Entertainment: I am the peak

Chapter 768: A New Record!
Of course, it wasn't just "The Wandering Earth" that received negative reviews on the second day of the Lunar New Year; almost all the movies released during that period received negative reviews to some extent.

That's normal; some people will like a movie while others won't.

"The Wandering Earth" has been criticized for its shallow character development, excessively sentimental global speech at the end, and Wu Jing's portrayal of a Wolf Warrior-style character with a strong emphasis on individual heroism.

Viewers of "Crazy Alien" questioned whether Ning Hao's acting skills had declined.

"Pegasus" has been criticized for being top-heavy and having a sudden shift in style.

The worst-hit film was "The New King of Comedy," which received the most criticism during its release period. There were almost no positive reviews, and the criticisms were all directed at Stephen Chow for making easy money, rehashing old material, and exploiting nostalgia.

"The Knight of Shadows: Between Yin and Yang"? With Jackie Chan, it didn't even make 5000 million on its opening day. This movie doesn't even deserve to be criticized by the audience.

Unless it's a large-scale, organized campaign of negative reviews, the production team can simply ignore it. Why bother responding to just one or two comments? Isn't that exhausting?

But Li Qiutang insisted on responding!

Due to its outstanding performance on its opening day, "The Wandering Earth" gained favor with cinema managers on the second day of the Lunar New Year, with its screenings increasing by 6 percentage points, further squeezing out the space for other films.

And The Wandering Earth did not disappoint the cinemas. On the second day of the Lunar New Year, it raked in 5 million yuan at the box office and continued to lead the Spring Festival film season!
On the third day of the Lunar New Year, Li Qiutang and Wu Jing visited the martial arts world for the second time to meet with the audience. Facing negative online reviews, he half-jokingly said:

"Those who say 'The Wandering Earth' is all about individual heroism, I'll make you watch it twice more. We're clearly talking about unity, cooperation, and collective wisdom."

Li Qiutang is only in the third year of junior high school, so she will definitely not explain to the audience in detail that the CN171-11 rescue team actually failed, and the planetary engine was successfully ignited by another rescue team; igniting Jupiter was not Liu Peiqiang's personal wisdom, but scientists had proposed it long ago, although the demonstration failed. However, the final self-destruction was indeed Liu Peiqiang's personal courage.

Explaining these things now would seriously affect the viewing experience.

"One major reason you think it's overly sentimental is mother tongue shame. You think it's wrong when Han Duoduo speaks globally for help because she speaks in Chinese, which directly stimulates you. If I had a foreigner say the same thing in English, you wouldn't find it strange because your brain would reprocess the foreign language."

"You can't accept Han Duoduo's speech, you can't accept that Chinese people are saving the world and humanity in the apocalypse."

Wu Jing said something similar during the promotion of "Wolf Warrior 2", and Li Qiutang has to say it again now.

However, Director Li cleverly avoided discussing the two young actors, especially Zhao Jinmai's immature performance.

There's really not much to talk about. What The Wandering Earth sells is its grand scale and special effects. As long as the actors' performances are good enough to keep the audience engaged, that's fine.

What acting awards have the actors of Avatar won?

At 10 a.m. on the third day of the Lunar New Year, the official Weibo account of "The Wandering Earth" announced that the film had reached 10 billion views.

Meanwhile, none of their competitors at the same time had a single film that grossed over 5 million.

"Crazy Alien," which is the most direct competitor to "The Wandering Earth," was naturally the most affected. Its revenue on the first day of the Lunar New Year was 2.7 million yuan, but dropped by 1 million yuan on the second day, returning to 1.7 million yuan.

Of the three outstanding young directors from that time, only Li Qiutang and Ning Hao have maintained a good reputation with audiences. This is also the first time in 12 years that Li Qiutang and Ning Hao have competed in the same time slot.

The outcome seems quite obvious.

"You media shouldn't try to stir up trouble between me and Director Ning. He texted me yesterday about 'The Wandering Earth'," Li Qiutang said with a smile.

"Pegasus" grossed 2.1 million yuan on its opening day, but dropped to 1 million yuan on the second day of the Lunar New Year. Han Han was so anxious that he had to announce on Weibo that the second round of roadshows would start ahead of schedule and expand the scale of this round of roadshows to 20 cities.

