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

Chapter 751 Switching Platforms (23)

Before Warcraft was released, a group of fans shouted: "It will surpass Avatar in global box office and crush The Martian and Detective Chinatown in domestic box office. The global celebration of 100 million fans will amount to 1 billion US dollars per person with one ticket (assuming the average price of a movie ticket is 10 US dollars). We don't need any help from strangers to easily join the 1 billion dollar club!"

If everyone watches it twice, that's $20 billion! Add to that the appeal of Hollywood blockbusters, attracting tens of millions of casual viewers, and it's only a matter of time before its global box office surpasses *Avatar*…

Two days ago, the box office revenue of "Warcraft" exceeded 5 million RMB, but after the Dragon Boat Festival, the box office revenue began to plummet...

But the theaters are really shameless!
The production and distribution of "Warcraft" included Wanda, China Film Group, Tencent, and Huayi Brothers, and in the first ten days, the number of screenings never fell below 100,000!

Compare the screening schedules of "The Mermaid"...

At most 8.9 games!

Even "Captain America 3" and last year's "Furious 7" only had a maximum of 10 screenings...

Even so, Warcraft's domestic box office didn't reach 15 billion!
what reason?
Uh…the fans aren’t supportive enough!

Okay, to be honest, Warcraft is a niche game...

People are easily misled into thinking that everyone around them is like them, and that everyone in the world is like them.

"The final box office... if it's the domestic situation, with normal screening schedules... I think it'll be around 15 billion yuan... I doubt it'll exceed 15 billion..."

"This isn't about watching it two or three times. Movies are a popular art form, and Warcraft is a movie specifically for fans. Watching it two or three times, or even fifty times, won't make much difference!"

Uh, watching it fifty times is no joke...

Someone actually watched "Lion Boys 2" fifty times... and even posted about it on Xiaohongshu!
"According to predictions, Warcraft's North American box office will be at most $5000 million... The summer movie season is very crowded, with new movies being released every week as the biggest movie season in North America!"

"Wanda's first foray into Hollywood has most likely fizzled out..."

"We'll talk about 'The Great Wall' after it's released..."

"The Moon... will most likely not be a big box office success... because the subject matter is very niche!"

"To be honest, science fiction isn't really a mainstream genre globally... The best-selling science fiction films are usually those with a strong popcorn appeal... Even though Interstellar was so great, it was overtaken at the box office by Dumb and Dumber to the Babes 2 in its second week. That year, Interstellar only ranked 15th on the North American box office charts..."

"Science fiction movies don't make money... that doesn't mean we should give up. But current football youth training programs are pushing kids to develop into hexagonal shapes, and we won't produce the next Messi... so youth training isn't important?"
Let's take a longer-term view. The criteria for judging art aren't just about whether it can make money in the present... but also about the future!

"Box office performance is only one aspect of evaluating a film, not the whole picture... For example, Wong Kar-wai's films, whether it's 'Days of Being Wild,' 'Ashes of Time,' 'Happy Together,' or 'In the Mood for Love,' have all underperformed at the box office. In fact, 'Days of Being Wild' was a complete flop after its release, failing to recoup even half of its 4000 million investment, almost bankrupting Alan Tang's Film Productions... But can you say that Wong Kar-wai's films are bad movies?"

"Alright, let's not talk about this anymore..."

"I'll be filming 'The Wandering Earth' for about another two weeks... Also, barring any unforeseen circumstances, Maoyan will launch Maoyan Live next month... I'll be live streaming on Maoyan then!"

……

Maoyan is negotiating with Tencent...

Tencent's Weying Technology can't compete with Taopiaopiao, let alone Maoyan!
Currently, the online ticketing market has formed a three-way competition between Gewara, Yupiaoer (formerly Weipiaoer, a ticketing platform under Weying Technology), Maoyan, and Taopiaopiao.

Logically speaking, Weying Technology should have been a sure winner, given its WeChat nine-grid recommendation feature.

But Weying Technology can't get distribution rights for high-quality films!
They can only throw money at it: 4.8 million for "So Young 2", 9.2 million for "The Lost Tomb", and 10 billion for "Railroad Tigers"...

Last year, there was a guaranteed release of "Terminator Genisys" for $10 billion, and next year, there will be a guaranteed release of "Transformers 5" for $27 billion...

The complete failure of the guaranteed release of "Transformers 5" caused Tencent to lose patience, directly pushing for Maoyan to merge with Weying Technology. Founder Lin Ning was later dismissed from the decision-making team!
Now, Weying Technology has just secured 15 billion RMB in funding, so with ample resources, Lin Ning is planning to make a big splash!
Oh, Maoyan originally had shares in Tencent—Maoyan was originally Meituan's online ticketing platform, and Tencent was Meituan's major shareholder.

Now Tencent wants to push for the merger of Maoyan and Weying Technology...

Shen Yan didn't want to cash out and leave for the time being, and he felt that Maoyan's market share was much larger than Weiying Technology's...

They definitely don't want to give up too much profit to Weiying.

This is definitely something we can't agree on, so let's talk about financing...

Maoyan needs around 10 billion yuan in financing, and then it should be able to go public!

Shen Yan will definitely have to choose between Tencent and Alibaba...

He definitely has no interest in Ali, after all, Ali has a well-known reputation—acquired by Alibaba, then merged into Alibaba Digital Media & Entertainment Group, and then went bankrupt…

Let's go with Tencent!
Incidentally, by leveraging Tencent's bandwidth—as Maoyan currently points out, bandwidth and storage costs account for more than 15% of the company's net revenue—Tencent's investment can save on bandwidth operating costs.

Then you can start your live streaming service!

Maoyan has always been very 'concerned' about the number of viewers during Shen Yan's live streams—the average number of viewers is close to 500 million.

This traffic is so attractive!
Moreover, Shen Yan's Spark Studio has too many celebrity acquaintances...

Yang Mi, Dilraba, and even Liu Shishi can all start live streaming on Maoyan…

But... doing live streaming costs a lot of money!

按10万用户规模计算：硬编码方案：月带宽成本约144，000美元（5Mbps码率）；日活1万人场景：每人观看1小时，月带宽成本约3-8万元人民币…

Currently, apart from advertising revenue, movie distribution revenue, and service fees, Maoyan has virtually no other sources of income.

Doing live streaming... is too expensive!

So, it's never been done!
Now, the higher-ups have ordered that vote-buying and ticket-soliciting are not allowed...

With a large sum of money raised, they were able to start a new business immediately, so they decided to do live streaming!

Shen Yan... doesn't really care. For him, it doesn't matter where he broadcasts!
Although he previously streamed on Douyu, he did not sign an agreement with Douyu…

Douyu didn't push any traffic to him either...

……

After returning to Xiangshan, Shen Yan basically cut off all contact with the outside world, focusing all his energy on filming…

Then, in late June, Wu Jing joined the crew!
Wu Jing's scenes are concentrated on the spaceship—Liu Peiqiang, as the navigator, does not live on Earth, which means that Liu Peiqiang and Liu Qi do not have any scenes together!
He had a lot of scenes, and in the early stages, he mainly focused on wire work training.

In space, with zero gravity, you'd definitely float...

Then he talked to Shen Yan about the preparations for "Wolf Warrior 2".

(End of this chapter)