Chapter 281 Fierce Box Office Competition
The assembly call, as the name suggests, is the military call for troops to assemble.

Compared to the charge, the assembly call is usually sounded when troops retreat.

The main plot of the movie "Assembly" revolves around an assembly number.

During the War of Liberation, the company commander Guzidi was responsible for covering the retreat of the large force on the banks of the Wen River. In this brutal war, all 47 members of the company except the company commander Guzidi were killed.

As the unit changed its number, the martyrs of the Ninth Company were also identified as missing. Guzidi began a difficult search to find out the truth about the assembly number that year.

Historically, after the release of Feng Kuzi's version of "Assembly", it received very high word of mouth, so much so that even the Thirty Minutes News mentioned the movie.

But when people watch this movie again ten years later, they feel that it seems to be a smear campaign.

We all know that "Assembly" is adapted from the novel "The Lawsuit" by writer Yang Jinyuan, and in fact the novel "The Lawsuit" also has a real prototype.

Although "The Lawsuit" has some artistic processing, it is not exaggerated.

However, many plots in Feng Kuzi's version of "Assembly" have been adapted and processed in movies, so there is a certain degree of exaggeration and smearing.

For example, the prototype is also a veteran, and there are indeed cases where he blocked the enemy and eventually caused the entire army to be annihilated.

But the real situation is by no means as exaggerated as in the movie Guzidi.

First of all, the actual situation of the veterans is a squad, not a company.

This was also the first point that Feng Kuzi's version of "Assembly" was criticized for. The movie started from the individual deeds of a class group's ambush and jumped to the company-level forces, and even had the meaning of rising to the whole.

Secondly, the superiors told the veterans to hold on until dark, and to retreat early when they heard the bugle call. If the entire squad was killed, others would be sent to take their place.

Therefore, the orders received by the veterans were clear, and they were also informed of the danger and the possibility of everyone being killed.

But in the movie, it is just a simple so-called horn sound, and even the danger of the mission is not mentioned.

Faced with such a dangerous task, it was impossible for our army to deceive the soldiers. Clearly informing them and ensuring their resolute obedience was the reason why we were able to liberate the country within three years.

Why was it that when the movie "Assembly" was released, everyone did not realize these situations, and instead thought that the movie was very well made?

This is also related to the overall environment at the time to a certain extent.

Without saying anything else, if there are old bookworms who like to read military online articles, they should know that at this time, except for a small number, most of them are Apple fans.

The relevant forum sections are even more chaotic, and they portray our army in a very bad light.

There is no way. There are too many public intellectuals and running dogs at this time, but they happen to have some fame and can often appear in public and say some things that seem to make sense but are very crooked.

At that time, everyone's channels for accessing external information were very narrow, and the spread of information between each other was also very slow, so after listening to too much, everyone was easily led astray by those people.

But in fact, the reason is that we were not confident enough in our own culture at that time. We always yearned for the outside world and thought that the air outside was fragrant.

So after that, our country became rich and our people became strong, and our culture became confident. The problems with "Assembly" can be seen at a glance.

Even if you can't see it, it will make you feel awkward and uncomfortable when you look at it.

Since Liu Zhou knew about these problems, he changed the plots that involved exaggeration and smearing when he finalized the script.

In fact, these plots do not have much impact on the core and most touching theme of the film.

Therefore, when Liu Zhou watches Feng Xiaoning's version of "Assembly" now, he does not feel uncomfortable and can watch it with full concentration.

"Assembly" is undoubtedly a good movie. After the screening, warm applause immediately broke out in the hall.

"Yes, no wonder you are so confident that Assembly will beat The Warlords at the box office. It is indeed an excellent movie."

"Haha, I feel more confident to receive such high praise from President Han."

"Stop making fun of me. The Warlords is not a pushover. If Assembly loses, I will spread the news among the industry and let everyone laugh at you."

"You won't get that chance."

"By the way, when are you planning to go back?"

"It depends on Qin Hao, but he should be back in five days at most. He is the lead actor in this movie, so he will definitely go on a roadshow."

"Okay, just make your own arrangements."

With the premiere of "Assembly" over, Golden Harvest once again launched promotions for the film.

The three major portals and major mainstream newspapers have reported on the premiere of "Assembly", and some professional media and film critics have also given it positive reviews.

As of December 21, "The Warlords" had been released for a week and the box office reached 140 million RMB.

On the same day, "Assembly" began to be released in major theaters across the country.

On the first day of its release, the box office grossed 18 million, which was 7 million less than that of "The Warlords".

There's no way around it. Movies like "Assembly" are naturally not very appealing, and "The Warlords" has three superstars joining in.

The box office grossed 60 million in the first three days of the first weekend, and it took a full seven days for the release to barely exceed 100 million.

In fact, this result is already very good. After all, there are not many movies with box office revenue of over 100 million yuan now, not to mention that this result was achieved when a blockbuster movie was released at the same time.

Feng Xiaoning also became the sixth billion-dollar director in mainland China after the four major directors and Ning Hao, and he instantly became a hot commodity in the industry.

"Assembly" has only been released for a week, and many companies have already contacted him.

Neither Liu Zhou nor Golden Harvest cared much about this. Golden Harvest had originally only signed a director contract with Feng Xiaoning for "Assembly", so it was his freedom to make whatever choice he wanted.

