Entertainment: I just want to be the boss behind the scenes

Chapter 198: Fortune from Heaven, Explosion of Heat

At the end of July, the highly anticipated "Grave Robbers' Chronicles" was finally launched.

As Qiyi TV's breakthrough hope in the field of self-produced dramas, the resources of this drama are unprecedentedly powerful.

One of them stars three popular actors, and the director invited Zheng Baorui, who directed "Hurry in the Ancient House", "Dog Bite Dog" and "Journey to the West: Havoc in Heaven".

The production cost of the entire drama is as high as 6000 million, with a total of twelve episodes, which is equivalent to 500 million per episode.

Even for TV series, there are few that exceed this budget standard.

The results after the show was aired did not disappoint the producers.

At 8pm on Friday, the first episode of "Grave Robbers' Chronicles" was released. In less than half an hour, the number of views on the front desk showed that it had exceeded 10 million.

At the same time, the entire Qiyi TV website showed obvious lags, apparently because user traffic had exceeded the website's load limit.

The buffering in "UHD" and "HD" modes is basically unreliable, and many viewers can only watch smoothly by switching to 480P.

With just this episode, the number of views of "Grave Robbers' Chronicles" exceeded 22 million in hours after its release, breaking the record set by "Forensic Qin Ming" not long ago. It is truly terrifying.

However, along with the extremely high playback data came overwhelming criticism.

Especially the original fans "Daomi", who are about to destroy the comment section.

"What the hell is 'handing over cultural relics to the country'! 'Grave Robbers' Chronicles' has directly become 'Treasure Protection Chronicles'."

"Actors' acting skills, 0 points; plot quality, 0 points; filming level, 0 points; 'hand it over to the country' made me laugh, 1 point - total score, 1 point."

"This drama must have been made by a crazy fan of Ghost Blows Out the Light. They deliberately made the Grave Robbers' Chronicles look ugly so that all the audience would turn to watch Ghost Blows Out the Light."

"..."

Whether it is the comment section of Qiyi TV, Weibo, Douban, Bilibili or Tieba, the entire network is almost full of negative reviews.

The drama’s number of views exceeded 22 million in just 7 hours. What’s even more amazing is that its rating dropped from 3.5 to in just three hours, and is still declining.

"Grave Robbers' Chronicles" adopts a weekly update model, with one episode updated per week, and one episode was criticized for a week.

The only ones who are still supporting the show are the fans of the main actors, who all say that they had to shoot the first episode this way in order to pass the censorship. Everything will be fine once the show is released.

In fact, this is not completely unreasonable. After all, everyone knows the sensitivity of the theme of "tomb raiding". Stacking armor in the first episode is also a way to pass the review.

As a result, many viewers calmed down temporarily and began to wait for the rest of the plot.

Soon, two weeks passed and the plot finally came to the first unit story of the original work, "The Seven Star Palace of King Lu".

Then, there was even greater ridicule.

"I want to ask which clothing factory the props team found this. This 'corpse bug' looks like a stuffed toy."

"Is this the 'super web drama' that claims to have an investment of 500 million per episode? That corpse cave is not even as exquisite as my son's Lego toys."

"..."

Almost all the audience's complaints were directed at the "five-cent special effects" in the drama. After all, it was hard for everyone to believe that with an investment of 2015 million in 6000, they could produce something of the level of a college student's graduation project.

Usually at times like this, the best thing for the crew to do is to pretend to be dead.

But it’s not the case with “Grave Robbers’ Chronicles”. The producer of the crew came out and said that it’s not that we don’t want to spend money, but that the level of domestic props and special effects can only reach this level, and we have money but nowhere to spend it.

If it were before, there might be nothing wrong with saying this, after all, the special effects of domestic dramas have always been the hardest hit area for complaints.

But the problem is, at this very moment, there is a drama next door that has received bad reviews because "the props are too real."

