Chapter Thirty-Five: The Movie Premiere
It's already late June.
To compete for this rare summer slot, Hollywood's major film companies have launched a fierce battle. And the cinemas are using every trick in the book to lure their own audiences, with tactics like "win prizes when buying tickets", "win prizes while watching movies", "star interactions" and "zero-distance contact between lead actors and audience". Almost every tactic that can attract audiences has been used.
No way, with movie theaters as common as hair in Los Angeles, you can see any new movie you want anywhere and anytime. Even an American president once said, "If I put up my campaign posters on the doors of all the movie theaters in Los Angeles, I believe my opponent would have to wait a hundred years to beat me!"
It can be seen that the competition in the film industry is so fierce. Just to control the line, they have made every effort.
Compared to the usual summer movies, this year's Hollywood blockbusters are quite evenly matched. These include war epics like "Saving Private Ryan", sci-fi epics like "Armageddon", and monster movies like "Godzilla". In addition, there are some excellent American films with medium to low production costs, such as "The Truman Show" and "Rounders", which mainly focus on comedy and thriller elements in order to attract young Americans. However, compared to these big productions, their situation can only be described as "surviving in the cracks".
At the entrance of a cinema, Yì Fēi Yáng carefully observed the flow of people coming and going to the cinema, analyzing the audience watching the movie and their opinions on each film.
Looking around at the posters plastered everywhere, almost all of them were taken up by two big American movies. Many audience members had also bought tickets to "Saving Private Ryan" and "Armageddon". Yifei Yang vaguely heard them discussing the leading actors Tom Hanks and Bruce Willis, repeatedly comparing them from their appearance to their personalities, and even to their private lives, including gossip news published in newspapers... ultimately concluding which movie would win at the box office.
Others didn't know, but Yi Feiyang was very clear.
The 1998 North American box office runner-up was "Saving Private Ryan", directed by renowned director Steven Spielberg and starring Hollywood superstar Tom Hanks, with a box office of nearly $480 million. Its feature is that the violent scenes of war are stunningly rendered, and its connotation is "Is it worth sacrificing more people to save one person?"
The 1998 North American box office champion was "Armageddon", directed by science fiction director Michael Bay and starring Hollywood tough guy Bruce Willis. The disaster film ranked first with a global total of nearly $556 million. Its feature is that the sci-fi scenes are grand, and the rendering of human nature in the face of disaster is very powerful.
Interestingly, in North American box office, "Armageddon" was beaten by "Saving Private Ryan", it seems that the great director Steven Spielberg's appeal at home is still super strong.
As for the monster movie "Godzilla", although it still belongs to science fiction in terms of subject matter, its connotation has surpassed most monster movies and formed a new mode of science fiction.
It can be seen that compared with Hong Kong movies which are declining, Hollywood movies not only flourish but also constantly explore and make progress.
As a Chinese, there's no one who doesn't like Hong Kong movies. Unfortunately, the development mechanism of Hong Kong movies is too outdated and can't form an industrial mode like Hollywood. It follows trends heavily and has a serious star system, in the end, all the money for making a movie goes to the stars' pay...
Unlike Hollywood, where there are many types of films and advanced technology, what's more important is that Hollywood has a director system, the director is the big brother, you stars are just tools. If you want to get high pay, okay, then try your best to join the 200 million club, the director won't be stupid enough to put all the production costs on you...
After coming to his senses, Yi Feiyang personally experienced the intense competition of Hollywood's summer files in the United States. To say nothing of others, just these two or three big productions will be released, and other low-cost productions will become cannon fodder.
In comparison, I don't know if the upcoming "Blair Witch" can also defy the heavens and create a new miracle like its predecessor.
At this moment, someone who never believed in fate also had to mutter a sentence: "God bless!"
……
"Old Corn" cinema entrance.
Yi Feiyang didn't understand why Old Man Black wanted to name this cinema "Old Corn".
Maybe they hope their cinema can be as full and nutritious as old corn.
Including "Lao Yu Mi" in the five cinemas, tonight will be showing Yi Fei Yang's carefully crafted horror film "The Blair Witch".
As the second gold mine of Hollywood, Yi Feiyang, this "movie two-way dealer", has pinned high hopes on this play, hoping it will have a high box office and good reputation. Therefore, he spared no expense in using his last financial resources to renovate the movie theater, and even hung eye-catching banners at the entrance of the cinema, printed hundreds of movie posters, and posted them everywhere.
But does it work?!
One hour before the movie starts.
As Yifeiyang's loyal fan, Bao Gaobao is tonight's important figure... ticket seller!
In his own words, he is worried that someone else will take the money for movie tickets, so it's better to manage it himself.
Of course, before this, Yi Feiyang had already given him an important lesson on "box office prospects".
"I've done the math roughly, we now have 5 cinemas showing this play, on average, one cinema can hold 100 customers, a customer needs to spend $2 to buy a ticket, just multiply it and the revenue for one show is $1,000; with 5 shows per day, the daily box office is $5,000; and we rent it out for a total of 30 days in a month, so by the end of the month, the total box office will be $150,000!"
"Of course, $1.5 million is not enough to pay off the loan shark's debt, but don't worry, once our movie gets a good reputation, those film companies will come knocking on our door asking for the source material! At that time, we'll sharpen our knives and take them down one by one, or two by two! We'll be raking in the cash, no need to worry about not having enough money!"
Yi Feiyang's words stirred up Pangzi's passion, and he immediately roared: "I'll trust you this once, I'll come to collect the money!"
To show off his skills in receiving payments, the fat boy practiced hard to improve his ability to make change and identify counterfeit bills. His abilities received unanimous praise from Yi Feiyang and others.
It's finally time to test Fatty's abilities. Yi Feiyang glanced at his watch, and the sound of footsteps echoed, as Fatty, tonight's first ticket seller, arrived!
Yes, he has arrived!
Yi Feiyang turned his head and took a look, but was startled.
All I saw was a fat guy with feathers in his hair, a bone necklace around his neck, bare chest and exposed nipples, proudly showing off his belly, dressed up like an Indian native, just missing a spear in hand to complete the look.
"What's wrong with you, why are you dressed like this?"
"This is called packaging, understand? I asked Black Dad and he said that in this area, apart from blacks and whites, there are more Indians, so I had an epiphany and did this getup... trust me, this outfit will definitely create a different kind of intimacy!"
Yi Feiyang was thoroughly defeated by this fatty's wonderful ideas!
"The time is almost up, you'd better get ready. There might be a lot of people soon, so be quick!" Yì Fēi Yáng reminded him.
"Don't worry, I'm great at collecting money!" The fat man chuckled and walked into the ticket office, then started to get ready.
Time is passing bit by bit.
A large banner in front of the cinema fluttered in the night wind, printed with: The shocking new film "Blair Witch" is grandly released tonight!
On the nearby wall, movie posters were also posted, and the original authors Dennis and Edy were shamelessly deleted on the poster, replaced with screenwriter Yifei Yang, and the director was still Yifei Yang.
In fact, from the purchase of all copyrights including signing rights, Yifei Yang just did some post-production editing on this uncut play, and then supplemented a few shots in places where the plot was not smooth. According to what he had seen before, he made some reasonable modifications, which can be said to be the finishing touches.
Facing such banners and posters, people are not attracted to stay at the cinema entrance, making this soon-to-be-released movie appear exceptionally "deserted".
Yes, bleak, extremely bleak!
