Chapter 440 Detonates public opinion
After the Spring Festival holiday, the box office of the three movies inevitably declined.

However, the single-day box office decline of Zhang Yimou's "Moon" was relatively small. On the twelfth day of the Lunar New Year, five days after the seven-day Spring Festival holiday, it once again won a box office of 72 million.

The total box office of "Moon" has reached 2.58 million, which is on par with the box office of Zhang Yimou's first blockbuster "Hero".

In less than half a month, the box office has reached 2.58 million yuan, and there should be no problem in breaking million yuan in total box office.

In comparison, the box office declines of "Sword Rain" and "Little Big Soldier" were even greater.

"Sword Rain" earned a total of 26 million in five days after the holiday, while "Little Big Soldier" was even worse, with only 13 million in five days.

It can be seen that the box office potential of these two films has been largely consumed, and it will be difficult for the box office to increase much in more than half a month.

However, the total box office of "Sword Rain" reached 1.46 million in twelve days after its release. If the extension key can be applied for, the final box office may exceed million.

To be honest, this result definitely did not meet the expectations of Xu Ke and Golden Harvest.

Before the movie was released, Golden Harvest's internal box office estimate for "Sword Rain" was a minimum of 200 million yuan, but now it seems too optimistic.

The audience's love for martial arts movies has long been gone, and even Xu Ke's fame and high-quality movies cannot hide the fact that martial arts movies have become less and less popular in the mainland.

Although "Sword Rain" had a good box office, with more than 100 million and nearly 200 million yuan, even the Golden Harvest Group has become much stricter in its internal approval of martial arts films.

However, just as the senior management led by Zhang Zhao made the relevant decision, Xu Ke submitted a martial arts script, which left Zhang Zhao speechless.

He felt even more speechless after reading the script. Although the name of "Flying Daggers of Dragon Gate" has been changed, the plot is still a rehash of "New Dragon Inn".

If it wasn't for the fact that the person who submitted this project was Xu Ke, Zhang Zhao would have thrown the script into the trash after seeing it.

Despite this, Zhang Zhao was still not optimistic until he saw at the end that Xu Ke planned to make the film into a 3D special effects blockbuster, which made him start to think.

The popularity of 3D in China is very high now. The shocking impact of "Avatar" has made not only the audience but also domestic filmmakers highly praise 3D.

If "Flying Daggers of Dragon Gate" is made into a 3D blockbuster, even if it is a rehash, it will still be very interesting.

However, martial arts movies are not very suitable for 3D, and the craze for martial arts movies has faded. Zhang Zhao is not sure whether the gimmick of 3D can win back the audience.

So Zhang Zhao couldn't help but hesitate.

Moreover, the investment in this movie is not low. Xu Ke clearly stated that he wanted to invite Jet Li to be the male lead. With his salary and 3D production, the cost of the movie will definitely not be low, at least million or even million.

Finally, Zhang Zhao could not help but report Xu Ke's project to Liu Zhou. When Liu Zhou saw that it was the "Flying Daggers of Dragon Gate" project, he immediately nodded in agreement after listening to Zhang Zhao's report.

Although the plot of "Flying Daggers of Dragon Gate" is a rehash of old stuff, it still has some innovations. At least the re-created Chief of the West Factory is much more charming, even more outstanding than the male protagonist.

Moreover, as the first truly 3D blockbuster in China, "Flying Daggers of Dragon Gate" has enough gimmicks.

The domestic box office was not low, and the overseas box office was even better due to the bonus of Jet Li and 3D. This was a project that was sure to make money, so Liu Zhou did not hesitate at all.

After Liu Zhou made the decision, Zhang Zhao also did not hesitate and immediately launched the project of "Flying Daggers of Dragon Gate", and then contacted Jet Li in person.

At this time, Jet Li had just finished filming the public welfare film "Ocean Paradise", and this film was also a collaboration with Golden Harvest.

Not only did they support the production team, they also distributed the film for free, showing their sincerity.

Although "Ocean Paradise" was initiated by director Xue Xiaolu, after Jet Li got involved, the dominant position of the project was in his hands.

So Golden Harvest gave Jet Li a lot of face this time.

It just so happened that he didn't have any other good projects at the moment, and when he received the invitation from Golden Harvest, seeing that he would be working with Xu Ke, whether it was out of a desire to return the favor or for the project itself, Jet Li had no reason to refuse.

Seeing that Jet Li was easily dealt with, Zhang Zhao handed over the remaining preparations for the film to Xu Ke.

