Entertainment: I am the peak

Chapter 573 With the young heartthrob, time...

The market was so hot last year that a large number of guaranteed IPOs have emerged this year.

But no one expected the market to cool down so quickly this year – entering August, looking at the performance of the first seven months, it has to be admitted that the market is cooling down this year.

All the guaranteed releases after this year's Spring Festival season have failed.

Now, "The Lost Tomb" is here, with the same 10 billion yuan guarantee.

But just a week later, market expectations for "The Grave Robbers' Chronicles" dropped significantly.

Before the release of "League of Gods", the market was very optimistic about "The Lost Tomb", and many people believed that it could create the miracle of "Mojin: The Lost Legend".

But now, "rational" voices are beginning to emerge in the market.

"Based on information gathered from various sources, the production cost of 'Mojin: The Lost Legend' was as high as 2.6 million yuan, while 'The Lost Tomb' was about 2 million yuan. The difference of 6000 million yuan will definitely be reflected in some aspects. It's not that a low budget can't make a good film, but fantasy adventure films like 'Ghost Blows Out the Light' and 'The Lost Tomb' will definitely not be good if you don't spend a lot of money."

"Did any of Li Rengang's previous works, such as 'Three Kingdoms: Resurrection of the Dragon,' '14 Blades,' and 'The Last Supper,' score above 7 points? Why should I believe he can surpass Li Qiutang's work?"

"Lu Han certainly has many fans, but a movie with such a huge investment can't rely solely on fans to buy tickets, especially when compared to 'Mojin: The Lost Legend' which grossed 26.8 billion yuan. It needs to rely even more on the quality of the film and excellent marketing to attract a larger audience of casual viewers. But judging from the current marketing of the film, the distributors still want to make money off fans' ticket sales."

But the two male leads were fighting tooth and nail over the rice noodles, and Lu Han was absent from the premiere on the 31st.

This movie was already rife with problems before it was even released, with the two male leads fighting over billing order from the beginning of the year until now.

In the official press release issued by the official Weibo account in January, Lu Han was listed first among the main cast, while Jing Boran was listed last. The official Weibo account was bombarded with criticism from Jing Boran's fans. The male lead of "Monster Hunt," which grossed 24 billion yuan, didn't get top billing? He was listed last among the main cast. Was Jing Boran just making a cameo appearance?
The production company responded that the arrangement was to make Jing Boran the "grand finale," but this explanation clearly did not satisfy fans and Jing Boran's side. Jing's team directly criticized the film's production company, LeTV Pictures, saying, "Their promotional methods sometimes catch us off guard."

Jing Boran's agent then added fuel to the fire by personally joining the fray, posting four screenshots of WeChat conversations. The content mainly focused on how hard Jing Boran worked for the filming and criticizing the inappropriate actions of the production team and the production company. It mentioned that Jing Boran was on set the entire time, while Lu Han "was on leave for almost half the time." Jing Boran had already made numerous concessions and compromises to ensure the smooth filming of the production, and it was Lu Han's side that "suddenly made many unreasonable demands that violated our contract." The agent also stated that since LeTV wanted to arrange the billing order this way, then "we must be placed last to minimize our chances of being listed."

Then he said, "How can we say we have no clothes? We share the same robes. As for tomb raiding, we'll let it go and not tear it up."

Do you think you can scare Lu Han like this?

Lu Han's fans quickly compiled the schedules of Jing Boran and Lu Han during the filming of "The Lost Tomb". They found that neither of them stayed on set for the entire filming period. Both of them had many public appearances, so neither of them could say anything about the other.

These young male celebrities' fans have incredibly high spending power. Both fan groups spontaneously promoted their idols and the production team. Lu Han's fans sent dozens of large flower baskets and even printed exquisite promotional brochures for "The Lost Tomb." 100 fan clubs of Lu Han joined forces to promote the show.

Jing Boran's fans sent him plenty of flower baskets and homemade gifts, and even a huge wall of roses!
The two fan groups have become bitter enemies, fighting since the beginning of the year until the movie's release.

