Chapter 429 Pessimism and Plans for Next Year

"Avatar" can no longer be described as a huge hit.

In addition to earning 1.85 million yuan in box office revenue in the first four days in mainland China, it unsurprisingly won the weekly box office championship and also created a box office storm in various parts of the world.

It topped the box office in dozens of countries and regions in its first weekend.

In Hong Kong, the box office grossed HK$12 million in the first four days of the film's release, making it the weekly box office champion without a doubt, and more than three times the second place.

Wanwan, the box office also exceeded one million US dollars in the first four days of its release, ranking first on the weekly box office chart.

In South Korea, the number of moviegoers in the first week reached 2 million. Although it was not as good as "Transformers 2012" and the disaster blockbuster "", this result was still very outstanding among Hollywood blockbusters and also won the box office champion of the week.

In Australia, the box office reached 11 million US dollars in the first week, breaking the 10 million US dollar mark. This result set a new opening record in Australian film history.

In addition, its achievements in other countries are also among the best in film history.

The French box office opened at $3 million in its first week, the second highest opening-week box office record in film history, second only to Star Wars .

The UK grossed $14.2 million in the first week.

Germany took in $13.2 million in the first week.

The box office in Spain was 11 million U.S. dollars, creating the best opening record in the history of Hollywood films in the local country.

It grossed $4.3 million in its first week in India, the highest first-week result for a Hollywood movie.

Today, "Avatar" has become a social phenomenon worldwide, and people's conversations have shifted from celebrities and TV series to movies.

There are not many IMAX theaters not only in China but also in the United States now, so movie tickets for IMAX theaters around the world are hard to come by.

Audiences who have watched IMAX are very proud of it and keep bragging about it to their relatives and friends.

There are currently only 11 IMAX screens in China, and the movie "Avatar" is 160 minutes long. With the intervals in between, it can only be shown 88 times a day at most.

Therefore, there are even fewer people in China who have seen the imax version.

However, whether you have watched the IMAX version, the ordinary 3D version, or even the 2D version, everyone is discussing "Avatar" enthusiastically on the Internet.

For a while, "Avatar" even became a hot topic among the whole country.

Of course, the impact of "Avatar" is not all good, there are also negative ones.

There is a bad practice in China. Whenever a blockbuster movie comes out from abroad, whether it is an art film or a commercial film, many people will take the opportunity to criticize Chinese films.

Comments such as "It beats Chinese films so much better" and "It's many years ahead of Chinese films" also flooded the entire Internet.

This is not surprising. As late as the third decade of the 20th century, there were still people who thought that foreign products were better than domestic ones, let alone now.

Even many mediocre South Korean movies can be praised as being ten blocks ahead of Chinese movies, let alone movies like "Avatar", which truly promoted a technological revolution and triggered a movie-watching craze around the world.

There are indeed some good South Korean films, and their censorship is indeed not as strict as that in China, so they are more daring in making films. But to say that they are ten blocks ahead of Chinese films is nonsense.

It is undeniable that every year South Korea has several very good movies that are introduced to China, which gives people the illusion that all South Korean movies are of this level.

But you have to know that the movies that can be broadcast to China are their best movies, and they actually have a lot of bad movies as well.

To be honest, the overall level of South Korean films is not much higher than that of Chinese films. The only thing that makes them better than Chinese films is that they can occasionally produce one or two films that have a global impact.

Since the fifth generation of domestic directors were gradually eliminated by the market, there have been no more films that have become famous overseas. Even Zhang Yimou has only been around in China.

Therefore, with the popularity of "Avatar", there are more and more criticisms of Chinese films, and many people express pessimism and disappointment towards Chinese films.

Among them, there are many major newspapers that criticize Chinese films.

Beijing Times:
"Avatar" reflects the shortcomings of Chinese films!
Beijing Evening News:
Do we still need Chinese blockbusters that are complacent?
Daily News:
Sober reflections brought about by "Avatar": What did Chinese films lose?
New Express:
Does Cameron and his "Avatar" make domestic directors feel ashamed?
Beijing News:
"Avatar" reflects the shortcomings of the abilities of major domestic directors such as Liu Zhou!

