Chapter 228 Bad Movies and the Four Great Directors

While Liu Zhou was busy filming in Hollywood, the domestic film market was extremely lively.

"The Baby Project" and "The Banquet", which had previously avoided "Red Cliff", were released before National Day.

The first to hit the market was Jackie Chan's "Baby Project", a film co-starred by Jackie Chan and Hong Kong's strongest new generation actor, Louis Koo, and its box office performance was average.

On the first day of its release on September 15, it only earned 8 million at the box office, and in the first three days, it only earned 35 million.

The box office data for the first three days was only slightly more than the first day box office of "Red Cliff".

Such a huge gap makes everyone sigh and wonder if Cheng Long is really getting old.

Although "Baby Project" is still Jackie Chan's classic kung fu comedy, the plot is still a bit old-fashioned to be honest.

After watching it for twenty or thirty years, everyone is indeed a little tired of it.

Therefore, in the following four working days, "Baby Project" only managed to earn 20 million at the box office.

After seven days of release, the total box office grossed 55 million.

This result is actually very good, but when it comes to Cheng Long, it is a bit inferior.

Especially now that movies with box office revenues exceeding 100 million yuan are emerging one after another.

With this performance of "Baby Project", there is still hope that the box office will exceed 100 million yuan, but at this time, Feng Kuzi's costume blockbuster "Night Banquet" is about to be fully released in theaters.

To be honest, although Jackie Chan is a leading figure in the Chinese film industry and Emperor Entertainment Group is also a large company in the industry, its influence in the mainland is still not as great as that of the local giant Huayi Brothers.

This can be well reflected in the scale of publicity for the two films.

The promotion of "Baby Project" is still the traditional way of large-scale media advertising and the main creators participating in some TV shows.

At that time, Louis Koo did not have much box office appeal in mainland China. The success of "Baby Project" was entirely due to the appeal of Jackie Chan.

"The Banquet" not only had greater publicity in domestic media and support from many celebrities, but also held a grand premiere.

Not only that, as a costume blockbuster that the Wang brothers had high hopes for, this movie spent a huge amount of money to hold a "hero banquet" at this year's Cannes International Film Festival.

A 1 minute and 20 second English trailer was specially made for this purpose. At the same time, the famous musician Tan Dun, who composed the music for "Night Banquet", specially composed music for the short film.

In addition, Huayi spent 400 million RMB to hold a beach cocktail party for "The Banquet" and held a grand promotion conference the next day.

And as it is an adaptation of "Hamlet", it has been heavily promoted overseas.

Huayi's promotional method does have some effect. Before "Night Banquet" was officially released, the overseas copyright had already sold for nearly 10 million US dollars.

The movie "Night Banquet" is said to have an investment of 20 million US dollars. Although this amount is a bit inflated, the overseas revenue has undoubtedly made Huayi recover most of its losses.

Coupled with the markets in mainland China and Asia, Huayi is full of confidence in "Night Banquet" and is just waiting to make a fortune.

Previously, the Wang brothers were almost jealous of the box office of "Red Cliff", and this time it is finally their turn.

So this time, Huayi really mobilized all its connections, hoping that Huayi's first costume blockbuster could achieve an outstanding box office result.

Even if "Red Cliff" may not reach the box office of 300 million, it should at least reach 200 million.

Just like that, under the expectant gaze of the Wang brothers and Feng Kuzi, "The Banquet" was officially released on September 22nd.

However, on the first day of its release, the box office of "The Banquet" poured cold water on several people.

On the first day of its release, it only earned 12 million yuan at the box office.

This result is actually not bad. The box office on the first day exceeded 10 million, and few movies have been able to achieve this so far.

But the Wang brothers had set their expectations too high for "The Banquet". Their goal was to make at least 20 million on the first day, so that the total box office would have a chance to exceed 200 million.

Now it is only 12 million, which is a huge gap from their psychological expectations.

However, they can only hope that the box office will surge in the next two weekends.

But in the end, it turned out that they were overthinking it.

Although the box office increased in the next two days, the increase was limited, with 17 million on the second day and 16 million on the third day.

In the first three days, the total box office was only 45 million, which was only 10 million higher than "Baby Project".

This result is far inferior to that of "Red Cliff", let alone "The Promise".

What was even worse for Huayi was that at this time, the reputation of "The Banquet" had spread completely.

Like "The Promise", it was also criticized crazily by everyone.

Feng Kuzi was also criticized as much as Chen the poet.

In the past, people had no channels to express their opinions and had no way to deal with disgusting movies. Now that the Internet is becoming more and more developed, they now have an outlet to vent.

Therefore, the comment sections of various film and television sections on the Internet are filled with curses.

"What are you filming?"

"I was looking forward to it, but I didn't expect to be fed a pile of shit again!"

"It turns out that Feng Kuzi is OK at making comedies, but it's best not to touch this kind of big production."

"I am a fan of Mr. Ge, but I must admit that the role of Emperor Li is really not suitable for him!"

"Indeed, he is clearly a villain, but I always feel like he is telling a bad joke, which really ruins the show!"

