I was just thinking about taking the arts exam and you said I've been playing supporting roles

Chapter 360 Two Pieces of Good News!

"Uh~~~"

Early in the morning, Chen Jin stretched vigorously, then suddenly stiffened on the bed, pressing herself tightly against it.

After filming action scenes for several days, and having to be intimate with his girlfriend every day, even a young body in its early twenties isn't made of iron.

Yesterday, Chen Jin even found a Chinese massage therapist to give him a full-body massage, and then he slept soundly until dawn.

I haven't suffered any major injuries while filming action scenes recently, but I've clearly been getting a lot of minor injuries.

Last night, due to the time difference between China and the United States, Chen Jin went straight to sleep after learning that "Jinling" was available for pre-sale for one hour.

"The pre-sale results for the first day should be out by now, right?"

Chen Jin turned over, picked up her phone, and glanced at the time. It was almost 10 p.m. in New York.

Based on the time difference between the two places, it's currently around 23 PM in Beijing, which is close to midnight.

The pre-sales on the first day were pretty much the same as the first day.

Today, his scenes for "Killer: Dragon" are scheduled for the afternoon, while David Leitch will be in charge of directing the morning's scenes, mainly filming the scenes inside the mainland hotel. So Chen Jin can take a break for half a day.

Ding Ding Ding!
As soon as Chen Jin turned off airplane mode, her two phones were immediately flooded with notifications, receiving countless messages and missed calls.

That night, it was clear that many people were paying close attention to everything that "Jinling" did.

The most recent chat was Chen Su announcing the pre-sale of his book "Jinling".

截止到帝都时间17日的晚上10点，《金陵十三钗》的预售票房正式突破3000万，成为华夏影史预售最快突破500万、1000万……3000万的影片。

The more records, the better.

These are some "good news" reports that Chen Jin had the Dida Technology Department compile, which will make fans feel very proud.

Moreover, the occasional push notification will draw more attention to the release information of "Jinling", and some people will also be curious and buy 1-5 more tickets.

These are all tricks that Maoyan has been using extensively since later generations, but Chen Jin has copied them from Dida ahead of time.

The real-time pre-sale rolling broadcast is also inspired by Maoyan Movies.

Currently, Dida's website and app have captured 55% of the national online ticketing market share. The rest are group-buying websites that emerged from the fierce competition among thousands of group-buying platforms, such as Gewara, Meituan, and Nuomi.

"How much is it now?"

Chen Jin quickly sent a message to Chen Su, and many other messages and chats were also to congratulate Chen Jin.

Clearly, many people in the industry have noticed the pre-sales of "Jinling," so they are eager to report to Chen Jin and try to build relationships.

Chen Su replied quickly: "Dida is almost 3500 million!"

"I feel there are over 100 million offline cinemas as well. I called each one to verify this!"

"With other ticketing websites as well, the total pre-sales should reach at least 5000 million!"

This is Chen Su's deduction.

Since there is no real-time ticketing system, this data is calculated.

Actually, the difference isn't significant.

Moreover, the film science project did not involve spending money to generate pre-sales as Huayi Brothers had envisioned. The approximately 5000 million yuan in pre-sales were all purchased by mainland movie fans using their mobile phones and computers.

There is no moisture at all.

After all, Chen Jin had witnessed the frenzy of moviegoing during the Spring Festival in later years, with shopping malls packed with people, especially on the first day of the Lunar New Year, when good locations were always full; and a movie called "Ne Zha 2" was so popular that even during the Spring Festival, tickets were hard to come by.

Therefore, Chen Jin felt that if they were going to spend money to fake this kind of pre-sale, they should just stay out of it and make a fool of themselves.

He has great confidence in the Spring Festival.

The current pre-sales precisely prove that the Chinese New Year film season has been consistently overlooked.

It's not that no one is watching it, but rather that there's a lack of promotion and a good film to lead the way; originally it was Stephen Chow's box office appeal plus "Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons," but now Zhang Yimou + Bale and Chen Jin are achieving the same effect.

"5000 million..."

"Then this week should be enough to push for the pre-sales of 'So Young'!"

It will be very difficult for "Nanjing" to surpass the total box office of 17.3 billion yuan of "So Young"; however, it should not be difficult for "Nanjing" to exceed 2.75 million yuan in pre-sales.

In any case, the pre-sale record for the first day of "So Young" has been completely broken by "The Battle of Jinling".

There may be several more records held by "So Young" waiting for Nanjing to break, such as opening day box office, single day box office, etc.

As for the total box office... it's limited by the subject matter.

It's not a family-friendly film after all.

If it's a popcorn family-friendly movie, Chen Jin is confident she can make 20 billion!
This is the current potential limit of China's Spring Festival film market. The figure is not made up by Chen Jin, but is an analysis based on the future trend of the Spring Festival film market. The most important model referenced is "Ne Zha 2" with 150 billion+!

In other words, it may not be as good now as it will be in ten years, but there is actually a large potential audience to be discovered.