Especially the Beijing News, they not only criticized Chinese films, but also specifically targeted several directors such as Liu Zhou.

Especially Liu Zhou. Because of the previous incident of "Founding of a Republic", the two sides became enemies and are still in litigation, so they set the pace for Liu Zhou and showed no mercy.

In the article "Avatar reflects the shortcomings of domestic directors such as Liu Zhou!", they not only criticized domestic directors headed by Liu Zhou, but also asserted:

"Box office determinism is actually the last fig leaf for mainstream Chinese film directors. Now, this inferior piece of cloth has been torn off by Avatar, and Liu Zhou and his colleagues can only run naked."

At this time, a topic titled "Why can't Chinese directors shoot "Avatar"" suddenly became popular on the Internet, and a lot of netizens participated in the discussion.

Some people say that Chinese directors lack imagination;
Some people say it is a problem of the audit system and the system;
Some people say that there is something wrong with Huaxia education;
Some analysts believe that Chinese films lack pure sentiment and avoid the sublime;
Some people think it is the lack of spiritual freedom...

This is obviously a very biased topic, but it has become very popular due to the instigation of some people.

In fact, not only this topic, but also the sudden rise of criticism against Chinese films must be the result of someone behind the scenes.

Among them, Liu Zhou and Zhang Yimou, representatives of Chinese filmmakers, were suddenly subjected to a lot of criticism and accusations, especially Liu Zhou, whose Weibo was very lively.

Thousands of people asked him questions such as "What do you think of Avatar?" and "Can you make Avatar?" There were all kinds of criticisms and doubts, and some even cursed him.

Liu Zhou was too lazy to pay attention to these black fans and people with bad intentions, so he didn't respond.

However, Liu Zhou did not respond, and his fans could not sit still.

Not to mention that Liu Zhou has just become the richest man in mainland China, his fans are very enthusiastic, and he shot the first science fiction blockbuster in China and also set the domestic box office record.

Therefore, in the face of those bad comments, Liu Zhou's fans also frantically confronted them.

However, although some people fanned the flames and set the pace, the movie "Avatar" did give domestic filmmakers a great shock.

Jia Zhangke exclaimed on Weibo:
"This is a complete defeat that all Chinese filmmakers must collectively witness and accept.

This may not only be a war of movies, but in essence it is a spiritual connection between domestic audiences and Hollywood movies replacing our national movies.

This is a sad thing, a fact that cannot be helped.” Ning Caishen also said on Weibo:

"I watched Avatar with a few directors and producers at midnight last night. After the show, the atmosphere was weird, silent, and depressing. Almost no one talked about the movie. They were all shocked."

Director A-Gump expressed despair:
"Yesterday, another reporter asked me what we should learn from Avatar. I thought about it and it seems that there is nothing to learn, because the technological gap between us and Hollywood is too big, almost 100 years."

After watching Avatar, Cui Yongyuan said with mixed feelings:
"It's terrible, something terrible has happened. Even at an optimistic estimate, our film technology is still 100 years behind this film!"

Faced with the pessimistic mood in the domestic film industry, Liu Zhou was speechless. After all, the gap is real.

In fact, let alone them, even Liu Zhou now feels a little frustrated by the gap between domestic films and Hollywood films that was clearly exposed by "Avatar".

However, Liu Zhou at this time is not just a director after all. He also has a large amount of capital and can catch up at his own pace.

Although frustrated, I am not so pessimistic as to lose my fighting spirit.

Liu Zhou only hopes that through "Avatar" he can wake up some people, and encourage them to stop working in isolation, spend more time and money on special effects blockbusters, and build their own film industry.

Just when Liu Zhou had rested for a few days and came to Jiahe to deal with company matters, he suddenly received a call from Chang Liying, the producer of CCTV's "Dialogue" program.

Liu Zhou has always had a very good relationship with CCTV. He has been on some well-known programs, and he usually takes CCTV media into consideration when doing interviews.

CCTV also reciprocates the favor. Artists under Golden Harvest can often participate in some programs and projects of CCTV, and TV series produced by Golden Harvest can often be seen on the CCTV platform.

So the cooperation between the two parties is very pleasant.

Liu Zhou had participated in CCTV's famous "Dialogue" program twice before, so he was familiar with Chang Liyin.