Although the box office of "Assembly" exceeded 100 million yuan in seven days, it is very good, but in everyone's mind, this movie is compared with "The Warlords". So it feels that the performance of "Assembly" is not very commendable.

But what no one expected was that in the second week of its release, the box office of "The Warlords" was almost halved, and it only earned 5300 million in seven days.

No one knows whether it was because "The Warlords" lacked stamina or because the release of "Assembly" suppressed the drop.

This surprised people in the industry and also left investors dumbfounded.

Before, when they saw that "The Warlords" had such an explosive start, they made a public statement early on, saying that "The Warlords" would become the fourth movie in mainland China to break 300 million yuan in box office.

But looking at the current situation, if piracy continues on a large scale, the box office revenue that "The Warlords" can earn will be even lower.

Even with the extension key, the total box office will never exceed 300 million.

In fact, "The Warlords" has been released for half a month, and the box office is a few million away from breaking 200 million, which is already very good. It is even about to catch up with the final box office of the original movie.

But the expectations for "The Warlords" were too high, and now that the expectations have been dashed, I feel a huge gap in my heart.

When the time came to the last day of 2.1, "The Warlords" had been released for days and the box office had exceeded million, reaching million.

"Assembly" was released for exactly ten days, and the box office reached 1.4 million yuan, and the daily box office also began to decrease.

At this time, the box office gap between the two films was 70 million. Most people and the media felt that the outcome of this Lunar New Year box office was already decided, and "The Warlords" was sure to win.

But accidents always come unexpectedly. On the second day of 2008, when no one expected it, Thirty Minutes News spent one minute and nine seconds reporting on "Assembly".

At this time, Feng Kuzi was watching the Thirty Minutes News at home. Although he was a director, people of his generation would watch the Thirty Minutes News carefully if they had nothing to do.

This year, Feng Kuazi began to feel the urge to go out and try his luck again, but after a few trips outside, he found that he was more comfortable staying in Huayi.

So he doesn't have any works this year, but he has already submitted the script "If You Are the One" that he had written a long time ago, and it will officially start filming after the New Year.

Still collaborating with Ge You, still a classic Feng-style comedy.

Just as he was watching quietly and attentively, when the 30-minute news was coming to an end, he suddenly saw a report about the movie "Assembly".

Feng Kuazi, who was already feeling uncomfortable seeing the huge box office success of "Assembly", now saw "Assembly" again on the 30-minute news. For some reason, he suddenly felt a pain in his heart.

Feng Kuzi felt as if he had lost something very important, but after thinking for a long time he still couldn't remember what it was.

Is it because of "Assembly"?
That should be it. When he first saw the novel "The Lawsuit", he fell in love with it at first sight and wanted to adapt it into a movie, but he didn't expect that someone had already done it.

And after learning that it was Liu Zhou who obtained the rights to adapt the novel into film and television, he knew that he would never be able to use this novel.

If it weren’t for Liu Zhou, this version of “Assembly” would have belonged to me!

Naturally, other people didn’t know what Feng Kuzi was thinking, but the effect of “Assembly” appearing on the news for 30 minutes was immediate.

Subsequently, government agencies and schools across the country began to book large venues.

In the third week of the release of "Assembly", the box office increased instead of decreasing, and it once again grossed 2.3 million in seven days, pushing the total box office of the film to million.

However, "The Warlords" only grossed 2.5 million yuan after four weeks of release, and the gap between the two was only million yuan.

Although "The Warlords" has applied for an extension key, the movie's daily box office is only two to three million now, and it will become less and less.

Although the peak period of theater booking for "Assembly" has passed, the aftermath of the booking is enough to help its total box office surpass that of "The Warlords".

The people on the side of "The Warlords" were both envious and helpless about the unethical behavior of "Assembly".

It must be unpleasant to see the victory that was once in your hands suddenly disappear.

But who can blame the fact that the producer of "Assembly" is Golden Harvest?

The boss of Golden Harvest is not only a famous director, but also the second richest man in mainland China. With "Assembly" dressed in the guise of the main theme, it should not be difficult for him to push the movie to CCTV with his energy.

That’s right, they thought that the reason why “Assembly” was able to appear on the Thirty Minutes News was because Liu Zhou had made great efforts to smooth things over.

But they thought too simply. How could Liu Zhou be on the Thirty Minutes News whenever he wanted?

Although he did contribute some effort this time, it was the program team that came up with the idea first, and he just went along with it.

However, many people outside seem to generally believe that Liu Zhou did it. This has given everyone a new understanding of Liu Zhou's power and made them more awed by him.

If Liu Zhou knew what these people were thinking, he would be in a state of confusion.

He really doesn't have that much energy!
In addition, through the competition between "Assembly" and "The Warlords", people in the industry have become more aware of the strength of Golden Harvest's publicity and promotion capabilities.

This is becoming increasingly attractive to companies that lack promotional capabilities.

Although Golden Harvest's distribution fees are not low, they are not very high either, only slightly higher than the industry average.

Moreover, in the past few years, Golden Harvest has not had any disputes with any company, cheating any production company or withholding any profit share, and its reputation is very good.

Coupled with its strong publicity and promotion capabilities, more and more production companies approached Golden Harvest for cooperation.

This is also a pleasant surprise for Jiahe.

While the battles of "Assembly" and "The Warlords" were raging, Liu Zhou and Qin Hao had already quietly returned to Dunhuang.

Their most important task is still the filming of "The Martian".

(End of this chapter)