"How much?"

A hot body leaned against him from behind, and Chen Jin hugged Zhu Yanmanz and smiled, saying, "The first day... should be 5000 million!"

"..."

This time, Zhu Yanmanz's brain, which had been tormented for most of the night, was completely clear.

"so much?"

"Yes, it's the Spring Festival. People all over the country are basically on holiday at home!"

"But the subject matter..."

Zhu Yanmanz also knew some of the details about "Jinling". In fact, some netizens also knew, but they couldn't resist the herd mentality.

It's the first time many people are going to the movies during the Spring Festival, and they're looking for an atmosphere and a trendy vibe.

"The subject matter is just that—the subject matter!"

"You need to see the subject matter to get feedback; right now, we're just encouraging people before they even watch the film!"

In fact, the subject matter is not a factor that the audience needs to consider when it comes to marketing and promotion.

Just like the original timeline of "The Flowers of War" and next year's "Back to 1942," both films are very tragic.

They are all films released during the Lunar New Year holiday season.

"The Battle at Lake Changjin" grossed 1.42 million yuan in its first week, while "Back to 1942" grossed 1.37 million yuan!
Despite appearing to be neck and neck, "Nanjing" ultimately grossed 600 million yuan, while "Back to 1942" only grossed 3.71 million yuan, resulting in significant losses for the latter.

Many people believe it's because the ending of "Back to 1942" was too tragic.

The audience knows this is a cannibalistic film.

But in fact, that's not the main reason!
The main reason is that "Back to 1942" was competing with the phenomenal film "Lost in Thailand".

The two films were released at the same time, and the comedy film completely crushed the competition.

Looking at the subsequent box office curve of "Back to 1942," it's clear that after the release of "Lost in Thailand," the box office performance of "Back to 1942" plummeted at the end of the day, dropping from over ten million to less than 500,000, resulting in a loss of nearly 100-200 million in revenue.

"Lost in Thailand" was actually the real culprit behind the losses of "Back to 1942".

Moreover, just as "Ne Zha 2" became increasingly popular in later films, "Back to 1942" greatly contributed to the success of "Lost in Thailand".

Many people were driven to despair by the film "Back to 1942," so when a comedy was released, they were eager to "heal" themselves. That's why "Lost in Thailand" grossed over 12 billion yuan, and "Back to 1942" contributed at least 300-400 million yuan to the box office.

This is the scheduling effect.

Without the contrast of those terrible Spring Festival films from the past 25 years, how could Nezha have achieved such a rebound?

This year's Spring Festival film season only has one competitor: Tom Cruise's "Mission: Impossible 4" on the sixth day of the Lunar New Year. However, this film cannot compare to "Lost in Thailand." Although it has an impact, it is not as exaggerated as a comedy.

Therefore, the seven-day holiday during which "Jinling" was released during the Spring Festival became particularly crucial.

Towards the end of the trading day, the Berlin Film Festival should also push the price up a bit.

It still depends on how the public opinion and word-of-mouth develop. "Right now, the pre-sales have been very successful, proving the excellent marketing and promotion capabilities of China Electronics Technology Group Corporation (CETC)!"

The whole nation knows about watching movies during the Spring Festival, which has made the entire film industry aware of the unlimited potential of the Spring Festival film season.

If this isn't considered a success, then what exactly constitutes a success?

After washing up, Zhu Yanmanz and I went downstairs to the restaurant for lunch.

Good news from Berlin arrived as expected.

On the morning of the 17th (North American time), the list of entries for the various competition sections of the 62nd Berlin International Film Festival was published on the official website.

In fact, Zhang Yimou already knew yesterday that "Jinling" had been shortlisted for the main competition at this year's Berlin Film Festival.

Besides "Jinling", two other Chinese films were nominated this time.

Xu Ke's "Flying Swords of Dragon Gate" and Wang Quan'an's "White Deer Plain"!
The former was definitely bought with money and public relations efforts, so the chances of it winning an award are not high. It's mainly for publicity. In fact, it has already been released in mainland China. However, because it stars Jet Li, it should fetch a good price in North America and Europe.

This martial arts commercial blockbuster, jointly invested by Bona Film Group, China Film Group, and Shanghai Film Group, has already grossed 7 million yuan at the box office in mainland China, a truly impressive achievement.

The main reason is that there are no strong competitors during the release period, even during the Lunar New Year season.

Originally, there was also "Jinling" in the same period, but now it has left everyone else far behind, breaking 2 million+ in its opening weekend!

Jet Li's box office appeal in China is showing a trend of surpassing that of Jackie Chan.

However, Chen Jin didn't take this film seriously when it came to attending the film festival; "White Deer Plain," on the other hand, was not to be underestimated. If the news in Chen Jin's future autobiography about the film was correct, "White Deer Plain" would win an award at this year's Berlin Film Festival.

The Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution, also known as Best Photography.