When Liu Zhou answered the phone, he heard the other party speak directly:

"Director Liu, Avatar is very popular recently, and many people are asking, what should Chinese films do?

I think you are the only one who can answer this question. We hope to invite you to do a program to discuss the Avatar phenomenon and what Chinese films should do. "

"Producer Chang, you think too highly of me. I have been criticized by many media outlets recently." Liu Zhou replied with a smile.

"Director Liu, you should also know the nature of those media. They have no stance at all for traffic and sales. When you became the richest man in mainland China some time ago, didn't they brag about you?

Who else knows more about science fiction special effects blockbusters in China than you? So what I said was not a compliment at all. At present, only you can answer the question of where the future of Chinese films should go. "

Liu Zhou knew that the other party was complimenting him, but he also wanted to talk about these things, so he said:
"Now that you've said that, I can't think of any reason to refuse. When is the date?"

"We know you're quite busy, Director Liu, so we can see when you're free and accommodate your schedule."

"Then let's do it the night after tomorrow. I'll also spend two days preparing."

"No problem. We will contact Jiahe for some specific matters the day after tomorrow evening."

After hanging up the phone, Liu Zhou called Zhang Zhao to his office again.

"Mr. Zhang, are there any problems with the release of "Sword Rain" and "Moon" during the Spring Festival?"

"No problem. If Avatar wasn't so popular right now, we would be ready to launch promotions for these two movies right now."

"Don't worry about it. This year's Spring Festival is on the 13th of next month. There is still more than half a month left. How about the other movies?"

"At present, the finished films of Those Years and Chinese Partners have been released. I plan to release these two films in the summer of this year."

"What about Ip Man 2?"

The first part of "Ip Man" performed so well and had such a great influence that although it was still handed over to the Hong Kong branch of Golden Harvest for production, the group headquarters also attached great importance to this film.

Golden Harvest Group provided considerable cooperation in all the preparatory work for "Ip Man 2" and treated it like a blockbuster, not just a Hong Kong movie.

"Your film Interstellar is already available during the Lunar New Year, so we are planning to release Ip Man 2 during the Spring Festival next year."

"The Spring Festival period is too long, and the market potential of the National Day period is getting bigger and bigger. We can put Ip Man 2 in the National Day period."

This year Liu Zhou is preparing to boost the performance of Golden Harvest Group. His goal is to double the box office performance of last year. He wants to strive to push the market value of Golden Harvest Group to 100 billion this year.

If "Ip Man 2" is released during the Spring Festival, the performance of this movie will be considered next year's performance.

"Okay Mr. Liu."

“So what projects are planned for this year?”

"In addition to your film Aftershock, Director Zhang Yimou is planning to shoot Yan Geling's The Flowers of War. Ning Hao has also said that he has plans to shoot something after returning from Hollywood.

There is also Xu Ke, who was originally planning to shoot a film purely about female love, "Women Are Not Bad", but he rejected it yesterday. He must have a new idea. "

"So next year we at Golden Harvest will have at least four blockbusters released, which is pretty good. What projects are there in Hong Kong?"

"Last year, Overheard performed very well and a sequel was planned. In addition, there was a film project in Hong Kong called The Invincibles, which I thought was very good. However, it was rejected by the higher-ups and did not pass the review."

"'Unparalleled'?"

“Yes, it was written by Zhuang Wenqiang, the screenwriter of Infernal Affairs, and he found Golden Harvest for cooperation. It mainly tells the story of making counterfeit money.

The United States has been very strict about this recently, so the film review has been stuck.”

Liu Zhou certainly knew the movie "Wushuang", which is considered to be the best Hong Kong movie after "Infernal Affairs" and also the movie with the highest box office in mainland China.

This story already came to Zhuang Wenqiang when he was writing "Infernal Affairs", but it was not until the last two years that it was turned into a script. However, because it failed to pass the review, it was delayed for several years before it was produced.

Now the relationship between China and the United States is pretty good, and the United States is still very strong, so even Liu Zhou can't promote this movie and can only wait a few more years.

"Since it won't pass the review, let's wait a little longer. Maybe the situation will change in the future. By the way, how is Zhang Yimou's case going?"

(End of this chapter)