everyone knew that this movie would do well at the box office, but no one expected it to do this well.

Twenty-four million on the first day. Even though it is already 2006, there are only a handful of mainland films whose total box office can exceed this figure.

This also broke the first-day box office record of 20.8 million set by "New World" half a year ago.

But this is just the beginning, the next two days happen to be weekends.

On the second day of its release, "Red Cliff" grossed 29 million, and on the third day it grossed 31 million.

In the first three days of its release, the movie grossed a crazy 8400 million yuan at the box office, shocking the entire film industry.

No one, including Liu Zhou, expected that the box office of "Red Cliff" would be so strong.

At this time in the original time and space, the first-week box office record was 75 million for "The Promise".

However, due to the competition from "Crazy Stone", its first week box office was only 58 million, and the current record is still "New World" with 62 million.

Now "Three Kingdoms: Red Cliff" has directly raised this record by more than 20 million.

Liu Zhou was confident about "Red Cliff", but even so, the initial estimate of the first week box office was only between 70 and 80 million.

I didn’t expect that it has now reached over 80 million. The final box office of the movie is likely to exceed 300 million.

You should know that among the current domestic films, only "Hero" and "New World" have broken the 200 million box office, and none has broken the 300 million box office.

Obviously the media are also aware of this, but they are even more radical, or in order to attract attention, they directly boast that "Red Cliff" can break the box office record of "Titanic".

But phenomenal movies like "Titanic" are hard to come by.

Liu Zhou's expectations for "Red Cliff" were not that high. Previously, he hoped to break the box office record of "Hero". Now that the box office can exceed 300 million, that would be the biggest success.

As for breaking the record of "Titanic", Liu Zhou thinks it is not impossible, and perhaps he can try it in "Red Cliff".

.........

China Film Office
Han Shanping couldn't stop smiling, and he even walked with a breeze these past two days.

There’s no way, “Red Cliff” is too embarrassing.

According to the current trend, the box office in mainland China for the two films will be able to recoup more than 200 million yuan.

Add to that the overseas copyright and this major box office, and you can earn at least another 30 million US dollars.

China Film holds a 24 percent investment share, with a profit of at least 30 million, and this is the most conservative estimate.

If we add in the distribution fees and dividends from theaters, it would be even better.

Even though Han Shanping was investing hundreds of millions of dollars at will, in recent years, there were only a handful of projects at China Film that could generate revenue of 2000 million, or even a profit of million.

Although "Red Cliff" has only been released for three days, it does not affect his good expectations for the film's box office performance.

Not only Han Shanping, but also the film investors of "Red Cliff" were all grinning from ear to ear when they saw this result.

Zhang Weiping suddenly showed off his big mouth ability again. Facing the media, he publicly declared that the box office of "Red Cliff" would definitely exceed that of "Titanic", thus maintaining the dignity of domestic films.

This undoubtedly added fuel to the already heated public opinion.

Huayi, office.

The Wang brothers puffed out smoke, and while they were jealous of the box office of "Red Cliff", they couldn't help but feel deeply fortunate.

Before this, they were planning to release "Night Banquet" in the summer season, but after much consideration, they decided to avoid the popular Liu Zhou and choose the relatively weak Cheng Long.

In fact, the same is true for Emperor Entertainment Group. Compared to the combination of Liu Zhou, Zhang Yimou and the big IP of the Three Kingdoms, they would rather let "Baby Project" and Feng Kuazi compete with each other.

"Brother, do you think the box office of The Banquet can catch up with Red Cliff?"

Wang Zhongjun shook his head and said:
"Disaster!"

In fact, Wang Zhongjun is quite optimistic about Feng Kuzi's "Night Banquet" this time and is quite confident about it.

However, no matter how confident one is, there is a limit. If it were 2 million, he would still dare to say that he could give it a try.

But now that "Red Cliff" is about to reach 3 million, he really doesn't have the confidence for "The Banquet".

Wang Zhonglei actually knew that it was impossible, but when he saw the box office of "Red Cliff", he was really jealous and couldn't help but ask.

"Brother, why didn't we think of making the Battle of Red Cliffs from the Three Kingdoms into a movie? I feel like Liu Zhou gets all the good stuff."

"Okay, stop feeling sorry for yourself. Even if you are jealous of Liu Zhou now, it's useless. Think about the release of "The Banquet" instead.

I think the reason why the box office of "Red Cliff" was so strong this time was that their vigorous publicity played an important role.

We also have to plan the promotion of The Banquet carefully. Although we dare not think about the box office of 300 million, we still have great hope of 200 million. "

"Understood, big brother. I will go and work with the publicity department to re-formulate the publicity plan."

Not only Huayi, but also film companies in Hong Kong, mainland China, seeing the explosive box office performance of "Red Cliff", have also begun to think about whether they can try a historical war drama.