Besides the three Chinese films, fifteen other films were shortlisted for the main competition at this year's Berlin Film Festival, including the Italian film "Caesar Cannot Die," which was originally slated to win the Golden Bear. This film is an adaptation of a Shakespearean play.

There's also the Jury Grand Prize winner, "Just the Wind".

……

As Chen Jin watched the process unfold, she felt much more at ease.

Although he had already seen it in advance, the news only had the headline and no detailed introduction of the movie.

The official website now has a movie synopsis.

Chen Jin was looking for films based on their subject matter, and didn't see any politically related ones, except for "Jinling".

This is the only war film at this year's Berlin Film Festival with extremely strong political and geopolitical overtones.

It perfectly matches the tone of the Berlin Film Festival.

Moreover, apart from Zhang Yimou, among the 18 competing films, even seasoned film buffs might not be able to recognize more than half of the directors.

The opening film, "Goodbye My Queen," was directed by Benoît Jacques. The Italian Taviani brothers, who are over eighty years old, can be called masters. The others are either newcomers or middle-aged directors who are striving for success.

The Taviani brothers were the directors of "Caesar," which originally won the Golden Bear.

The most outrageous thing is that there was only one Hollywood film nominated for the main competition at Berlin this year.

It was the smallest ever.

In previous years, Hollywood has been a major player in the three major film festivals, sometimes accounting for half of the nominated films.

That is, 20 films, more than ten of which are from North America.

The reputation of having the world's largest film library is well-deserved, and the level of Hollywood's film industry has also resulted in films with high artistic merit.

But this year's Berlin Film Festival broke with tradition, lacking both master directors and showing a unique stubbornness towards Hollywood films; only one film came from the United States—Billy Bob Thornton's new film "Mansfield's Car".

After reviewing the list of entries for the main competition, Chen Jin breathed a sigh of relief. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to call it one of the weakest film festivals in Berlin's history.

Zhang Yimou, the Taviani brothers, and their two brothers are considered the shining stars of this year's Berlin Film Festival.

The combined artistry of three masters and their two works.

This should be considered the biggest highlight of this year's Berlin Film Festival.

A film festival lacking star power can't generate buzz by relying on celebrities, so it has to resort to big names to make a splash; no wonder the festival's chairman, Dieter Kosslick, kept calling Zhang Yimou, because this year's festival was indeed too mediocre.

Bringing Zhang Yimou along was definitely not just a matter of filling a quota; it was a very significant move.

"Jinling" is bound to become the biggest buzz and gimmick at this year's Berlin Film Festival.

"This kind of movie is definitely a double-edged sword!"

Those who don't want it to be released hate it to the core; those who want it to be released can't wait to make sure the whole world knows about it.

The current state of Japanese film studios is the complete opposite of that of Berlin.

Perhaps, at that time, we will also encounter Japanese students who are resisting Japan, and they will resort to underhanded and treacherous tricks.

"It's not that we absolutely have to be on guard!"

Chen Jin needed to make some decisions in advance. She had just arrived at the film set with Zhu Yanmanzi when she received a call from Pang Liwei.

It was obviously about telling him that Nanjing had qualified for the Berlin Film Festival.

"Sister Wei!"

Chen Jin sat in the dressing room and pressed the answer button.

"When are you going back to China? Director Zhang asks you this several times a day!"

Pang Liwei asked, and Chen Jin smiled and said, "Didn't I tell him? The flight is the day after tomorrow afternoon, and he should arrive in China on the 20th!"

"Don't you understand what he means?"

"Haha, okay, let's get together the night I get back!"

"Okay, I'll be waiting for you!"

Pang Liwei smiled and said, "Director Zhang was quite anxious before the Spring Festival release, afraid that no one would watch it and that you would lose money. He hadn't slept well for several days!"

"now what?"

Chen Jin was eager to hear what Zhang Yimou thought about the pre-sale.

He said he's old!

"From now on, I'll focus on making movies. I'll leave the release schedule to your company!"

You can't deny getting old; not everyone dares to participate in the Spring Festival film season.

Chen Jin was not only the first to take the plunge, but she also caused a stir throughout the entire industry.

Just as terrifying as the Double Eleven shopping festival that was artificially created before.

"That feeling is good!"

"I've been waiting for him to say that: I will absolutely not interfere with his filmmaking!"

This should be Zhang Yimou's most comfortable state.

He was in charge of filming, while everything else was handled by CETC, similar to their collaboration model with Future Light.

"Okay, I'll talk to him!"

"Xiao Jin, Happy New Year in advance!"

Pang Liwei started chatting casually, while Chen Jin's thoughts suddenly drifted back to the long-lost homeland.

It's been several months since I've been back.

If his parents hadn't complained about the expensive plane tickets and long flight times, they would have come and hit him with a stick long ago.

This should be the longest Chen Jin has ever been apart from them, and also the two months with the fewest news reports since he entered the entertainment industry.

But... who knows what will happen next!

(End of this chapter)