Huayu: Starting from Fahrenheit

Chapter 357 Interview Competition
The term "billing order" usually refers to the order in which an artist appears in movie promotional materials or the credits. "Ban" means the artist listed first.

The lead role is usually determined by the star power and box office appeal, and may not even necessarily be the main character.

People often see big-name actors making cameo appearances in a movie, with very few scenes, but their names are listed very high on the credits, and sometimes they even have only one or two lines on the poster.

This is all due to the order of billing.

Wu Zhuo is undoubtedly the lead actor in "Painted Skin".

He is incredibly popular, and he is also the lead actor in the film, even receiving the highest salary.

Therefore, he occupies a prominent position, and no one can question it.

However, it's not so easy to judge whether Zhou Xun or Zhao Wei should be the second lead.

In terms of screen time, Zhou Xun and Zhao Wei have roughly equal amounts of screen time in this film, both making up a significant portion of the total screen time.

In terms of status and influence, the two are about equal.

Zhou Xun is widely recognized as having the best acting skills among young actresses in China, and has even won the Best Actress award.

Zhao Wei is a household name, and she also played the female lead in the recently released film "Red Cliff Part I".

Although Red Cliff was heavily criticized, it didn't change the fact that the film ultimately grossed over 3 million yuan at the box office.

With "My Fair Princess" as a foundation and the high box office of "Red Cliff Part I", it has the potential to become a hit.

This makes her no less impressive than Zhou Xun.

With both actors being equally matched, deciding on the billing order for the two became the biggest challenge for the production team.

It wasn't until two days before the premiere that the production team finally decided on the second lead actor.

Ultimately, Zhao Wei's team prevailed, and she secured the second lead role.

However, Zhou Xun was not to be outdone. Although her name was ranked lower, she was on par with Zhao Wei in terms of publicity resources.

Here we need to explain what promotional resources are.

When a movie is released, the film distributor often promotes the actors to varying degrees depending on their billing order.

This includes, but is not limited to, creating individual posters for each actor and having them participate in variety shows on various television stations.

Even the amount of screen time on variety shows can be considered a form of promotional resource.

They are all provided by the issuing company.

Many people always feel that the publishing company is not important.

In fact, whether it's film or record distribution, distribution companies occupy a very important position.

First, there's the issue of distribution channels. Whether it's a movie or a record, if you want it to be released and distributed, you need to contact numerous cinemas and physical record stores.

And this kind of connection isn't something you can just take any movie to and expect them to be willing to screen and sell it to you.

Furthermore, even if you manage to contact a large cinema chain and record label, factors that significantly impact sales, such as the screening schedule for your film, still need to be discussed separately.

Another point is that the publishing company usually needs to take responsibility for the promotion of the work.

The importance of promotion for a movie or a song is self-evident.

In later years, when movies were first released, they all needed to invest a lot of money in short video platforms such as TikTok.

Let alone now.

During this period, although propaganda could rely on the internet, it still mainly relied on offline methods and various newspapers and media.

This type of advertising is more expensive.

For a film with a budget of tens of millions, the publicity investment alone must be no less than one-third of the production cost, and sometimes even higher.

This involves a marketing issue.

As we all know, marketing also requires good methods.

An unprofessional company simply cannot present a work comprehensively to the audience.

It was precisely because of the importance of distribution and promotion that Zhou Xun, after giving up her second billing, immediately secured the same amount of publicity for her as Zhao Wei.

"Abel, I love you, ahhh..." "Little Swallow..."

"Fahrenheit, sob sob sob, why did you have to break up..."

The premiere venue chosen by the "Painted Skin" crew was very large, with a shopping mall right at the entrance and wide streets that could accommodate many people.

At this moment, a large number of fans gathered here, and a tidal wave of sound erupted, attracting reporters to keep taking pictures of the crazy fans.

"This is quite a spectacle! No wonder he's Wu Zhuo!"

Sohu Video reporter Huang Liyang raised his camera and snapped a photo of a fan, then couldn't help but exclaim in admiration.

"It's no exaggeration to say that there are very few people in the Chinese-speaking world who can surpass Wu Zhuo in terms of popularity."

In fact, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say he's the most popular person in the last two years.

The reporter in the same area as Huang Liyang was Li Yang, a reporter from Entertainment Weekly.

Entertainment Weekly is the most authoritative and widely circulated entertainment magazine in South China. Its predecessor was Guangdong TV Weekly.

Entertainment Weekly magazine is positioned to deliver fresh entertainment news to readers every week in Mandarin with a small amount of Cantonese.

The main content of the reports is to expose various exclusive and explosive inside stories in the entertainment industry in Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan and mainland China.

The readership is predominantly female and relatively young.

And this group happens to be Wu Zhuo's audience.

Therefore, Wu Zhuo should be the person who has appeared on the cover of Entertainment Weekly the most in the past two years.

Li Yang was even assigned by his superiors to specifically follow and film Wu Zhuo.

This is why Li Yang knows a lot about Wu Zhuo.

In his view, Wu Zhuo's popularity is absolutely unparalleled in the entire Chinese-speaking world.

He even felt that Jay Chou couldn't compare to Wu Zhuo in terms of popularity.

"I heard that Sohu was planning to invite Wu Zhuo for an exclusive interview. How did it go? Did you manage to schedule it?"

While filming the guests entering the venue, Li Yang asked Huang Liyang a question.

He was concerned about this because the entertainment weekly also planned to invite Wu Zhuo for an interview and cover shoot.

Coincidentally, Sohu's invitation to the entertainment weekly coincided with the timing of the interview.

The two companies are now competitors.

Everyone wanted to get an exclusive interview with Wu Zhuo.

Despite his fame, Wu Zhuo doesn't appear in interviews as frequently as other celebrities.

He is actually the one who gets the fewest interviews among A-list celebrities.

Throughout the year, he has participated in very few variety shows.

Therefore, Wu Zhuo's interview opportunity was extremely valuable.

Everyone knows that if Wu Zhuo is interviewed by someone, it will definitely bring unimaginable exposure and attention.

Sohu and Entertainment Weekly are both unwilling to give up this interview opportunity.

As for the suggestion that everyone be modest and wait until Wu Zhuo has finished attending another event before inviting him, that's a suggestion.

This is not realistic.

Firstly, Wu Zhuo usually doesn't accept interviews, but he agreed to this one this time for the sake of promoting "Painted Skin".

Secondly, even if Wu Zhuo were willing to participate in both, the results would be different.

Since it's an exclusive interview, the first question will definitely be the one that generates the most buzz.

After asking the first company, there weren't many questions left to ask the second company.

In short, whoever falls behind will gain far less.

(End of this chapter)