Chapter 371: Controlling Reviews and Reducing Film Schedules

After the premiere of "Jinling Jinling", Star Media immediately started releasing a large amount of promotional materials as planned.
This movie, like "No Man's Land", was officially released in all major theaters in mainland China at midnight on the night of its premiere.

Although the response to "Jinling Jinling" was not very good at its premiere, the invited guests will definitely not criticize it online.

As for other media reporters and film critics, Star Media has already taken care of them. They will only praise and not criticize.

The only ones who might have made discordant voices were those ordinary lucky audience members who were invited, but there were not many of them, and they could not cause any waves on the Internet at the beginning.

Therefore, Star Media also wants to grab more box office revenue in the first few days before the movie is released.

Looking at the reactions of the crowd at the premiere, Qin Hong had a feeling that the box office of "Jinling Jinling" might not meet expectations.

What's more, Ning Hao's "No Man's Land" is also eyeing it.

The movie has been released for three days now and has grossed nearly 80 million, which is very good. More importantly, the movie has also received very good reviews.

So if "Jinling Jinling" fails to hold up, "No Man's Land" will definitely reap huge box office revenue.

Now Qin Hong is somewhat regretting releasing "Jinling Jinling" at the same time as "No Man's Land".

At that time, I thought that Lu Chuan and Ning Hao were both relatively well-known directors of the younger generation, and I could bundle the two films together to promote them, boosting the box office of both films and achieving a win-win situation.

At the beginning, everything went smoothly as planned, and Golden Harvest also cooperated very well with Star Media's hype.

I thought the follow-up would be smooth sailing, but I didn't expect that there was a high possibility that "Jinling Jinling" would fail in terms of film quality.

This is so deadly!

If "Jinling Jinling" really fails, then all the resources invested in the previous hype will be used to benefit "No Man's Land".

Therefore, Qin Hong can only go down this path now. It would be best if "Jinling Jinling" does not fail. If it does, he will try to control the reviews and delay the outbreak of large-scale negative public opinion.

Therefore, in just one night, thanks to Star Media’s full promotion, the internet was filled with news about the movie “Jinling Jinling”.

In addition to normal publicity, Lu Chuan and Xing Mei also carried out a series of eye-catching hype.

For example, they exposed stills of a film called WAF in which female college students performed nude, and criticized "The Diary of John Rabe", which has a similar theme to "Nanjing Jinling", as a mainstream film made in Germany.

All of these whetted the audience's appetite.

When Liu Zhou saw these hyped news, he really felt that the other party had lost all their dignity.

What is the movie John Rabe?
It is also a movie that reflects the Nanjing Massacre and was released in April this year.

The film is based on "The Diary of John Rabe", a wartime diary written by John Rabe. It records the entire process of the Nanjing Massacre from the perspective of an eyewitness and is the most complete and detailed historical material to confirm the information of this incident.

During that dark period, Rabe stepped forward and established an international safety zone, saving the lives of 20 Chinese people.

The movie "The Diary of John Rabe" can be said to have reproduced the thrilling and tragic memory of Jinling.

The film received high praise overseas and was called the Chinese version of "Schindler's List", and it was banned in China.

Of course, Liu Zhou is not saying that the movie "The Diary of John Rabe" is very good. The film is still based on the universal feelings in the hearts of Westerners.

When the German director combines this sentiment with a national catastrophe like the Nanjing Massacre, the film's narrative appears superficial and one-sided.

The movie even uses a bit of belittling the Chinese to highlight the Westerners' savior attitude.

But no matter what, "The Diary of John Rabe" is the first influential film in the world that exposes the atrocities in Nanjing.

And such a movie is now being hyped and belittled.

If using "The Diary of John Rabe" to hype up something still has some bottom line, then exposing stills of female college students performing naked in WAF is truly shameless.

Liu Zhou didn't want to comment anymore.

At midnight on the 2st, Lu Chuan posted a Weibo post on time, declaring that he would go streaking if the box office of the movie "Jinling Jinling" exceeded million.

Liu Zhou was even more powerless to complain about this. Such a heavy subject matter has been hyped up using such despicable means. It is really ugly.

After receiving the news that "No Man's Land" had earned 23 million at the box office on the 20th, Liu Zhou's mood finally improved.

In this way, the box office of "No Man's Land" officially exceeded 100 million yuan four days after its release.

This should have been promoted well, but now the news about "Jinling Jinling" is everywhere, so Golden Harvest only announced the news on its official Weibo.

However, when Liu Zhou saw that "No Man's Land" had grossed over 100 million yuan in four days, he suddenly became excited.

Originally, Liu Zhou expected that the box office of "No Man's Land" would be at most 200 million yuan, and it would be almost impossible to reach 300 million yuan.

But now seeing that "Jinling Jinling" has no bottom line and the content of the movie itself is rather perverse, Liu Zhou feels it is necessary to stop criticizing this movie.