Xu Ke is no longer a contracted director of Golden Harvest, but is cooperating with Golden Harvest in the form of a studio. He certainly has much greater autonomy, and it is not easy for Golden Harvest to get involved too much.

Now Golden Harvest is mainly cooperating, which is also to maintain Xu Ke’s directorial authority.

Of course, the most important thing is to allow Xu Ke to earn money for Golden Harvest with peace of mind.

After that, Xu Ke no longer paid attention to "Sword Rain" and devoted himself to the preparation of "Flying Daggers of Dragon Gate".

Although he was listed as the producer of "Sword Rain", it was the company that asked him to do this job.

Although he participated in a lot of this movie, it was not like "A Chinese Ghost Story" which he prepared all by himself, so in his heart he did not think that "Sword Rain" was his work.

However, for the purpose of publicity, Xu Ke was very cooperative and had no complaints about the fact that "Sword Rain" was advertised as his work.

After all, he is so famous now, Jiahe can be said to have made great efforts, and now it is just borrowing his fame.

Besides, although the box office of the movie "Sword Rain" did not meet expectations, its reputation is very high. Now, in turn, the outside world's reputation and recognition of him are also deepening.

Maybe only Xu Ke or Golden Harvest felt that the box office of over 100 million yuan for "Sword Rain" was not ideal. If this result were placed in other companies, they would wake up laughing in their dreams.

Movies that gross over 100 million yuan are not cheap.

Just like Emperor Entertainment Group's "Little Big Soldier", it earned 17 million in box office revenue in five days after the holiday, and the total box office revenue reached 79 million.

Cheng Long must be somewhat dissatisfied with this result. After all, the gap between it and "Moon" and "Sword Rain" is quite large.

But for the producer and distributor Emperor Entertainment Group, they are quite satisfied. With 79 million in 12 days, even if the subsequent box office potential is not high, there should be no problem in the end breaking 100 million.

As long as the movie box office can exceed 100 million, Emperor Entertainment Group will consider it a success.

Of course, there is no comparison with Golden Harvest, but you have to know that among all the film and television companies or studios under Golden Harvest and China Film, there are only a few that have produced movies with box office revenue of over 100 million yuan.

So now, or even ten years later, a movie box office of over 100 million is actually quite a remarkable thing.

As the Lantern Festival approaches, the Spring Festival movie season can be said to be coming to an end.

The biggest winner of this year's Spring Festival is undoubtedly Golden Harvest. Not only did it win the box office championship of the Spring Festival again, but one of its movies also became a box office hit.

The two blockbusters took up nearly 70 percent of the box office during this year's Spring Festival, and their dominance is even stronger than in previous years.

However, although its peers envied Golden Harvest, they did not lose their judgment. This year's Spring Festival box office has increased significantly compared to last year. The three blockbusters plus a few movies that wanted to fish in troubled waters and were released during this period have a total box office of nearly 700 million yuan.

According to the current box office growth rate, there is a high possibility that the box office revenue during next year's Spring Festival will reach 1 billion yuan, or even more.

The Spring Festival movie pie has undoubtedly become bigger and bigger and can no longer be ignored.

Therefore, several companies in the industry have coincidentally prepared to strengthen their competitiveness during this period.

Although Golden Harvest is relatively strong during the Spring Festival, the cake is getting bigger and bigger now, and it is impossible for Golden Harvest to take up most of it like it does now, so they still have some to eat.

However, soon no one cared about the box office trends of the three blockbusters during the Spring Festival, because just the day before the Lantern Festival, "Avatar", which had been released for more than a month, officially broke the 1 billion box office, becoming the first domestic movie to break the 1 billion box office.

Domestic filmmakers were actually prepared for this result, but when it really happened, it still made people feel a little sad and even depressed.

But one good thing is that everyone is no longer unanimously pessimistic about this result, and many people look at this result from another perspective.

That is, the domestic film market potential is large enough to create billion-level movies.

This is undoubtedly a great spur and encouragement for domestic films.

The news that "Avatar" had broken the 1 billion box office didn't last long, because just after the Lantern Festival, which happened to be the first day of March, Golden Harvest announced several pieces of news at once, each one more explosive than the last.

First of all, Golden Harvest officially announced on its official Weibo that the chief director of the Olympic Games opening ceremony, the country's number one director, and national master Zhang Yimou has joined Golden Harvest Group and become a director under Golden Harvest.

As soon as this news came out, it not only caused a huge sensation in the circle, but also caused huge waves in the outside world.

