Who are you calling "little fresh meat"? I'm the king.

Chapter 725 Counterattack (45)

La La Land's box office in mainland China has surpassed 500 million yuan, making it the second largest market globally...

Everyone knows it's because of Shen Yan!

Musical films have a very low acceptance rate in mainland China…

The box office record before *La La Land* was held by *The Rooftop*. In fact, this year also saw the release of *Office*, directed by Johnnie To and starring Chow Yun-fat, Sylvia Chang, Eason Chan, and Tang Wei…

The box office in mainland China did not reach 50 million!
In 2015, the Chinese market exceeded $80 billion.

Moreover, it's progressing rapidly. According to predictions, by 2017 at the very least, the Chinese market will surpass North America to become the world's largest film market…

Shen Yan is one of China's most bankable directors, actors, and producers...

Many Hollywood stars want to collaborate with him and use him to enter the Chinese market.

Rejuvenate your career and give it a second spring...

Julia Roberts and Sandra Bullock share this idea, with Sandra Bullock being the most proactive…

He is indeed very career-minded.

I'm fifty already...

But she rose to fame with her goofy, tomboyish image, and she mainly starred in R-rated comedies…

To be honest, she has no influence in mainland China. Compared to Angelina Jolie, even Jennifer Lawrence is more famous than her.

Shen Yan... and A24 don't really want to cooperate with her for the time being...

This woman is difficult to get along with!

Of course, Shen Yan felt that it was almost 2016, and his Hollywood journey should be coming to an end!
Whether it's Sandra Bullock or Julia Roberts, he's not really keen on collaborating...

Unless they directly make an American version of "Parasite" and cast one of them as the female lead...

Oh right, Shen Yan didn't call Yang Mi to ask her to come and keep him company...

However, what's amazing is that she actually came to Los Angeles on the second day of the Lunar New Year, which is February 10th!

……

The Spring Festival film season officially begins on February 9th!
"The Mermaid" had 31% of the screenings and grossed 2.7 million yuan on its opening day, taking the top spot at the box office.
"Detective Chinatown" had 29.8% of screenings on its opening day and grossed 2.45 million yuan in a single day…

I couldn't beat The Mermaid...

That's normal. On one hand, Stephen Chow is involved in "The Mermaid," and on the other hand... "The Mermaid" is 93 minutes long; "Detective Chinatown" is 135 minutes long...

It's 40 minutes longer than the former!

From the perspective of theater chains, they would definitely prefer to screen "The Mermaid"...

While "The Mermaid" was shown four times, "Detective Chinatown" was only shown three times!

Even on the second and third days of the Lunar New Year, "The Mermaid" remained the top-grossing film of the day, earning 2.59 million and 2.48 million yuan respectively.
Meanwhile, "Detective Chinatown" grossed 2.19 million and 2.28 million yuan in its last two days respectively…

However, the former's occupancy rate was significantly lower than the latter's—"The Mermaid" had an occupancy rate of 56%, while "Detective Chinatown" had an occupancy rate close to 74%...

Oh, and the daily box office for "From Vegas to Macau III" and "The Monkey King 3" has dropped to less than 6000 million, with occupancy rates of 22% and 18% respectively...

Starting from the fourth day of the Lunar New Year, "Detective Chinatown" successfully overtook "The Mermaid"...

The latter's single-day box office was 2.37 million, while the former's was 2.52 million!
And then it was never pulled down again…

But the difference between the two is only around 1500 million!
On February 14th, Valentine's Day, which was also the seventh day of the Lunar New Year, "Detective Chinatown" grossed 370 million yuan at the box office, while "The Mermaid" took in 240 million yuan...

They've widened the gap significantly!
As of February 15th, "Detective Chinatown" had grossed 20.08 billion yuan, while "The Mermaid" had grossed 18.6 billion yuan... Chen Sicheng was very happy, saying during the promotional tour: "I finally didn't let Yan Ge down... Actually, before the movie was released, I called him every day... The pressure was immense!"

