Entertainment: I am the peak

Chapter 758 I'm going to dominate the entire Spring Festival film season!

The theatrical screening of "The Wandering Earth" was held at the Autumn Cinema Yanjing flagship store, but it was not the best IMAX laser hall, but just a regular IMAX hall.

But two hours later, all the cinema managers present were so shocked that they were speechless!

This cost 5 million to make?
Is this Chinese science fiction?

Not to mention the cinema manager, Zhang Zhao was also dumbfounded. He had seen the rough cut of "The Wandering Earth" and some clips, but this was the first time he had seen the finished film.

He was also deeply moved; Chinese film budgets should be used to make movies like this!

But as the CEO of Autumn Pictures, Zhang Zhao had to maintain his composure and project an air of superiority. "This isn't the best effect yet. Go to the IMAX laser theater for an even better experience, and the Dolby theater offers a completely different experience."

Everyone knew Zhang Zhao's purpose in inviting them to the movie. Wan Dayanjing's manager patted his chest and said, "I'll give you half of the IMAX theaters. This movie will make a fortune, hahaha!"

Wanda originally planned to release "The Love Saint 2" during this year's Spring Festival season, but due to Uncle Bo's incident, the film cannot be released.

"Mr. Zhang, to be honest, I've seen all the films released during this year's Spring Festival, except for 'The New King of Comedy.' This is the one." He gave a thumbs up.

"This is the kind of film we should be showing during the Spring Festival! Mr. Zhang, I'm not saying anything more, I'll give you all my screenings!"

"It has to be Director Li; only movies like this are worth seeing in theaters!"

Despite the flowery words these cinema managers uttered, Zhang Zhao knew they were all just putting on an act!

You're giving me all the screenings? You didn't sign a contract with me, so why would you give me screenings?
But once you've seen the film, the scheduling agreement will be easier to negotiate.

With Li Qiutang involved and the quality of "The Wandering Earth" already established, the film's basic screening schedule is guaranteed, and it's already much higher than that of ordinary films.

The point now is to schedule more screenings of "The Wandering Earth" on top of the existing screening schedule.

But the same problem remains: theater managers are extremely pragmatic. With a runtime of 2 hours, "The Wandering Earth" is not at an advantage in the competition during the Spring Festival season.

They dare not raise ticket prices in the fall.

That's why in the fall, cinemas use IMAX theaters to raise ticket prices and make money in exchange for more screenings.

"Isn't it a waste of resources to show other movies in IMAX? Only movies like mine can make money in IMAX theaters." That's the truth. This year's Spring Festival season, no film is more suitable for IMAX than "The Wandering Earth".

Zhang Zhao was making final efforts to schedule screenings for "The Wandering Earth" from the rear, while Li Qiutang and others were working hard on the front lines of publicity.

Before they knew it, it was the 10th. On that day, Li Qiutang was doing an event in Pengcheng by herself, while Li Guangjie had other work to do and left the team halfway through.

Since "Mojin: The Lost Legend," Li Qiutang hasn't done such an intensive promotional tour in a long time. After running around these past few days, meeting and interacting with the audience has been great, but he has also noticed that many things have changed since he hasn't personally gone to the front lines for several years.

Li Qiutang didn't hold back at all at the scene in Pengcheng and spoke her mind: "Roadshows are a place that can make us creators delusional. During roadshows, everyone feels like they've succeeded. Everyone's reaction is so enthusiastic, and everyone is saying nice things. You can't hear the real voices at the scene because the marketing department is blocking them out."

The audience laughed when they heard this.

"Especially for directors, the chair we sit in is actually a chair facing judgment. If you can't hear the truth, the director loses the soil for creation."

"So sometimes I have a love-hate relationship with roadshows."

These words earned a round of applause from the audience. Li Qiutang was pretending to be ignorant when he knew the truth, but this was indeed his true thought.

There were media, fans, and professional crowd-pleasers at the roadshow, but probably no real casual audience members.

The essence of a roadshow is promotion. Interaction is just one part of the roadshow and not the main focus. The organizers don't even want the audience to have in-depth exchanges with the creators on site. Asking a few routine questions is enough.

“Hello, director,” a female fan stood up. “I’m a science fiction fan. I love watching science fiction novels and movies. I’ve also read the novel ‘The Wandering Earth,’ but after reading the synopsis of your movie, it seems to have little to do with the original novel. I would like to know why you wrote it this way when you were writing the script.”

Who says you can't hear anything substantial at roadshow meet-and-greets? That's a great question.

Li Qiutang patiently explained to her:
"To be honest, the novel 'The Wandering Earth' doesn't have a very wide readership. Apart from science fiction readers, many people haven't read it. But the movie is different. The movie needs to reach a wider audience and can't just cater to science fiction fans. When we had the script meeting, we decided on the overall idea of ​​'creative adaptation' and that we wanted to make it unique. So we chose to stay true to the spirit of the original work rather than the specific characters and plot."

"This adaptation also received Liu Cixin's support. As for whether everyone will like our new story, we'll have to wait until the official release to find out."

Another female audience member got a second chance to ask a question. How come there are so many female fans? Li Qiutang didn't even know she had so many female fans.

"Director, I just want to ask, audiences say you can't film romance, did you improve on that in 'The Wandering Earth'?"

"Hahahaha!" Everyone laughed. This guy seemed to be a real movie fan, even knowing about Li Qiutang's "quirk".

Li Qiutang disagreed: "Marriage Story is about the emotional life of married couples."

“But that’s about a broken relationship,” the movie fan retorted.

Everyone laughed again.

Li Qiutang could only reply, "You're not the only one who's said this; I didn't feel it myself." This wasn't Li Qiutang pretending; he genuinely didn't know how he ended up excluding romance from his films. "I was just making films normally. I don't know why, but everyone says I can't film romance scenes. In 'The Wandering Earth,'" Li Qiutang thought for a moment before saying, "it seems there's still no romance scene. But we also have a father-son relationship in it, and it's very good."

But then he said, "How about I make a romance movie next time, a pure love movie, the kind where you're in love from beginning to end?"

While Li Qiutang was holding an event in Shenzhen, the pre-sales for films scheduled for the Spring Festival also began simultaneously.

According to real-time data from Maoyan Professional Edition, one hour after the pre-sale channel opened at 10:00 AM, "Pegasus" took the lead, with one million yuan in pre-sales, leading the Spring Festival film season.

Han Han's appeal among young audiences is undeniable, and the addition of Shen Teng, along with Han Han's active interaction with netizens on Weibo, has made this film a standout success.

"The Wandering Earth" only attracted a mere 50 yuan in pre-sales within an hour.

Science fiction is really too niche!

Especially since "The Wandering Earth" is marketed as an industrial science fiction film, this approach is naturally less appealing to audiences than comedy.

But Li Qiutang was not interested in the pre-sale results at all.

"Oh dear, these can all be faked. I can hire two PR firms, spend some money, and easily generate ten or twenty million."

Li Qiutang remains as arrogant as ever, firmly believing that "The Wandering Earth" will dominate the entire Spring Festival film season.

(End of this chapter)