Chapter 310: Phenomenal Movie and Popular Discussion
On October 4.3, "The Martian" was released for two weeks and grossed a total of million yuan.

This also means that "Red Star Rescue" has officially surpassed the 4.2 million yuan of "Red Cliff" to become the highest-grossing film in mainland film history.

People in the circle have been mentally prepared for this, and breaking the record is only a matter of time.

What everyone is more concerned about now is to what extent "The Martian" can improve the box office record.

Until now, every day is a new record.

However, what made everyone feel a little relieved was that after two weeks of screening, the single-day box office of "The Martian" finally fell below 10 million.

In fact, this is also a new record created by "The Martian", the longest consecutive single-day box office exceeding 10 million.

At first, this record was held by "Hero", which was eight days. Later, this record was broken by "Red Cliff", and the new record was ten days.

Until now, "The Martian" broke this record again, raising the new record to fourteen days.

This is not a record found in some remote corner. At this time, this record is still highly valued.

When this record was first set by "Hero" and "Red Cliff", it was widely reported.

This time, "The Martian" not only set the record for the longest consecutive single-day box office of over 10 million, but also broke the box office record for mainland movies.

This attracted even more reports from the outside world.

Not only major media outlets, but also the four major portals, expressed congratulations on "The Martian" for becoming the highest-grossing film in mainland China's film history on their entertainment section homepages.

Sina.com even put a real-time update of the box office of "The Martian" at the top of its homepage every day, and also put the latest movie box office records in big red letters, which was particularly eye-catching.

Needless to say, this was originally done by the editor-in-chief of Sina.com to curry favor with his boss, but unexpectedly the effect was quite good, with the number of page views being quite high every day.

This caused the three portal websites, NetEase, Sohu and Penguin, to immediately follow suit.

All of a sudden, the real-time box office of "The Martian" became a matter of concern to everyone, and everyone couldn't help but check it out every day.

Print media can't learn anything from this and can only watch as online media eat up this traffic.

At the same time, the entrances of cinemas or theaters in most third- and fourth-tier cities in the country began to become lively.

The cinema manager rarely arranged for employees to clean the cinema inside and out, and also arranged for people to post posters.

The cinemas in these third- and fourth-tier cities are still relatively backward, and many of them do not have large screens to play trailers, so they can only post posters to promote upcoming movies.

Not only inside the cinema, but also on the street outside the cinema, there are posters of all sizes.

Such a high-profile move by the cinema eventually attracted a lot of attention.

From time to time, someone came to ask for relevant information.

"The Martian" was mainly promoted on a large scale in key cities, and there were relatively few or even no promotional materials released in third- and fourth-tier cities.

There's nothing we can do about it. The main reason is that the movie is released late in these places. If there's a large-scale promotion at the same time, if the audience becomes more interested, but the movie isn't released yet, they might just go and buy pirated discs.

Although "The Martian" has been trying to prevent piracy, pirated copies have already appeared on the market half a month after its release, and it cannot be prevented at all.

This anti-theft performance is already very good. Many movies have already been pirated on the market before they were released.

These days, everything is pirated. Two years ago, before Jay Chou released "Still Fantasy", the album wasn't even released yet, but it was already being sold under the flyovers in Beijing.

Of course, Jay Chou is printed on the cover, and the title is "The Beauty of the World".

The catalog includes "Thousand Miles Away", "British Lover", "Compendium of Materia Medica", "Back Off", "Funeral of Roses", "Park No. 7", "Swing Pendant", and "Earthly Beauty"

Some of the songs are indeed from "Still Fantasy", but the following ones are from an unknown niche internet singer named vae.

The style of those songs is somewhat similar to Jay Chou’s, which deceived a large number of people and sold quite well.

I believe that at that time, many people thought that "Funeral of Roses" was Jay Chou's song because the styles were indeed very similar.

Movies are better than songs. At least there is a big difference between watching a DVD and watching it in a cinema, not to mention space science fiction films like "The Martian".

But no matter what, piracy will definitely have a certain impact. What if all the publicity makes people itchy and there is no authentic version, they can only watch pirated versions if they want to watch it.

