Chapter 238: Spring Festival Big Hit

"Red Cliff" grossed 3.68 million yuan in the first month after its release, officially surpassing "Titanic" to become the number one box office movie in mainland China.

The next day, even Han Shanping and Liu Zhou didn't need to make any effort, as major media outlets outside rushed to report the incident.

Originally this was just a simple box office battle between domestic and foreign films, but some media outlets elevated it to another level in order to attract attention.

But you know what, the audience really likes to watch such reports.

What Liu Zhou didn't expect was that the evening 30-minute news actually took a few seconds to report this incident.

Not to mention that "Red Cliff" already had a very good reputation, this movie has now become the pride of Chinese-language films.

This sudden popularity once again injected vitality into the already sluggish box office.

On January 16, "Red Cliff" earned 8 million at the box office, and the next day the box office exceeded 10 million again, reaching 12 million.

This made other production companies jealous. Their new films might not even get 10 million yuan at the box office on their opening day, but one month after the release of "Red Cliff", it could still make 10 million yuan in a single day.

This is really a case of comparing products before throwing them away.

Although the box office of the movie "Red Cliff" began to decline afterwards, it still took in a total of 34 million yuan that week, helping the total box office of the movie to exceed 400 million yuan.

Although we knew this would happen sooner or later, when the movie box office actually exceeded 400 million, it still caused quite a stir in the industry.

This is the first movie in mainland China to have a box office of over 400 million yuan.

In the original time and space, the first movie with a box office of over 4 million yuan in the mainland was created by "Transformers 2009" in 2, followed by "Founding of a Republic".

Now this record has been advanced by nearly three years.

Looking back now, the project of "Red Cliff of the Three Kingdoms" really made a lot of money for the producers.

The first part broke the box office record of domestic films and the box office exceeded 300 million. The second part even broke the record of "Titanic" and the box office exceeded 400 million.

This series of record breaking can be said to have brought both fame and fortune.

However, compared to others who were worried about the box office of "Red Cliff", Liu Zhou withdrew his attention from it after the box office of the movie exceeded 400 million.

The box office of the movie should be roughly estimated now. Although it can still be released for more than half a month, the box office will not increase much, probably around 20 to 30 million.

Therefore, if nothing unexpected happens, the total box office of "Red Cliff" will be between 4.2 million and 4.4 million.

Liu Zhou also focused his main energy on the preparation of the new movie "Room".

Liu Zhou's work is not easy after the Chinese New Year, as several of his companies will have new moves that require his attention.

In addition, "Edge of Tomorrow" will also be released in April, and Liu Zhou needs to rush to the United States to promote it.

Therefore, if "Room" is to catch up with the top three European films, time is still tight.

The Berlin Film Festival is in February, so there is no way you can make it.

The remaining two film festivals are Cannes in May and Venice in September. We should be able to catch these two festivals, but if we want to attend Cannes, the time will be very tight.

However, Liu Zhou was not worried about it. He would just join whichever one he could catch up with.

While he still has time, Liu Zhou plans to prepare the crew first.

Now that Liu Zhou is preparing a movie, it is much easier and simpler and he doesn't need to worry about anything at all.

He only needs to make his requirements clear to Jiahe, and Jiahe will prepare everything according to Liu Zhou's requirements. He only needs to confirm whether it meets the requirements.

Except for photographer Liu Zhou, who invited Lu Le again, the rest of the crew and other matters such as the shooting location were left to the producer sent by Golden Harvest.

Lui Lok is the director of photography for "Red Cliff". He is capable of both large-scale photography and literary and artistic films.

Besides, he became famous as a photographer of art films.

When Liu Zhou was in the crew of "Red Cliff", he got along well with him and recognized his abilities, so Liu Zhou invited him to work together again this time.

In today's circle, there should be few people who would refuse to cooperate with Liu Zhou.

So when Lu Le received Liu Zhou's invitation, he immediately gave a positive response.

In addition to the photographer, Liu Zhou also decided to select the actors himself.

There are not many characters in the movie "Room", and most of the shots are focused on the mother and son.

Apart from this mother and son, the only characters of some importance are the neighbor who imprisoned the heroine and her parents.

The neighbor who imprisoned the heroine has a somewhat neurotic personality, otherwise he would not do such a perverted thing.

Liu Zhou has decided on two candidates, Feng Yuanzheng and Liang Jiahui, to see who has time, but Feng Yuanzheng is still the first choice.

Now he is still being criticized for the TV series "Don't Talk to Strangers", and he has been criticized for several years.

The character of the heroine's father is very indifferent to the mother and son because his daughter is imprisoned.

This character actually didn't have much room for development, so Liu Zhou directly sent the script to several veteran actors to see who was free.

