Chapter 311 Overseas Weakness and Science Fiction Movies

Compared to its hot performance in mainland China, the performance of "The Martian" in other regions and overseas was much worse.

First of all, it is Hong Kong and Taiwan. These two places will release the film simultaneously with the mainland.

However, after three weeks of release in Hong Kong, the total box office of "The Martian" was only 20 million Hong Kong dollars.

In fact, a box office of 20 million Hong Kong dollars is already a very good result. Up to now, there is only one movie with a box office of over 20 million in Hong Kong, and that is Stephen Chow's "CJ7".

"CJ7" was in the lead with a huge margin, earning over 51 million at the box office in Hong Kong.

The following "Three Kingdoms: Resurrection of the Dragon" only had a box office of more than 16 million.

Therefore, with a box office of over 20 million, "The Martian" can rank second on the Hong Kong box office list.

According to the current box office trend, the total box office of "The Martian" in Hong Kong is expected to be around 25 million.

There are only two months left in 2008, and the only threat to "The Martian" is "Ip Man", which is scheduled to be released at the end of the year.

However, the movie "Ip Man" was also produced by Golden Harvest Films' Hong Kong branch.

Wilson Yip, the director of Ip Man, has re-established close ties with Golden Harvest since their collaboration on Flash Point.

When Wilson Yip started his new project "Ip Man", the first person he approached was Golden Harvest.

So even though there was no Liu Zhou's guidance, this most famous Hong Kong movie after "Infernal Affairs" still fell into the hands of Golden Harvest.

Therefore, no matter which of "The Martian" and "Ip Man" has a higher box office in Hong Kong, the meat is rotten in the pot.

There is definitely no hope for the first place, and there is actually not much difference between the second and third place.

Compared to its lukewarm performance in Hong Kong, "The Martian" performed much better in the Taiwanese market.

After three weeks of release, the box office exceeded NT$100 million, equivalent to about RMB 25 million, and at that time it was still able to take in NT$5 to NT$6 million per day.

In addition to higher box office, "The Martian" is also much more popular in Taiwan, and more people are discussing this movie.

In fact, this may also be related to the historical background. It is difficult for Hong Kong to experience the feelings of a great country.

As for Taiwan, regardless of whether the discussion is good or bad, it at least shows that "The Martian" is very touching to them.

In addition to Hong Kong and Taiwan, one week after The Martian was released, Golden Harvest also distributed the film to Southeast Asia, South Korea and other countries.

The film has been released in Southeast Asia for two weeks so far, and the box office in various countries combined is only close to four million US dollars, so the total box office should be just over five million US dollars, and it is unlikely to exceed six million.

In one version, "The Martian" was also released for two weeks, but the box office was not high, only more than 200 million yen, which is equivalent to more than 2 million US dollars.

In South Korea, the box office performance was even worse, with only more than 300,000 viewers in the first two weeks of its release, which is equivalent to more than one million US dollars.

But compared to the first film, the discussion about "The Martian" in South Korea is more heated, but most people think that the plot of the movie is unrealistic.

Anyway, everything they say is derogatory towards us.

But this is the usual nature of Koreans. Their entire nation seems to have a kind of delusion, thinking that they are the center of the world.

The world map they made was also outrageous, almost half of the Eurasian continent became their territory.

Liu Zhou naturally couldn't hear the sound from the Koreans, and even if he heard it, he wouldn't care.

There's no point arguing with them. You can't wake up someone who's pretending to be asleep.

And there is really no need to argue about it. The Korean space agency is not even up to par. They have trouble launching satellites, let alone manned space flight.

But to be honest, compared with several previous Golden Harvest blockbusters, "The Martian" performed much worse overseas.

It can also be seen from this that movies like this with a certain mainstream theme are indeed not very popular overseas.

But in the final analysis, it is because our country’s influence in neighboring countries is not high at present.

If the protagonist of "The Martian" was replaced by a beautiful Chinese, the situation would definitely be very different.

The original version of "The Martian" performed well at the box office in Asia, and if it had not been involved in smear campaign, it would have performed equally well at the mainland box office.

This needs to be done slowly. As our country's national strength increases and we continue to export films, Chinese-language films will surely become the mainstream of Asian films again.

Of course, the premise is that Chinese-language filmmakers themselves must strive to do well and continue to produce good works.

Otherwise, it will be like the Chinese national football team. Even if the country is strong, there is nothing you can do if you don’t live up to expectations.

Although "The Martian" did not perform well at the overseas box office, Liu Zhou did not take it seriously.

This was originally an attempt for him. If the result was good, it would be a surprise; if the result was not good, it was also expected.

