Entertainment: I am the peak

Chapter 748 Propaganda
The fact that "The Unknown" was able to surpass "Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald" proves that domestic comedy is a powerful weapon against Hollywood.

Rao Xiaozhi is not an unknown figure; he is quite famous in the industry, but many viewers do not recognize him. It was only with the 2016 theatrical film "Hello, Crazy!" that he gained some recognition.

This year's "The Unknown" made a comeback from a dismal opening day gross of 900 million to a weekend gross of 6700 million.

The weekly champion was still "The Crimes of Grindelwald," with a score of 2.6, while "The Unknown" was only a fraction of that.

But starting in the second week, The Unknown caught up with and surpassed The Crimes of Grindelwald thanks to its strong word-of-mouth.

I can't beat Harry Potter, and I still can't beat Fantastic Beasts?
The Nobody Knows surpassed The Crimes of Grindelwald in daily box office revenue starting in its second week. The Fantastic Beasts series does not have the widespread appeal of Harry Potter; it is only a fan-oriented film globally.

The team opened with $6200 million in sales in North America, easily taking the championship.

However, the poor performance of "Fantastic Beasts" in China has led domestic institutions to lower their expectations for the film. Maoyan even believes that "The Crimes of Grindelwald" will not gross more than 5 million yuan in China.

It is said that "The Crimes of Grindelwald" is "a must-read for non-Harry Potter fans".

"Marriage Story" will be released next month, and the production team has already started a campus tour with a relatively low budget - you can't expect an art film with an investment of no more than 3000 million yuan to do a nationwide roadshow like a commercial genre film. "Marriage Story" doesn't have that much of a publicity budget.

Campus tours are a highly cost-effective option.

Fortunately, there weren't many promotional tasks for "Marriage Story," which gave Li Qiutang plenty of time to do other things.

For example, the promotion and distribution of "The Wandering Earth".

Li Qiutang really felt like she had struck gold. In addition to the idea of ​​re-releasing "In Time" to promote the new film, a young man in the publicity team who had just graduated in 94 came up with another idea: to use Tencent's channels to do a game collaboration!
Gamers and sci-fi movie viewers largely overlap, so this kind of collaboration is really feasible.

Li Qiutang doesn't play games much and isn't very familiar with current games, but she thinks this kind of collaboration is worth trying and should have a good promotional effect.

As the major shareholder of Autumn Pictures, and with so many close collaborations between the two companies in the film and television industry, and many of Tencent's subsidiaries also participating in the joint investment and distribution of "The Wandering Earth," there is no reason for Tencent to refuse such a joint event.

The marketing team for "The Wandering Earth" initially set their sights on "League of Legends," Tencent's most popular game, and wanted to create a sci-fi skin for it.

But Tencent rejected it; other games were acceptable, but League of Legends was not.

How about "Honor of Kings"?

Even "Honor of Kings" won't work!

Why are penguins so stubborn?

After more than a week of negotiations, a collaboration with the game *CrossFire* was finalized. The agreement stipulated that *CrossFire* would release a sci-fi machine gun in early January next year, co-branded with the movie *The Wandering Earth*. The prototype is the Gatling gun used by Zhang Xiaoqiang, the heavy weapons specialist in the CN171-11 rescue team, in the film. The co-branded machine gun will be named "Gatling-The Wandering Earth." The game's official team must use this gun in their Spring Festival promotional activities to achieve the best publicity effect for the movie.

The "Wandering Earth" production team will not charge any fees for this authorization, but "CrossFire" is also prohibited from charging for the event items. However, if the game company re-releases the item after the event ends, the "Wandering Earth" production team will receive 3% of the profits.

fair enough.

At least Li Qiutang felt it was fair. Once "The Wandering Earth" becomes a box office hit, even if Tencent wanted the license, they might not be able to get it. They're letting you use it for free for promotional purposes—go ahead and take advantage.

CrossFire, of course, felt it was losing out. "I gave you such a huge traffic source for free, and now you want to take 30% of it when I start charging? When has Tencent ever suffered such a loss?"

After discussing the licensing agreement with "CrossFire," Li Qiutang then remembered to inquire about the peripheral development of "The Wandering Earth."

It's common practice in film and television merchandise development to release related products before the film's release.

There are countless potential derivative products from science fiction films, not to mention the game skins and props mentioned above. Weapon and equipment models, keychains, mugs, set notes, and even themed stickers are all potential profit-makers.

The goal of developing the surrounding area is to squeeze money out of every inch of brickwork.

However, "The Wandering Earth" is different from other types of movies. Domestic science fiction has been questioned. While manufacturers are willing to make small items like keychains, large peripherals such as MOSS and transport vehicle models are almost ignored.

If domestically produced sci-fi merchandise doesn't sell, who will be responsible?

Li Qiutang is also ineffective; Li Qiutang will not directly subsidize the developer.

"We adopted a joint development model for the MOSS and the transport vehicle model, sharing the risks with the manufacturer and reducing their concerns. We started at the beginning of the year and are now ready for production, so that it can be perfectly coordinated with the movie's release."

"Will it sell? We've invested unprecedented resources in the development of merchandise for 'The Wandering Earth,' even more than we did for 'Wolf Warrior 2' back then." It's just that domestic science fiction is so unconvincing.

“What are you afraid of?” Li Qiutang continued to boast confidently, “I said we’ll wipe out everyone this year, whoever comes will die. The surrounding development will continue to move forward as planned.”

After that, Li Qiutang had an even more crucial, almost the most important, task to complete: the film "The Wandering Earth" and its screening agreement with theaters.

Needless to say, their own dozen or twenty cinemas will definitely prioritize showing "The Wandering Earth" on the first day of the Lunar New Year, but the publicity team will have to go to each other cinema to negotiate.

Every percentage point in the film's release schedule during the Spring Festival is crucial. Li Qiutang is confident in the film's quality, but she also needs the support of the cinemas.

As one of the main investors in "The Wandering Earth," Wanda might show some favoritism, but given the huge profits during the Spring Festival, the "The Wandering Earth" production team still chose to prioritize business and discuss the issue of screenings with Wanda Cinemas.

Maoyan, as the distributor of "The Wandering Earth", took market research data to talk to Wanda and made an outrageous demand, asking Wanda to allocate 70% of the screening slots in all its directly operated cinemas from the first day to the seventh day of the Lunar New Year to IMAX theaters!
Especially for cinemas in the core CBD areas of the city center, Maoyan requested that Wanda allocate 80% of the prime IMAX screenings from 6 pm to 10 pm to "The Wandering Earth".

In return, the production team of "The Wandering Earth" can appropriately reduce their share of the profits.

Zeng Maojun would have to be insane to agree to the demands of "The Wandering Earth"!

The Spring Festival film season is the most lucrative time of the year. Even if "The Wandering Earth" is profitable and even if Wanda is one of the main investors, there is no need for Wanda to gamble with "The Wandering Earth" like this!

"It is said that when President Zeng received Maoyan's proposal, he was so angry that he scolded Maoyan in his office, saying that these people in the internet industry are bastards."

Not to mention Zeng Maojun, even Li Qiutang found the proposal unbelievable. If Maoyan really managed to negotiate it, Li Qiutang would definitely give them a huge credit.

"Although it's said that you can ask for an exorbitant price and then negotiate on the spot, the price Maoyan is asking for is a bit too outrageous." Li Qiutang also found it amusing.

"Let's talk," Li Qiutang said, choosing to remain silent, since she was the one who would benefit.

(End of this chapter)