Entertainment: I am the peak

Chapter 567 Defeat
It's not that you can't play the nostalgia card; nostalgia is a very reliable way to make a movie a box office success.

However, there is an important prerequisite for relying on nostalgia to make a good sale: your "old stuff" must be a collective memory of the majority of people.

This is also an important reason why youth films are so popular. Regardless of whether the melodramatic scenes in youth films are realistic, school life is indeed a collective memory for everyone.

But rock and roll is not!
Zheng Jun is not one of them either!
Rock music and Zheng Jun's audience are no longer the main moviegoers in the current film market; they can't make a film stand out.

Of course, the most fundamental reason is that musicals are simply not popular in China!
No matter how well it's filmed, it's useless! Especially since it's an animated film.

This is what Li Qiutang meant when he said they were still immersed in the sunset of a bygone era.

My buddy used to play rock music!
What is rock and roll? It's rebellion, individuality, judgment, and being the only one who is sober in a world of drunks!

Including "Mr. Six," which is a nostalgic look back at the past by hutong hoodlums.

Times have changed. You can no longer get people to give you face just because you have a pretty face, and women aren't as easy to woo as they used to be.

Many netizens are confused by Li Qiutang's Weibo post. What is he talking about?

However, some netizens realized that Li Qiutang might be referring to "Rock Dog".

Before the release of "Rock Dog," some film critics said that the music theme and Zheng Jun would not attract today's audiences, and warned Huayi Brothers that releasing this film during the most competitive summer season was a very risky move.

As expected, the first day's results were in, with "Cold War 2" and "Mirage" leading the box office with 9570 million and 8600 million respectively.

"So Young 2" also earned 7300 million yuan, ranking third, thanks to the super popularity of its lead actors and massive ticket subsidies.

"Rock Dog" only grossed a pitiful 300 million.

The first day revealed life and death; "Rock Dog" could be buried ahead of time.

But Huayi Brothers objected, accusing Wanda Cinemas of boycotting "Rock Dog".

"From July 6th to 8th, the number of screenings of 'Rock Dog' at Wanda Cinemas will be in the single digits."

Zheng Jun also wrote a long article complaining: "Capitalists are the owners of cinemas, but the audience is the master of the film." This indirectly confirms that there is a problem with the screening schedule of "Rock Dog".

Actually, rumors about Wan Da banning "Rock Dog" had been circulating before its release, but it wasn't until its release that the rumors were confirmed.

You poached someone's CEO, and you're not allowed to retaliate?

However, Vanta refused to acknowledge this, saying that "the ban is pure nonsense," and stated that all cinemas under the Vanta Cinema chain had screenings of "Tibetan Mastiff" over the weekend, with an average of more than 500 screenings per day.

Despite Wan's denial, the outside world doesn't seem to believe it.

"Because of Ye Ning's issues, the relationship between Huayi Brothers and Wan Da has always been strained. Based on this, it's not unreasonable for rumors to emerge that Wan Da is ostracizing 'Rock Dog'."

Because Autumn Cinema is small, no one said that Autumn Cinema "banned" "Rock Dog".

The opening weekend box office was still led by "Cold War 2" and "Mirage", with the former grossing 2.98 million yuan in three days and "Mirage" grossing 2.66 million yuan.

The two films also led in terms of word-of-mouth.

"So Young 2" grossed 1.5 million yuan in its opening weekend, which shows that the era of easy money for youth films is over.

"Rock Dog" earned less than 3000 million yuan in three days.

Huayi Brothers was in a panic. The next day, news broke that the company had taken internal measures, demoting the vice president and his team in charge of the distribution of "Rock Dog". "Rock Dog" was probably beyond saving, but Chen Zhixi still demanded that the company's publicity team learn from the experience.

Why did "Rock Dog" fail? Putting aside the "ban" theory, let's just talk about what Huayi Brothers did wrong.

Huayi's biggest mistake was being blindly confident and out of touch with the market. They overestimated the market appeal of Zheng Jun's IP and international production, while underestimating the competition during the summer season.

Zheng Jun has truly faded from the mainstream audience's view; his personal brand is insufficient to support the marketing of a film.

Huayi Brothers experimented with the "Chinese IP + Hollywood production" model in "Rock Dog". While it was innovative, if successful, it might be a new route for co-productions to go global. However, Chinese audiences seem to be losing their mystique towards "Hollywood production" and "international cast" and won't buy tickets just because the poster says "international blockbuster".

The "out of touch with the market" probably refers to Huayi Brothers' mistargeting of the audience in the promotion and distribution of "Rock Dog". "Rock Dog" should have been aimed at family-friendly audiences, but Huayi Brothers hoped to use an international approach to promote family-friendly films. Family-friendly and parent-child are two completely different positioning strategies.

Furthermore, the film's failure stemmed from its over-investment in non-mainstream selling points such as "internationalization" and "rock music," which led to a severe disconnect between the publicity and the audience.

The failure of "Rock Dog" is very valuable for learning, especially for a large company like Autumn.

Autumn had also considered the idea of ​​"Chinese IP + international production," but Huayi was quicker to act. Autumn's production department had a great plan: Autumn would provide the IP and funding, and use advanced Hollywood technology for production. This complementary approach was sure to be successful. However, seeing the failure of "Rock Dog," Chen Zhixi had to reconsider whether this path was viable.

Because Chen Zhixi is currently working on a project that combines a Chinese IP with international production, namely Disney's "Mulan".

The situation with "Mulan" is a hundred times more complicated than with "Rock Dog". Disney values ​​the Chinese market and hopes that "Mulan" will achieve great success in China, which is true. However, Disney cannot make "Mulan" a China-only film. "Mulan" will also be released in the global market. Disney will definitely ask Guo Fan to cater to as many global audiences as possible, especially the core audience of the Disney Princess series - teenagers.

The difficulty of this game is self-evident.

…………

Li Qiutang visited the Oriental Movie Metropolis for the first time to inspect the sound stages for "The Wandering Earth." To be honest, the Oriental Movie Metropolis is not yet fully completed, and the park is still quite desolate.

However, according to the person in charge who received him, in another two months, the 15 sound stages and 11 set construction workshops in Area A1 will be completed and put into use, at which time the park's capacity to accommodate film crews will increase exponentially.

"Director Li, if you come to our park to film, we can provide you with the best service, as well as the most generous production subsidies and tax breaks."

Subsidies and the like are naturally handled by professional financial personnel; Li Qiutang doesn't care about that.

What he wants to see is the hardware capabilities of the Oriental Movie Metropolis. Currently, the facilities of the Oriental Movie Metropolis are still incomparable to those of Hengdian. However, Hengdian has too few and too small studios, which cannot accommodate a large production like "The Wandering Earth".

The park manager took Li Qiutang and her group to a construction site and introduced them to a 1-square-meter standard film studio, the largest in Asia, which could accommodate any film crew.

"The largest in Hengdian is only 5000 square meters, what can that do?" They didn't forget to take a jab at their competitors.

In fact, Hengdian is also preparing its own new industrial park.

When will this photography studio be completed?

"Next year, it will definitely be usable next year." He patted his chest loudly.

The post-production office area is even more desolate; the buildings haven't even been completed yet, and there aren't many companies working there.

After looking around, Li Qiutang was generally satisfied and was about to leave with her group when she was told that Lao Wang and Zeng Maojun happened to be in Qingdao and, upon learning that Li Qiutang and her group were also there, wanted to invite them to dinner.

“If someone’s treating, we’ll just go and freeload.” Li Qiutang didn’t refuse.

(End of this chapter)