"So, the box office has surpassed his. Did you call him?"

"I called him, and he was very calm. He kept telling me, 'In the same release window, no matter how lavish the marketing is, the film with better quality will definitely win!'..."

What has he been up to lately?

"It seems like the various union awards have been presented, and he has to bring his crew to participate..."

"Will he come back to do publicity?"

“It’s unlikely for now,” Chen Sicheng explained. “He has to be present at the union award ceremony, otherwise people will think he doesn’t value the award… and then they will criticize him!”

"What about the awards for *La La Land*..."

"It's hard to say now, because 'The Wasteland Hunter' won several Best Director awards, 'Spotlight' won several Best Picture awards, and even the Best Actress award was given to other actresses several times!"

……

Shen Yan can't say for sure now...

Everything had been going smoothly until now, with the first two bellwether awards of the awards season in hand. Then suddenly, everything changed – the Critics' Choice Awards went to Jennifer Lawrence for Best Actress, and *Mad Max: Fury Road* for Best Director. Even Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay were awarded to *Spotlight*…

La La Land only won one award: Best Original Song!
The Big Short was awarded Best Picture at various guild awards, including the Producers Guild Awards.
The Directors Guild Awards gave Best Director to Alejandro González Iglesias for "The Revenant";
The Screen Actors Guild Awards were alright; Emma Stone ultimately won Best Actress…

But the disappointment of winning the Directors Guild Award still made Shen Yan very upset!
Fortunately, Yang Mi was very reliable, comforting Shen Yan three times a day, leaving him little time to overthink...

It's really good.

"Only" three times, and time was even left for Shen Yan to promote "Detective Chinatown" via live stream...

Shen Yan also worked very hard...

This refers to the promotion of the film: "For the entire 'Detective Chinatown' series, we've planned five main installments: one in Thailand, one in the US, one in Japan, one in the UK, and a final return to Thailand… In addition to the main films, there are also prequels and web series…"

"Tang Ren's image is greasy yet sincere; only Bao Qiang can play such a role!"

"Tang Ren is not only the comedic relief, but also the action star. In the film, Tang Ren's appearance, style, and personality are actually tailor-made for Bao Qiang... If you search the entire Chinese entertainment industry, there are many actors who can play Qin Feng... but only Bao Qiang can play Tang Ren!"

"He broke up with Xu Zheng... Baoqiang wanted to include his salary in the production costs, but Xu Zheng refused..."

Director Xu Zheng is a very shrewd businessman. He looked down on actors like Bao Qiang who didn't have formal training, and used Bao Beier instead. As it turns out, only when Bao Qiang played a fool did people not dislike him, or at least not so much!

"The Mermaid... I haven't seen it yet... but this movie must be amazing, after all, it's putting pressure on our Detective Chinatown in the first three days of the Spring Festival season... It has a guaranteed minimum of 20 billion yuan in distribution... We don't have a minimum guarantee, it's just distributed by Maoyan!"

"Next year's Spring Festival film season, 'The Wandering Earth' will face off against 'Journey to the West: The Demons Strike Back' again... How much pressure is there?"

"Pressure is definitely a factor, but with movies, there's bound to be a diverse range of ideas, and competition is what drives us more!"

They were chatting happily when a voice came from behind them: "I cut a watermelon, remember to eat it later!"

Then a bunch of viewers watching the live stream went crazy: "Holy crap! He's keeping a mistress!", "Is Brother Yan about to announce his girlfriend?", "Who is this woman? Her voice sounds so familiar!"

Shen Yan was stunned... He had no idea that Yang Mi would suddenly pull this move!
Thankfully... she didn't make a public appearance...

Shen Yan explained, "What nonsense about keeping a mistress... This is a translator arranged by the PR manager. I bought a watermelon yesterday, and she helped me cut it..."

"Call her over?"

"Brother, they don't want to show their face!"

(End of this chapter)