Therefore, there was almost no promotion in third- and fourth-tier cities where the film was not released simultaneously.

But even though there was no publicity, some people who go online or read major newspapers still know about the movie "The Martian".

Now that "The Martian" has finally begun to be screened in its own city, some people who have been waiting for a long time are very excited.

Although the movie will not be officially released until tomorrow, I bought the tickets the day before.

Some people who couldn't wait to watch pirated discs also bought another movie ticket after hearing people online say that the big screen was a great viewing experience.

The theater manager couldn't stop smiling when he saw that most of the tickets for the next day's show had been sold out.

It has been a long time since the cinema has been so popular.

The manager thought that he couldn't withhold too much box office revenue in the future, otherwise, if he was discovered and the higher-ups stopped cooperating with his own cinema, it would become a one-time deal.

That very evening, thousands of households across the country were sitting in front of their televisions watching the news broadcast after dinner.

Now is the time when television media has the greatest influence. TV dramas are not broadcast so quickly and various satellite TV stations are broadcasting the news.

So at this time, it is usually the adults who hold the remote control, and the News Broadcast is a must-watch program for many adults.

After reporting on some major domestic and international events, the host suddenly introduced a movie.

This time, the news broadcast's coverage of "The Martian" was not like the previous "Assembly", which was just a simple text report, but a focused report with video footage.

"Recently, my country's first domestically produced science fiction film, The Martian, is being released in theaters and has already grossed 4.6 million yuan, setting a new record for my country's film box office.

The film tells the story of a future Chinese astronaut who lands on Mars, encounters a major accident, lives alone on Mars for many days, and is eventually successfully rescued.

Chinese astronauts faced...overcame all difficulties, relied on their own strength...and did not give up on any member of the team..."

Then a new picture appeared on TV. In the Dunhuang desert, artists and sculptors carefully carved meteorite craters and other special terrains to show how the Martian landscape in the movie was built.

This was followed by footage of the groundbreaking ceremony for the Dunhuang Mars Tourism Demonstration Zone, and finally, aerial photography was used to fully display the filming set and the renovated Dunhuang Jiahe Mars Cultural Tourism Base.

The host even introduced the situation inside the Mars tourist base. The Mars base and potato greenhouse in the movie have been completely preserved.

There are also cars that imitate the appearance of Mars rovers, and even rocket-style houses that can accommodate people.

After the introduction, as the host's narration changed, the scene showed the popular screening of "The Martian", with long queues forming in many cinemas.

Liu Zhou also made a rare appearance on the news broadcast, which gave him more than ten seconds of airtime. "The success of The Martian fully demonstrates that we can also make good science fiction films, so I hope that the audience will believe in the production capabilities of domestic films and believe that we can also make more and better science fiction films."

Finally, there is the host’s summary.

"The success of The Martian demonstrates..., reflects... The film fully demonstrates the aerospace spirit of our country's astronauts."

As the news broadcast ended, most people in the country knew that a movie called "The Martian" was being released.

"The Martian" has been released for more than half a month, and everyone has been discussing it for nearly half a month. The popularity of the movie has inevitably begun to decline.

However, with the movie appearing in the news broadcast and reported in such detail, "The Martian" has once again become a hot topic.

"Fuck! Liu Zhou and The Martian are on the news!"

"As expected of Liu Zhou, this card is really impressive!"

"There is nothing wrong with The Martian being on the news broadcast. The quality of the film is very good, and it is also the first science fiction film in China."

"I am in tears! I begged my dad for a long time to take me to the cinema to watch a movie but he refused. I didn't expect that he saw "The Martian" on the news broadcast and he finally agreed to take me. It's so hard for a junior high school student."

"Now that The Martian has been on the news broadcast, the box office will definitely explode again. I wonder what its final box office will be."

"Breaking 600 million should be no problem!"

"What attracted me most was the Mars tourist base transformed from the filming location of The Martian on the surface of Mars. I have to go and see it when I have time."

"Yes, it looked very attractive from the report on TV. I heard that Jiahe invested a huge amount of money to develop this."