"The plot is a mess!" "It's the same shit as The Promise. What a waste of money!"

……

In 2006, apart from fans, couples, and those who were looking for leisure and entertainment, a large proportion of those who could afford to pay to go to the cinema to watch movies were veteran movie lovers.

These movie fans have very high aesthetic standards for movies and are much more picky than ordinary audiences. They hate bad movies very much.

This is also the reason why poet Chen was scolded so badly.

Before "The Promise", poet Chen had a very high status in their hearts, even higher than Zhang Yimou.

That's why his filming of "The Promise" suffered such a huge backlash.

Although Feng Kuzi started out by making commercial films, he has been excluded from the mainstream for a long time.

But over the years, Feng Kuzi's comedies are indeed unique and their influence is growing.

In addition, his movie "A World Without Thieves" grossed over 100 million yuan two years ago and received very good reviews, making him a leading figure among mainland directors.

At that time, some media had named Chen Shishi, Zhang Yimou, Liu Zhou and Feng Kuzi as the four major directors in mainland China, and this statement was quite recognized.

But just after the selection of the four major directors, Zhang Yimou took the lead and brought "House of Flying Daggers".

In addition, the previous "Hero", although it set a box office record for mainland movies, was also criticized for various reasons.

And the "House of Flying Daggers" brought this time was really bad, so it was criticized even more badly.

Next was Liu Zhou, whose work "Xiu Chun Dao" was well received and has always had a good reputation.

After that came "The Promise" which brought poet Chen down from the altar, and now Feng Kuzi has brought another equally impressive work "The Banquet".

Three of the four major directors in mainland China failed at once, and only Liu Zhou has maintained his consistent level.

However, Zhang Yimou made a huge comeback with the movie "Red Cliff", and his fame and reputation were restored a lot.

What everyone doesn’t know is that Zhang Yimou will still follow the inertia of history and will soon bring "Curse of the Golden Flower" to meet everyone.

Historically, "The Promise", "The Banquet" and "Curse of the Golden Flower" are often listed together and are known as the three worst films because they are all big productions, directed by three major mainland directors, and there is not a long time interval between their releases.

Among them, "The Promise" is the worst, followed by "The Banquet".

Looking back at these three movies more than ten years later, "The Promise" and "The Banquet" are still considered bad movies, but many people still overturned the verdict on "Curse of the Golden Flower".

Because even after more than ten years, there are still few mainland directors who can make commercial films of this level.

But now, because of the appearance of Liu Zhou, the other three were criticized even more badly, and even Zhang Yimou, whose reputation had improved, was pulled out.

However, the most people criticized Chen Shishi and Feng Kuazi.

"Liu Zhou: It's not that I, Liu Zhou, am so great, but that everyone here is rubbish!"

"I strongly suspect that Liu Zhou is the chosen one. Otherwise, why would Director Chen and Feng Kuzi abandon their past reputations and make bad movies to highlight him?"

"If you want to watch movies, you have to watch Liu Zhou's. His movies are always above the standard, but the production is too small."

"You should be happy that Liu Zhou is still making movies. He is a big business man now."

"Poet Chen and Pants Feng are two idiots, not even a famous mainland director."

……

If Feng Kuazi saw these posts, his blood pressure would at least soar to over 200, and his vitiligo might even get worse...

As for poet Chen, he may be the one who feels the most wronged, as he has been scolded for a whole year.

Now that someone else has made a bad movie, you still blame me?
Does this mean that every time a bad movie comes out, I will be singled out and criticized?
But poet Chen’s prediction was quite accurate. "The Promise" was indeed regarded as a benchmark for bad movies for a long time.

From time to time, he would be dragged out and whipped.

This position was not replaced until the appearance of another magical blockbuster "Dream of Show Business" in later generations.

I heard that "Dreaming of Show Business" was directed by a famous film critic, which is very confusing.

Proves that those who talk big are just good at talking.

The reputation of "Night Banquet" is so poor that even Huayi's constant control of reviews cannot stop it.

So forget about hoping for a big box office hit. After ten days of release, "The Banquet" only grossed 76 million.

In the second week, for a full seven days, it only earned 31 million in box office revenue.

In the third week, which happened to be the National Day holiday, the total box office successfully exceeded 100 million!
Taking over 100 million yuan in 17 days, "The Banquet" can be said to be the last movie to do so, even worse than Feng Kuzi's previous film "A World Without Thieves".

There were some sighs on Huayi’s side, but Emperor Entertainment Group was very surprised.

Just like "The Promise" was to "Crazy Stone" and "New World", "The Banquet" was also a huge assist to "Baby Project".

Originally, the weekly box office of "Baby Project" was less than 10 million, but in the fourth week, the box office fell back and reached 15 million.

This directly pushed the box office of "Baby Project" to 78 million.

At this point, "Baby Project" has only been released for 24 days. If luck is good, the box office may exceed 100 million.

Seeing this result, Emperor Entertainment Group immediately invested resources in publicity again.

(End of this chapter)