Zhang Yimou is more popular than many popular stars. Because of the relationship between Liu and Zhou and the previous foundation, Golden Harvest is also very well-known.

Now the combination of the two has directly made the media and movie fans excited.

This news also directly topped the Weibo hot search list, directly squeezing out the news that "Avatar" box office exceeded 1 billion.

In addition to the media's endless coverage of the incident, netizens were also discussing it heatedly online.

"Oh my god, Zhang Yimou joins Golden Harvest, this is a powerful combination!"

"I think Zhang Yimou should have joined Golden Harvest a long time ago. Have you noticed that the films that Director Zhang and Golden Harvest have collaborated on have very good reputations, like this movie "Moon", the plot is super good, and it makes my scalp tingle when I think about it carefully."

"It seems like, the films he and New Picture directed, Hero, House of Flying Daggers, and Curse of the Golden Flower, were all criticized, but Red Cliff (Part 1) and Red Cliff (Part 2) and the currently released Moon were well received."

"Director Lao Mouzi is great, but he has one flaw: he is not a good screenwriter. The three films that were criticized were all written by him, and the films that received high praise were almost all written by others.

The screenwriting department of Golden Harvest Group is very talented and can make up for Director Zhang’s shortcomings. I am now looking forward to his first film with Golden Harvest.”

"The analysis makes sense. I also think he should have joined Golden Harvest a long time ago, so that Liu Zhou can write more scripts and Zhang Yimou can make more good movies."

"Golden Harvest poached Zhang Yimou from New Picture. Can Zhang Weiping bear this? I think there will definitely be more twists and turns later."

"What a fuss. Although Zhang Weiping likes to make a fuss, he is not a fool. Jiahe is the company of the richest man Liu Zhou. Would he dare to show his teeth in front of Liu Zhou?"

"You've ruined their jobs, and they still don't dare to show their teeth? They dare to do it even if it means risking their lives."

"Just wait and see. Since Jiahe dares to poach Zhang Yimou, they are definitely not afraid of Zhang Weiping fighting to the death. I'm sure nothing will happen in the end."

……

In addition to the outside world's discussions, the industry was also shocked.

For ordinary artists, apart from being amazed, they would just treat it as a topic of conversation. After all, Zhang Yimou is too far away from them.

The people who really care about this matter are the bosses of major film and television companies and other celebrities and directors, especially the former who have the biggest reaction.

The relationship between Liu Zhou and Zhang Yimou is well known in the industry, and because of their relationship, Zhang Yimou has been able to avoid many hidden attacks.

Moreover, it was obvious that Liu Zhou wanted to poach Zhang Yimou, but there was no progress, and everyone thought that the matter might come to nothing.

But I didn’t expect that this news would be announced suddenly now, and there was no news about it before.

However, in addition to being shocked by the news, what everyone felt most deeply was that Jiahe's strength had fallen far behind theirs.

Not to mention Jiahe’s soft power, its strength on paper alone is far beyond the reach of others.

Not to mention Liu Zhou, Golden Harvest also has two hot directors, Xu Ke and Ning Hao.

The cumulative box office results of these three are definitely among the top five in the country.

Liu Zhou had no choice. He was the boss of Jiahe, and Jiahe also had Xu Ke and Ning Hao. They had long been envious, jealous, and even hated him.

Now Zhang Yimou, who has become the country's top director after the Olympics, has also joined Golden Harvest. This is more than just a simple matter of giving Golden Harvest more power.

You have to know that Zhang Yimou can support a film and television giant by himself. His influence and strength are amazing.

Now that he has joined Golden Harvest, the top film and television company in China, he can fully unleash Zhang Yimou's influence and strength.

As we all know, the new picture restricts Zhang Yimou.

At the same time, if Zhang Yimou can develop well, he can also give back to Golden Harvest Group.

Although these situations have not happened yet, they are foreseeable. After all, the two previous collaborations between Golden Harvest and Zhang Yimou both brought both fame and fortune.

Not only that, the mere news of Zhang Yimou joining Golden Harvest has caused Golden Harvest's stock price to rise, which shows that the outside world is also very optimistic about his joining Golden Harvest.

In addition, everyone in the circle was also closely watching Zhang Weiping's reaction.

Without Zhang Yimou, the new picture is completely ruined. Everyone is looking forward to whether he, who always likes to criticize everything, will fight against Liu Zhou this time.

However, before Zhang Weiping could react, Jiahe Group announced three pieces of news in succession, which once again sparked public opinion.

(End of this chapter)