Later, Wu Jing's "Wolf Warrior" series, "Operation Red Sea" and "The Wandering Earth" all achieved excellent box office results in China, but their performances overseas were also very poor. "Wolf Warrior 2" is said to have made less than one million US dollars in North America, "The Wandering Earth" was better, but only more than two million US dollars, and "Operation Red Sea" was not released in North America at all.

As for what kind of box office results "The Martian" can achieve in North America, it depends on whether Golden Harvest can successfully acquire Summit Entertainment.

It has been more than three months since Golden Harvest and Summit Entertainment signed the equity transaction in July. During this period, Goldman Sachs has been lobbying relevant departments in the United States to approve the transaction.

The reason why it has taken so long and Goldman Sachs has not completely settled the matter is that cross-border transactions, especially acquisitions of U.S. companies by Chinese people, are subject to stricter review.

Moreover, the efficiency of relevant departments in the United States is relatively low.

Don't be fooled by some articles advocating the West and think that foreign institutions are extremely efficient and their officials are honest and dedicated.

But the reality is that building an ordinary highway abroad may take several years of discussion, and corruption is an unspoken rule.

However, now, the transaction review of Golden Harvest's acquisition of Summit Entertainment has reached the most critical moment.

After Liu Zhou no longer had to worry about the release of "The Martian", he flew to the United States with Zhang Zhao and a previously formed acquisition team.

While Liu Zhou was working hard on public relations for the acquisition, "The Martian" was still slowly reaping the box office revenue.

On October 22, 25 days after its release, The Martian officially broke through 600 million at the box office, becoming the first mainland film to do so.

Just as the outside world was cheering for the box office success of "The Martian", a piece of news came out, which instantly caused a sensation in the circle.
This even overshadowed the popularity of "The Martian" which grossed over 600 million yuan.

On October 23, the project of "Moon", the second science fiction film in mainland China, written by Liu Zhou, directed by Zhang Yimou, and jointly invested by Golden Harvest and New Picture, was officially launched.

When this news came out, everyone in the circle was stunned, but the outside world was immediately in an uproar.

A second sci-fi film?

They never thought happiness would come so quickly.

I thought that after "The Martian", we might have to wait another two years for the second domestic science fiction film, or Liu Zhou would continue to make science fiction films.

After all, with the popularity of "The Martian", everyone has probably come to some understanding that shooting a hardcore science fiction movie is not that easy.

In addition to special effects, rendering, and filming teams, the director is also a crucial link.

It seems that apart from Liu Zhou, no one in China can independently shoot a large-scale science fiction production.

If someone else had launched a project in such a hurry, netizens would have definitely criticized him to pieces.

This is obviously an attempt to ride on the popularity of the film, hoping to make a quick buck by taking advantage of the sci-fi craze sparked by "The Martian".

There is a high possibility that the science fiction film that is shot will be a bad one, or even whether it is a science fiction film is a question.

If more people do this, even the hot science fiction atmosphere in the country will be gradually extinguished.

But if the director who wants to make a science fiction film is Zhang Yimou, then people don’t think he is just here to make money.

After all, if we evaluate Liu Zhou solely as a director, even if he made the phenomenal movie "The Martian".

But in everyone's mind, he is still not as good as Zhang Yimou, who perfectly completed the opening and closing ceremonies of the Olympic Games.

At this time, everyone called Zhang Yimou the "National Master". This was not because the Beijing circle called him that to mock him, but because they felt from the bottom of their hearts that Zhang Yimou deserved the title.

It was also after the Beijing Olympics that people started to add their surnames before referring to other directors, but Zhang Yimou was just called director directly.

At the same time, this is also why Zhang Yimou's film "Movies and TV Series" was met with overwhelming complaints.

He didn't even scold the leading actor of the movie, he just scolded Zhang Yimou.

Zhang Yimou's reputation at the time was so high that everyone was looking forward to his first film after the Olympics.

But everyone comes here with great excitement, and you feed them poop, which will of course incur everyone's anger.

And now, just when Zhang Yimou is the one who is expected by the world, he suddenly announced that his next movie will be a science fiction film. How can we not be excited about it?

What's more, the screenwriter of the film is Liu Zhou. After "The Martian", Liu Zhou can be said to be the number one screenwriter in Chinese science fiction films.

No one would think that Liu Zhou and Zhang Yimou, two of the most prestigious directors in mainland China, would mess around when they work together.

Plus, the name of the movie is "Moon", which has a strong flavor similar to "The Martian".

So even though we only know the name, it doesn’t stop everyone from discussing it enthusiastically online, and many people are even guessing the plot of "Moon".

Zhang Yimou suddenly felt a lot of pressure when he saw that the project had attracted so much attention just by its establishment.

At the same time, this also made Zhang Yimou truly realize the popularity of science fiction at that time, which made him secretly determined to make "Moon" well.

(End of this chapter)