The heroine's mother is heartbroken about her daughter's experience. On the one hand, she wants to deepen her connection with her grandson, but on the other hand, she has to work hard to overcome their dark past.

This led to frequent quarrels between the son and the heroine's mother, which was also one of the reasons why the heroine collapsed and committed suicide.

For the role of the heroine's mother, Liu Zhou only chose Teacher Li Mingqi.

After sending out these invitations, Liu Zhou also began to prepare storyboards and make shooting plans.

As the year draws to a close, good news continues to come.

Both Feng Yuanzheng and Li Mingqi have agreed to perform and have signed contracts with Golden Harvest.

For the role of the heroine's father, Liu Zhou chose Mr. Li Baotian.

Liu Zhou also considered inviting Chen Daoming or Chen Baoguo and others to play this role.

But to be honest, it’s really not a good match for the two of them to play husband and wife with Teacher Li Mingqi.

As for Li Xuejian, he doesn't quite fit in, and once he appears on camera, people certainly won't think of him as an indifferent father.

Now the only role left to be decided is that of a little boy.

Liu Zhou didn't want to make any more trouble and planned to finalize all the roles before the New Year.

Liu Zhou then asked the producer to contact Wu Lei's parents.

Wu Lei has actually already made his debut. In December 2005, he played the role of "Little Nezha" in the TV series "The Legend of the Gods: Fengming Qishan" and has since embarked on the road of acting.

When Wu Lei's parents received Jiahe's call, they thought it was a scam. After repeatedly confirming that it was true, they immediately brought little Wu Lei from Shanghai to Beijing.

Mr. and Mrs. Wu, who wanted their son to go into the entertainment industry, knew too well the importance of Golden Harvest and Liu Zhou.

If he could establish a relationship with Jiahe or Liu Zhou, Wu Lei's future would be much easier.

Besides, being able to star in the new film of the great director Liu Zhou is a huge qualification in itself, so they definitely want to grab such a good opportunity.

Wu Lei, who was only seven years old at the time, looked innocent and his eyes gave people a very spiritual feeling.

However, Liu Zhou was a little timid when communicating with him, but this is normal.

After communicating and understanding that there was no problem, Liu Zhou decided on the spot to give the role of the son to Wu Lei.

Upon seeing this, Wu Lei's parents immediately went to sign the contract with the producer happily.

Now that all the actors have been confirmed, it can be said that most of the preparations for the film have been completed.

At this time, the news that Liu Zhou was going to shoot a new movie had spread throughout the circle.

In response to this, many actors and agencies took action.

However, after learning that this was an art film and the roles had already been confirmed, I could only sigh helplessly.

At the same time, when people in the circle learned that Liu Zhou was actually making an art film this time, they were quite concerned, because Liu Zhou had never made an art film before.

Liu Zhou didn't care about the turmoil in the circle, as there were only two or three days left before the Chinese New Year.

This year's New Year's Eve is earlier, it is on February 6th of the Gregorian calendar.

Liu Zhou and Zeng Li returned to their hometown in Yangcheng on February 4th.

Seeing the two of them come back, their mother urged them to have a baby as usual, and their father, who had kept silent before, also agreed this time, thinking that Liu Zhou and Zeng Li were almost 30 years old and it was time for them to have a child.

Liu Zhou could only promise that she would get pregnant this year so that she could deal with the two of them.

On New Year’s Eve, after eating the New Year’s Eve dinner, my parents went to play mahjong again.

Liu Zhou and Zeng Li still accompanied their grandfather to watch the Spring Festival Gala.

After enduring the "News Broadcast" and "Weather Forecast", it was finally 8 o'clock and the Spring Festival Gala began.

There is a daily opening song and dance, followed by a medley of folk singers, with Feng Gong's crosstalk coming third.

But the quality of the show he brought this time was extremely mediocre, so mediocre that many people had no impression of his show at all.

On the contrary, the crosstalk "Free Call" by Li Jindou, Da Bing and Zhao Weiguo had many highlights.

Especially this year, the mainstream crosstalk community launched an anti-vulgarity campaign, but was discredited by Deyun Club.

This crosstalk performed by Dabing and his two companions can be regarded as a victory for the mainstream crosstalk community.

This year, when Gao Xiumin passed away and Fan Wei announced his withdrawal from the Spring Festival Gala, the iron triangle became a thing of the past, and Zhao Benshan found his old partner Song Dandan again.

Last year they made a sequel to "This Year, Tomorrow and Yesterday", which received rave reviews. This year, the golden duo teamed up again, together with Niu Hong, to make a sketch "Planning".

