Entertainment: I am the peak

Chapter 752 What is called appeal?
Autumn Pictures never underestimated the appeal of its boss's wife, but "Marriage Story" is, after all, just an art film with a smaller audience. The company originally thought that it would be good if it could make 20 to 30 million on the opening day. Anyway, they didn't have high expectations for the box office, and they were happy as long as the results were acceptable.

Unexpectedly, "Marriage Story" achieved an outstanding box office of 7300 million on its opening Friday.

Is there no reasoning at all? This is an art film with a total investment of no more than 3000 million yuan, and it's about such an old-fashioned theme as family and marriage. How can so many people watch it?
That's why so many people watch it.

What surprised Maoyan's researchers was that, among the audience who came to watch "Marriage Story" on the first day, Liu Yifei's fans were not as many as Li Qiutang's fans.

Many viewers, when interviewed in random surveys, said they came for Li Qiutang.

“I have been paying attention to this film for a long time and I really want to see director Li Qiutang’s first art film.”

"I've watched many of Li Qiutang's films before. Whether they're artistic or not doesn't matter, just watch them."

Many people only realized then that while Liu Yifei is indeed a very charismatic actress, she may still not be able to compete with directors.

Many casual viewers expressed curiosity about Liu Yifei winning the Best Actress award and wanted to come and see for themselves.

Of course, this doesn't mean that the fans weren't supportive; they were still one of the main audiences on opening day and contributed a lot to the box office.

However, the problems that domestic commentators had worried about still surfaced on the first day.

Some people don't get Liu Yifei's restrained and introverted performance in "Marriage Story" and think she's still a block of wood.

"A boring movie, dull performances, I don't understand why someone with such acting skills could win Best Actress."

"The worst Cannes Best Actress in history."

"Is this the level of a Cannes Best Actress?"

There are certainly many positive reviews, but as we all know, negative reviews spread much faster than positive ones.

However, these negative reviews were uniformly ignored by the "Marriage Story" production team, Liu Yifei's team, and Qiutian Company as mere smear campaigns.

I've won so many prizes I'm numb, your opinion doesn't matter at all.

If negative reviews can have an impact, then how do you explain the fact that "Marriage Story" grossed 2.1 million yuan in its opening weekend?
This is a realistic art film with a family theme!
2.1 million in the first weekend? Is there any logic to that?!
This result almost set a new record for the best opening weekend performance for a domestic art film.

Li Qiutang was also surprised when he received this result, but he quickly calmed down.

"You can't judge 'Marriage Story' by the 3x opening weekend theory. The film attracted too many fans and moviegoers in its opening weekend. After these viewers have contributed to the box office, the film will quickly return to the market performance expected of an art film. The total box office should be around 3 million to 4 million."

"That's enough! Who would have thought an art film could achieve such results?" What could the company possibly be dissatisfied with such an unexpected success? "Are you still going to do the follow-up promotion?"

"Go ahead and do it. Just do what's set out to do." This period of increased exposure is also a way to promote the re-release of "In Time" and the film "The Wandering Earth," so there are only benefits and no drawbacks.

Given the success of "Marriage Story," the production team had to increase its promotional efforts and allocated additional funds for it.

So they bought a few more trending topics, mainly to strengthen the marketing of Liu Yifei's acting skills.

But the marketing team for "Marriage Story" hasn't lost their heads yet. They're marketing Liu Yifei's improved acting skills without ever comparing her to others.

She doesn't compare herself to Gong Li or Maggie Cheung, or even to the four leading actresses of her generation; she just does her own thing.

After winning the award, Liu Yifei solidified her position as a top actress and no longer needed to emphasize it through marketing.

At the start of the new week, Liu Xiaoli invited several of her old friends in Yanjing to see her daughter and son-in-law's new movie. Her daughter had won the long-awaited Best Actress award for this film, and as her mother, she naturally wanted to support her. She didn't see it beforehand, but waited until the official release date to buy tickets herself.

The uncles and aunts naturally complimented Liu Xiaoli for having a good daughter and finding a good son-in-law.

"If I had a grandson, I would have everything."

These compliments made Liu Xiaoli extremely happy. She said that the couple was already trying to conceive and believed that good news would come soon.

Two hours later, Liu Xiaoli walked out of the movie theater with a heavy heart.

Her perspective on the film differed from Liu Yifei's; she noticed some complaints from her son-in-law, the director, which might be true.

In the movie, Xi Meijuan plays Aunt Sun, a decisive and even somewhat domineering mother-in-law.

She has a key and can "invade" Liang Jiangong and Zhu Xiaoyan's home without permission, disrupting the couple's warmth and intimacy.

Aunt Sun didn't have many scenes, but Liu Xiaoli still sensitively captured the character traits that Li Qiutang projected onto Aunt Sun.

This reminded her of her own family.

Living with my daughter and son-in-law, am I, like Aunt Sun in the movie, invading their world as a couple?

Although Li Qiutang never said anything, there must have been some resentment about living with his mother-in-law, right?

Otherwise, why would such a character be included in a movie?

Everyone would say that Liu Xiaoli is a competent mother. When Liu Yifei showed signs of rebellion and independence during her adolescence, she told her daughter that if Liu Yifei didn't need her by her side, she could let go.

But Liu Yifei is very considerate of her, and she has been with her mother since she was a child.

Liu Xiaoli wasn't the only one with this idea.

The audience is really smart. After "Marriage Story" received a high score of 7.8 on Douban, they began to analyze whether the director's personal life experience was incorporated into the film.

Although Li Qiutang and Liu Yifei rarely expose their private lives in public, many people still know that the two still live with Liu Xiaoli after their marriage. This is because Liu Yifei said in an interview that the two of them are very busy with work, working day and night, and Liu Xiaoli still takes care of them at home.

Therefore, some comments started to take a negative turn.

It can't be said to be "bad." For example, Aunt Sun's character was based on Liu Xiaoli, and Li Qiutang was expressing her dissatisfaction by filming Aunt Sun.

Such comments are only circulating in the comments section of "Marriage Story" and among fans; they have not yet become mainstream.

However, this has already been refuted by Li Qiutang's fans and Liu Yifei's fans.

"Both Director Li and Yi Fei have publicly thanked Liu Xiaoli. Their work and lives are extremely irregular, and without Liu Xiaoli's care, they would have many problems in their lives."

"You can't stand seeing others do well, can you? Aunt Sun is a typical traditional Chinese mother who wants her children to be successful but doesn't know how or how, and has no sense of boundaries. How can you bring this up with Liu Xiaoli? If you don't understand the movie, just shut up."

"How do you know about other people's family affairs? You're even reflecting on reality just because you watched a movie."

That day, Liu Yifei returned from out of town and saw that Liu Xiaoli looked sullen...

(End of this chapter)