Sometimes I can't help but wonder if these feuds are deliberately orchestrated by the film's producers and the artists for the sake of movie promotion? It's certainly not a good thing, but from a promotional perspective, this kind of negative marketing through arguing is indeed a tactic.

Strangely enough, Li Qiutang has been making films for 10 years, and no one has ever argued over billing order in his movies.

However, this "marketing" was very effective, with "The Lost Tomb" achieving a total box office of 2 million yuan on its opening day, which can be considered a great start.

However, box office revenue dropped the following Saturday, to 1.54 million.

This is highly unusual, as it's extremely rare for a film's Saturday box office to be lower than Friday's. Sunday's figure dropped to 1.2 million, bringing the total for the opening weekend to 4.75 million.

It broke 100 million yuan for three consecutive days, and its first weekend performance approached 500 million yuan, showing potential to reach 1 billion yuan.

I don't know what LeEco was thinking, actually wanting Li Qiutang to say a few good words about "The Lost Tomb". "The Lost Tomb" and "Mojin: The Lost Legend" are not in competition, but they are of the same genre. "Mojin: The Lost Legend" has achieved unprecedented success. If Li Qiutang can say a few words of praise for "The Lost Tomb", it may be beneficial to the film's promotion.

After learning of LeEco's request, Li Qiutang politely declined.

However, it may have been a coincidence that Li Qiutang's interview with People magazine took place right after the first weekend of The Grave Robbers' Chronicles.

The title of this interview is "Li Qiutang: What do you want to do in the future?" The title was chosen because Li Qiutang has started making art films, but the reporter started the interview with the hit movie "The Lost Tomb".

But Li Qiutang said, "I haven't seen it yet."

The reporter assumed he wasn't watching because of the young male celebrities, since everyone has been criticizing them lately.

However, Li Qiutang has a slightly different view: "An industry should welcome everyone in order to maintain its vitality and development. Young and fresh talents are a fresh force, and there are bound to be problems, but our industry needs to correct and guide them, rather than telling them to quit or kicking them out."

Unlike some grandmasters who believe that one cannot enter the industry without formal training, Li Qiutang encourages anyone with ideas to enter the film and television industry, saying that it is worth trying.

Academics aren't necessarily better than laypeople; there are bound to be problems. But we can't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Just because there are problems doesn't mean we should shut people out. Without a constant influx of new talent, this industry will eventually die out.

Li Qiutang wasn't so indignant about the young idols: "Give them time. In ten or twenty years, with the metabolism, a new batch of outstanding people will emerge."

Returning to the interview topic, what does Li Qiutang plan to do in the future?

Li Qiutang said that he didn't make art films on a whim, but rather he had a general idea as early as when he was filming "Mojin: The Lost Legend". "I was conceiving the idea at that time, and the script was only completed a couple of days ago."

The reporter also mentioned Li Qiutang's other upcoming film, "The Wandering Earth".

"I've noticed that the outside world doesn't have a high opinion of domestic science fiction films, so why should we rise to the challenge?"

Li Qiutang said, "It's not about facing difficulties head-on; they said the same thing when I was filming 'In Time.' You'll always encounter a million difficulties before and after making a movie, and you just have to find a way to solve them."

"We've been talking about the industrialization of film for ten years, but many people are just paying lip service to it. Now our industrialization has achieved some results, but how much of these results were actively and proactively achieved by our filmmakers? Probably very little. Many results are simply a natural consequence of the rapid development of the industry. Some of our technologies are already at an internationally advanced level, but our investors and directors are unwilling or afraid to use them."

As for the outside world's skepticism, Li Qiutang didn't care at all: "Once it's done, they'll be optimistic."

After discussing his own film, he then brought up Li Qiutang's appointment as chairman of Golden Deer Ventures, which led to the discussion of nurturing new talent.

Li Qiutang stated that she will continue to invest in the Towering Tree Project, which is even the most important work for her outside of directing.

The interview lasted two hours. After discussing work, they talked about their personal lives. Li Qiutang admitted that he felt guilty towards his wife: "I'm too busy with work and rarely have time to spend with her. Fortunately, Yifei understands my work." He also said that he would return to his family after this busy period.

(End of this chapter)