"Is this the level of domestic production? Can you please take a look at the level of detail of the props next door?"

"The boss upstairs, what drama is next door?"

"Leshi.com's "Forensic Qin Ming" focuses on the concept of 'immersion'." "A forensic drama? Will it be scary?"

"It's not a big deal, but the main plot is about criminal investigation. I recommend watching it during or after a meal, it's better!"

"+1 to the above. I strongly recommend everyone to watch and see what the real 'authenticity' is like. It is totally my latest 'watch while eating' show."

"Okay, I just ordered takeout tonight, I'll check it out later."

"..."

In fact, although the ratings and reputation are terrible, the data of "Grave Robbers' Chronicles" is not bad.

The fans of the popular leading actors are indeed powerful. Some ordinary audiences also watch the show while cursing. In addition to the passers-by attracted by online debates and various complaints videos, the number of views has been steadily increasing.

In half a month, the total number of views exceeded 7 million. The number of discussions on Weibo reached 8800 million, and there were two hot searches per day on average. The average number of views of Yunhe V was nearly million, and the influence ranking of Guduo online dramas also surpassed "Forensic Qin Ming" with a score of , ranking first.

As for ArcLight Pictures, although it has maintained a "high opening and high closing" trend by relying on its first-mover advantage and optimization and adjustment of subsequent dramas, it is still lagging behind in terms of traffic.

I thought there was no hope, but I didn't expect the other producer's sudden "suicidal act" to bring a huge wave of traffic to "Forensic Qin Ming".

This is truly "a blessing from heaven". With the addition of a group of new audiences, the playback data and popularity of "Forensic Qin Ming" have increased significantly.

One month since its launch, the total number of views has exceeded one billion.

Judging from this popularity, it is very likely that the number will exceed 2 billion in the end.

Two billion!
Regardless of whether it is water-injected or not, at least Arc Light will be the first to announce this result.

Stimulated by this wave of popularity, it took less than two days for "Forensic Qin Ming" to overtake and return to the top spot.

Afterwards, the two dramas rose and fell, rotating in the first and second positions.

The original plan of "a quick victory" turned into a "long-lasting tug of war".

Where there is competition, there will naturally be debate.

Audiences supporting both sides broke out into arguments on various platforms.

In terms of momentum, the audience of "Forensic Qin Ming" naturally has the advantage. After all, one has 7.7 points and the other has 3.4 points, which is more than double the difference. There is really nothing to question.

But the fans of "Grave Robbers' Chronicles" are also smart. They bypass the shortcomings and focus on the results, popularity, and hot searches, focusing on the favorable situations.

Fans on both sides were having a great time arguing with each other, but the happiest ones were the two websites and producers.

No matter whether it is black or red, the traffic is there anyway.

Therefore, Leshi.com and Qiyi TV arranged staff to "provoke" each other from time to time in relevant discussion forums and community platforms to keep the heat.

Of course, both sides also tacitly controlled the extent of the dispute to avoid attracting sanctions from "heavenly justice."

Other platforms can only envy the two platforms for their happiness in "swiping" each other. After all, the dramas they are broadcasting are a bit lame, and they can't participate in it.

Fortunately, online dramas are still an incremental market at present, and these popular dramas have attracted many viewers who originally did not watch online dramas.

After watching these two dramas, many people went looking for other online dramas to watch, so several other platforms also took advantage of the benefits.

Now the only remaining focus is who can get the final "first place".

On one hand, there is word of mouth, and on the other hand, there is popularity. If there are no other accidents, it is really hard to predict until the end.

But as the saying goes, "There are unexpected events in life." Just when "Forensic Qin Ming" was halfway through its broadcast, Liu Jun told Meng Bai the bad news.

After receiving the above censorship notice, "Forensic Qin Ming" was suspected of "violent and bloody" scenes and needed to be removed from the shelves immediately. It can only be put back online after the rectification is completed.

(End of this chapter)