This skit has a classic line:
The egg-laying rooster, the fighting rooster among roosters, oh yeah!
It became the latest buzzword in early 2007 overnight!

Zhao Benshan’s sketches remain the biggest attraction as always, and they produce popular quotes at the beginning of the year almost every year.

In addition to Zhao Benshan's skit, another highlight of this year's Spring Festival Gala is the song combination of Hong Kong's little queen Joey Yung and Wanwan's little queen Zhang Shaohan.

Joey Yung is the most popular female singer of the new generation in Hong Kong, even more popular than Twice from the same company, but she has been slow to make a mark in mainland China.

So this time, Emperor Entertainment Group mobilized a lot of connections to push Joey Yung onto the Spring Festival Gala stage, hoping that she could make her career in the mainland flourish through this year's Spring Festival Gala performance.

As for Zhang Shaohan, he is much more popular in mainland China than Joey Yung. He has starred in idol dramas with good ratings and also has hit songs such as "Aurora".

Logically speaking, she doesn't need to be tied together with Joey Yung, but she also has a big disadvantage, that is, there are too many popular female singers like Wanwan.

Although she is more popular than Joey Yung in mainland China, her situation is not as good as hers.

Joey Yung has the support of Emperor Entertainment Group, a giant in the industry, while Zhang Shaohan is signed to Fu Mao Records, which is not even among Taiwan's first-tier record companies. The leading artists are her and her "good sister" Christine Fan.

Zhang Shaohan has become extremely popular in the past two years and her career has risen rapidly, but her company is not supportive, so she is still overshadowed by the four divas: Sun Yanzi, Cai Yilin, Fish Leong, and Elva Hsiao.

Zhang Shaohan can only be ranked as a little queen alongside the two "cute queens" Wang Xinlin and Rainie Yang.

Zhang Shaohan and her team are certainly unwilling to accept this, but the cake has already been divided on Wanwan's side. If they want to break the monopoly of those people, they can only overtake them.

So Zhang Shaohan also broke away from Taiwan, and stopped playing with the big four and three small ones. He looked for Joey Yung to cooperate with them to explore the mainland market together.

The Spring Festival Gala was an opportunity, and we hit it off with Joey Yung’s team, with both sides getting what they wanted.

Their collaboration was undoubtedly a success, and the songs "Invisible Wings" and "The More You Sing, the Stronger You Get" performed by the two became one of the highlights of this year's Spring Festival Gala.

The next day, New Year's Day, news related to the Spring Festival Gala dominated the headlines as usual.

Among them, there are quite a few reports about these two little divas, which can be regarded as completely opening up their careers in the mainland.

And it was on the first day of the Lunar New Year that "Blade of the Immortal 2" was fully released in domestic theaters.

As the sequel to the hit film, "The Blade of the Dragon Ball 2" still has a certain fan base.

Coupled with the large-scale publicity before the New Year, the film also grabbed some headlines in the news related to the Spring Festival Gala after the New Year.

In fact, some company leaders including Han Shanping were a little confused about Golden Harvest's decision to release "The Blade of Eternal Youth 2" after the Spring Festival.

This schedule is affected by the Spring Festival Gala, which will greatly reduce the promotional effect of the movie.

And this schedule has never proven to have any box office potential.

But everyone also knows that Liu Zhou has a good vision. Since he dared to choose to release the film after the Spring Festival, there must be reasons that they can't think of.

Indeed, the box office performance of "Blade of the Immortal 2" surprised them.

On the first day of the Lunar New Year, "Blade of the Immortal 2" earned million yuan at the box office on its first day of release.

This first-day box office result is already ranked in the top five, and it would be excellent even if it were released during the summer or New Year holiday.

What surprised them even more was yet to come. On the second day of its release, the film grossed 25 million. On the third day, the box office increased again, reaching 28 million.

After three days of release, the box office reached 1 million, which is better than "The Blade of the Dragon Ball " and "New World".

Moreover, during the Spring Festival, there are holidays everywhere, and there is no distinction between weekends or weekdays.

So on the fourth day of the Lunar New Year, "The Blade of Spring" once again grossed 27 million yuan at the box office, and the total box office directly exceeded 100 million yuan.

It took four days to break the 100 million mark, a speed on par with "Red Cliff (Part 1)", and second only to the three days it took to complete "Red Cliff (Part 2)".

Now, almost everyone in the industry was stunned by the crazy box office of "The Blade of the Immortal 2".

Is the quality of "The Swordsman 2" really that good?
Looking at the reviews online, many people say that the quality is not as good as the first one!

However, after everyone was shocked, they immediately arranged for people to investigate and study the Spring Festival period, regardless of the fact that it was still the Spring Festival holiday.

(End of this chapter)