Now, due to the tacit hype of Golden Harvest and Star Media, the market is already very hot. If the movie "Jinling Jinling" is suppressed, it will not harm more people, and it will also increase the box office of "No Man's Land", and it may even exceed 300 million.

Unless someone else provokes him, Liu Zhou rarely takes the initiative to criticize other movies.

Even when it came to "The Promise", Liu Zhou only released two movies, "Crazy Stone" and "New World", to sandwich it.

But no one was ever assigned to set the pace for "The Promise".

However, Liu Zhou really couldn't stand this "Jinling Jinling".

Although the original time and space "Jinling Jinling" was very controversial, it still achieved a box office of 1.6 million, ranking in the top ten of the year. It can be said that God was blind.

However, the fact that the original time and space could achieve such success is largely due to the full support of Star Media in the theaters, and there are almost no strong competitors in the same period.

Afterwards, with Lu Chuan's whitewashing, all the controversies about "Jinling Jinling" were suppressed, and instead, he became a billion-dollar director in the news.

So this time, Lu Chuan can forget about clearing his name, and he can even forget about becoming a billion-dollar director. Liu Zhou is ashamed to be compared with such a person.

Liu Zhou didn’t know about the news that the premiere of “Jinling Jinling” was not well received, but he knew that Xingmei and Lu Chuan would definitely control the reviews.

After all, when "Jinling Jinling" was released in the previous life, there was already a lot of controversy even without Liu Zhou's intervention.

Now facing the strong opponent "No Man's Land", if such a big controversy arises as in history, most of the audience will be attracted by "No Man's Land" if the comments are not controlled.

And Golden Harvest will definitely not miss this opportunity. Both parties had a tacit understanding before the release, but that doesn’t mean there will be no competition. They will definitely kill you if they get a chance.

But this time Liu Zhou didn’t want to wait passively, but let Jiahe take the initiative and make it impossible for them to control the comments.

The next day, just as Liu Zhou had given Zhang Zhao instructions about this matter, Han Shanping actually came over.

"Boss Han, why do you have time to come to my place again?"

Han Shanping ignored Liu Zhou's question and asked directly:

"Have you seen the movie 'Jinling Jinling' a long time ago?"

"No, I just heard about it. What's wrong with this movie?"

"Don't pretend to be ignorant. You should know what's wrong with this movie. Otherwise, why did you ask me to watch it carefully two days ago?"

"Hahaha, it's because I know what the movie 'Jinling Jinling' is about that I asked you, Mr. Han, to watch this movie carefully."

Hearing Liu Zhou's words, Han Shanping was speechless. It seemed that Liu Zhou had never said that he was optimistic about "Jinling Jinling" before. It was just his preconceived idea.

I can't really blame Liu Zhou for feeling such a huge gap in my heart now.

Thinking of this, Han Shanping couldn't help but sigh and said:
"You don't know, when I watched that movie, I felt really uncomfortable, like a thorn in my back, and like a fishbone stuck in my throat.

As soon as the movie ended, Director Zhang and I left the room. We were too lazy to look at Lu Chuan's self-righteous and incompetent face. "

"Didn't you think highly of him before?"

"That was in the past. Who knew he would be so hopeless?

I really don't know what's going on in his mind. The Nanjing Massacre is a subject that has a special feeling for the Chinese people. It is the deepest scar and greatest shame for us Chinese in modern times.

However, he narrated this tragic event from a personal perspective. Did he want us to put ourselves into his own feelings?

Or should we speak up for the person involved in this incident?"

"Boss Han, don't be angry. It's useless to be angry. Since the movie "Jinling Jinling" has passed the review, it already means something.

Although Lu Chuan's father was also a member of the film review committee, he alone would certainly not be able to pass the review without changing a single shot of "Jinling Jinling".

So Lu Chuan's case is not an isolated one. Instead of getting angry at him, we should think about how to reduce the impact of this movie."

"What do you have in mind?" Han Shanping couldn't help but ask.

"Although there is not much we can do, we can also control the lifeblood of this film, for example, by reducing the number of screenings!"

This is indeed a good idea, but Han Shanping couldn't help but glance at Liu Zhou and said:
"Are you deliberately suppressing your competitors for No Man's Land?"

“Boss Han, it’s impossible for me not to have this thought, but now you have seen the box office performance of No Man’s Land, and you also understand the content of the movie Jinling Jinling.

If the movie "Jinling Jinling" wasn't so crooked, would I have to do this?
By then, the two films will be bundled together to promote each other, and No Man's Land will achieve a very good box office result."

Han Shanping thought about it and felt that what Liu Zhou said made sense. With his current status and the current size of Golden Harvest, there was no need for him to deliberately suppress a movie.

"Okay, let's do as you say and reduce the screening schedule of 'Jinling Jinling'!"

(End of this chapter)