"The New King of Comedy" suffered a setback in its second year of release amidst a barrage of criticism, with its revenue falling below 1 million yuan to 5700 million yuan. A representative from the production company, Shanghai New Culture, said helplessly, "We did everything we could, but we never expected this result."

Li Qiutang received her grades from the first day of the third year of junior high school in the early hours of the fourth day, while having a late-night snack in Guangzhou with Chen Zhixi, Wu Jing, Li Guangjie, and others.

"5.5 million, total score 14.8 billion."

"So, will it break 20 tomorrow?" "It shouldn't be difficult."

"Let's do it."

The wine glasses clinked together.

"Wow, 20 billion in 4 days, this is going to take off!"

As soon as these words were spoken, the name of another movie popped into everyone's mind: Wolf Warrior 2.

If this trend continues, "The Wandering Earth" has a very high chance of breaking the record set by "Wolf Warrior 2".

On Friday, the fourth day of the Lunar New Year, Hong Kong stocks opened. Autumn Films rose 3.3% in the first two hours of trading, a strong start.

Mainland stock investors are frantic!

The Hong Kong Stock Connect program won't open until next Monday. That's a day's delay, and I'll miss out on so much money!
I should have bought Autumn Pictures before the new year!

Unsurprisingly, "The Wandering Earth" surpassed 20 billion yuan on the fourth day of the Lunar New Year. The film's official Weibo account released a poster announcing the 20 billion yuan milestone at 10:43 pm.

Even the most clueless theater managers realized this by then. On the fifth day of the Lunar New Year, the screening share of "The Wandering Earth" jumped to 43.5%, which helped the film achieve its highest single-day box office of 6.2 million yuan since its release.

The total box office of "The Wandering Earth" has exceeded 26 billion yuan.

The massacre has already begun, and other films can only wonder how much of the scraps they can get under the siphon effect of "The Wandering Earth".

Beyond box office success, merchandise related to "The Wandering Earth" sold extremely well.

The best-selling items were undoubtedly small items like keychains, phone cases, and fridge magnets. Models of transport vehicles and MOSS figures, often customized for wealthy men, also sold very well. Some even inquired about selling the exoskeleton armor from the movie.

The distributors had expected "The Wandering Earth" to be a big hit, but they didn't expect it to sell like this. Many distributors were severely understocked. Not only were they understocked, but the factories were also undercapacitated. Several major distributors were so anxious that they called Zhang Zhao and Chen Zhixi to urge them to stop, and even called General Manager Fu of China Film Group.

But the most these people can do is personally go to the factory to supervise production capacity; they can't actually go on the production line themselves.

Pain and happiness.

Director Li promoted the event and talked about it all the way.

"There are no shortcuts to making special effects. Give them enough budget and time, and they can make it."

“Our special effects team got involved during the script stage, and we knew very early on what could be achieved and what was difficult to achieve.”

"Yes, the space capsule in 'Crazy Alien' was borrowed from our crew by Ning Hao. We were both filming in Qingdao at the time. I was still building the set when he took a liking to it. He borrowed it before I even used it."

He also made sure to praise Zhang Yixing, who has a huge fan base: "Zhang Yixing came to visit the set of 'Alien' in the studio next to ours. I thought the young man looked quite energetic and said, 'How about you play an astronaut for me in a couple of months?' We staff didn't take it seriously, thinking that with someone as popular as him, who could predict what would happen in two months? But unexpectedly, before we even started filming, Zhang Yixing contacted us to discuss the schedule and said he would definitely act in it once filming started. We are very grateful to him."

It's not an empty compliment. In the past few days, many of Zhang Yixing's fans have come to Li Qiutang's Weibo to thank him. He was quite confused. It was just a cameo appearance, and he didn't even have many lines. There was no need to thank him.

In the mountain city, some viewers asked about the sequel.

"No, you guys are too fast. It's only been a few days and you already want a sequel." Li Qiutang thought for a moment and said, "Let's wait for the sequel. I'll let everyone know as soon as it's released."

This year's Spring Festival holiday only lasted until the sixth day of the Lunar New Year, but "The Wandering Earth" still grossed 480 million yuan that day, and has been the daily champion for six days.

With this, the box office figures for the first six days of "The Wandering Earth" have been officially released.

31 billion! The highest opening weekend box office record in Chinese film history has been set!
(End of this chapter)