In the 5,000-year history of China, there are many other famous battles besides the Battle of Red Cliff. At this time, after three days of screening, the reputation of Red Cliff began to spread thoroughly.

Although not all the comments were favorable, most of them were favorable.

The audience is actually similar to the film critics. They were also a little worried about "Red Cliff" because of Zhang Yimou's previous "House of Flying Daggers" and Chen Shishi's "The Promise", and even raised their mental standards for bad movies.

Now, there are not many flaws in "Red Cliff", whether it is the war scenes or the literary scenes, and the costumes and special effects are definitely the highlights.

So for everyone, "Red Cliff" is considered an excellent commercial blockbuster.

However, because the previous publicity was too loud, the expected war scenes did not appear, which made some people feel a little disappointed.

But this does not affect the overall situation. With the huge success of "Red Cliff" in the first three days and the good reputation, the box office did not drop too much even though it was a weekday.

On the fourth day of its release, "Red Cliff" once again grossed 23 million at the box office.

After four days of release, the box office successfully exceeded 100 million, reaching 107 million.

"Red Cliff" also became the movie that broke the 100 million yuan box office the fastest.

However, the box office of the movie subsequently declined, falling to less than 20 million, but then by the weekend, the box office exceeded 20 million again.

After ten days of release, "Red Cliff" grossed a total of 180 million yuan.

At this point, no one would doubt whether "Red Cliff" could break the 3.6 million box office record, and there were even greater expectations for it to surpass the ​​million box office record of "Titanic".

This made Han Shanping feel itchy, because he most hoped that "Red Cliff" could remove the huge mountain that had been weighing down the Chinese film industry.

At the end of this year, China Film Corporation will hold a new leadership. Although there is a very high voice for Han Shanping to take over as the top leader, he has also received a lot of support.

However, Han Shanping cannot be completely at ease until everything is settled, and he is not without competitors either.

And because of the big pit of "The Promise" last year, although he didn't lose much money, the reputation was so bad that it still had some impact on him.

Therefore, Han Shanping urgently needed "Red Cliff" to wash away this stain on his body.

If the box office of "Red Cliff" can exceed that of "Titanic", it will undoubtedly be a brilliant political achievement of Han Shanping.

It will be a huge bonus for him to take over as the head of China Film Corporation.

Therefore, Han Shanping was willing to risk his reputation and join forces with China Film Group and several other major theater chains to fully support "Red Cliff" at all costs.

If this really works, the amount of theater screening resources that "Red Cliff" will be able to obtain will be terrifying.

But this is too ugly and it disrupts the balance of the industry.

So Liu Zhou also dissuaded him.

Even if they did this, they could still break Titanic's record, but it would not be an honorable win.

Moreover, opening such a loophole will also arouse concerns from those production companies.

Normally, since they have the cinema chain, it doesn't matter if you take advantage of them. As long as it's not too excessive, the production company will just tolerate it.

But if you do this, you are completely manipulating the box office of a movie. Those movies that you don't take seriously will become cannon fodder, right?
If you keep doing this, you will leave no way for other companies to survive. If you push them into a corner and complain to the higher authorities, things will be difficult to handle.

So doing this is a bit of a loss, and even if you successfully break the record, you won’t get any extra points.

Besides, the box office of the first film exceeded 300 million, so there is no reason why the box office of the more exciting "Red Cliff" would be worse than the first one.

Seeing that many netizens have expressed their expectations for the second part, there is a high probability that the box office of "Red Cliff" will break the record of "Titanic".

This was a fair and direct defeat.

At most we will have to wait another half a year.

After listening to Liu Zhou's words, Han Shanping gave up the idea and placed his hope on "Red Cliff".

The first part of "Red Cliff" released most of its box office potential ten days after its release, and the box office inevitably began to decline afterwards.

However, two weeks after its release, the box office of "Red Cliff" officially exceeded 200 million.

After three weeks of release, the box office of "Red Cliff" officially surpassed the 2.5 million yuan of "Hero", becoming the highest-grossing Chinese-language film in mainland China.

At this time, Hollywood blockbusters such as "Mission Impossible 3" and "Cars" and some domestic films scheduled for August also began to land in theaters across the country.

This further compressed the screening schedule of "Red Cliff" and the box office began to decline further.

As the outside media was reporting extensively on the event, Han Shanping was also preparing to hold a grand celebration banquet.

However, Liu Zhou had already gone to the United States at this time, and Jiang Zhiqiang was also in charge of Yiben, keeping a close eye on the release of "Red Cliff" in Yiben.

Because the number of people was not complete, Han Shanping had to give up.

But Han Shanping reminded the two that they must rush back to attend the celebration party after the movie was officially released.

(End of this chapter)