……

In fact, not only netizens, but also people in the industry were surprised that "The Martian" was featured on the news broadcast, but when they thought about the influence of the movie, it seemed reasonable.

At this time, they couldn't help but sigh again that "The Martian", as the pioneering work of domestic science fiction films, really gave them a feeling that the time has come and the heavens and the earth are on the same side.

This did not make them jealous. At the beginning, no one dared to make a science fiction film, and only Liu Zhou dared to be the first to try it.

So now he can also reap the biggest benefits.

Not only will the movie be a box office hit, but with official support, his status and influence among movie fans and audiences will surely soar again.

Now that "The Martian" has been on the news broadcast, they don't know what the final box office of this movie will be.

In fact, what everyone thought was right. The fact that "The Martian" was featured on the News Broadcast undoubtedly added fuel to the popularity of the film.

The next day, attendance at "The Martian" began to rise again, and some cinemas even had long queues again.

Audiences carrying large and small bags of food, melon seeds, and beer appeared in every cinema in third- and fourth-tier cities.

It seems to have recreated the movie-watching craze of the golden age of the 1980s.

No matter how old the cinemas are, they have all been given a new lease of life.

On that day, "The Martian" once again grossed 34 million at the box office.

Although everyone had expected it, the box office results were still shocking.

However, the influence of the News Broadcast does not just last for one day. As the first science fiction blockbuster, the publicity effect of the News Broadcast is better than expected.

The next day, "The Martian" grossed another 31 million, 28 million on the third day, and 25 million on the fourth day.

In four days, it grossed 1.18 million yuan at the box office.

After three weeks of release, "The Martian" grossed 5.78 million yuan, becoming the first movie to break million yuan in box office revenue.

However, it is obvious that 500 million is not the limit of the movie. Breaking 600 million is a foregone conclusion, and breaking 700 million is also a high probability event.

At this point, the industry has become somewhat numb to the box office performance of "The Martian". They have been shocked too many times since the movie was released.

But netizens were discussing the issue very happily, with everyone paying more and more attention to the real-time box office of "The Martian" every day.

Not only that, "The Martian" also successfully broke the circle, and online discussions about the content of the movie became hot again.

There are even many professionals in physics, chemistry, and biology who are seriously studying some of the technologies involved in the movie.

Experts have different opinions and are arguing endlessly about this.

At the same time, a more popular discussion has emerged online, which is whether it is worth spending such a huge price and taking such a big risk to save the male protagonist.

This kind of topic is most likely to arouse everyone's desire for discussion.

Just like in later generations, a college student sacrificed his life to save an old man, which also caused a lot of heated discussion on the Internet about whether it was worth it for the college student to save the old man.

What made Liu Zhou happy was that the view in favor of rescue gradually gained the upper hand.

There is no doubt that "The Martian" has become a phenomenal movie.

Whether it is a movie, TV series or novel, as long as it becomes a phenomenal work, it will have a huge influence.

Just like whether in the previous life or this life, "Ghost Blows Out the Light" has become a phenomenal novel. After reading it, some people even followed the example in the book and lit a candle in the southeast corner.

There is also Feng Kuzi's "A World Without Thieves", which is actually a phenomenal movie and was also discussed a lot at the time.

For example, in the movie, Sha Gen took 6 yuan in cash home because he was reluctant to spend the 600 yuan postage fee.

Then the post office criticized it by name, saying that in fact only 100 yuan was needed for handling fee, and the movie misled the audience and had a very bad impact.

Not only that, Ningbo police uncovered a gang robbery case and found two pirated discs of "A World Without Thieves" in the suspect's van.

According to the suspects, each of them watched the movie at least twice, hoping to improve their crime-committing skills by watching the movie.

At the same time, many netizens tried to peel eggs at home using Liu Dehua and Ge You's methods.

These have aroused widespread heated discussion.

Feng Kuzi has secured his position as one of the four most famous directors in mainland China, not only because "A World Without Thieves" grossed over 100 million yuan at the box office, but also because this movie had a great influence.

But now, the discussion and influence of "The Martian" far exceeds "A World Without Thieves".

Even this movie has almost become a hot topic among the whole nation.

(End of this chapter)