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

Chapter 912 Continuing the Nonsense (13)

The landscape of films during the Spring Festival season has changed.

Policy now prohibits the practice of buying tickets with subsidies, with clear restrictions: during the Spring Festival film promotion period, the number of tickets subsidized for a single film cannot exceed 50, and the actual ticket price paid by ordinary viewers must not be less than 19.9 yuan…

Therefore, the approach of buying screening slots by subsidizing ticket sales is clearly not feasible!
Then let's do some hard-sell promotion...

"Monster Hunt 2" partnered with Taopiaopiao and Ali Pictures...

Aiming to become the box office champion during the Spring Festival, well, to be honest, it's about taking down "Wolf Warrior 2" and becoming the highest-grossing Chinese film in history!
During the promotional phase, "Monster Hunt 2" was once projected to gross over 60 billion yuan at the box office.

Of course, this is pure nonsense and bragging, mostly market hype.

It's just like the "Fengshen" trilogy, which boasted a 30 billion yuan investment and a 100 billion yuan box office target...

Shen Yan frankly said: "I feel that they have no idea of ​​expanding the world view of 'Monster Hunt' at all. When I watched the first 'Monster Hunt', I vaguely felt that the world was very big, but the story was too small."

The second installment not only failed to delve deeper into the grand world, but also remained superficial, focusing entirely on Huba's cuteness... The script gave me a headache, so I simply withdrew my investment!

The previous "Monster Hunt" was quite ambitious, initially constructing a world of humans and monsters. In order to please the audience, it was understandable to create a character like Huba to be cute.

But in the second movie, they started focusing solely on Huba's cuteness and added a clumsy character to help out, which was quite shameful.

Ignoring the grand setting of the human-demon world, all that's left is a plot like the previous one: a certain demon king sends people to capture Huba again, and then, predictably, they fail again.

The current situation in the demon realm is not explained, nor is it clear how the washed-up little demon king Huba will overthrow both the human and demon realms, what exactly is going on with the Celestial Master Pavilion, or the search for his father which was abandoned halfway through.

The story is childish, illogical, disorganized, and poorly plotted.

There's a long stretch in the middle that seriously deviates from the main plot. Towards the end, the director probably suddenly remembered the scene where they captured Huba at the beginning, so they changed Yun Qing's style drastically, turning her into a monster, and had a rushed ending battle...

Why was Tony Leung chosen as the male lead?

"How would I know? Maybe the director and producers thought that Tony Leung's involvement would boost the film's box office?"

……

This is the shortsightedness of Hong Kong films!

"Monster Hunt" could have at least five parts...

Mainland actors + Hong Kong backing + Mainland capital.

The whole story follows the typical framework of a Hong Kong comedy film, and it was a box office hit!

Of course, this wasn't the initial plan—the original male lead was a Taiwanese actor.

But "Monster Hunt" was indeed the biggest winner of that summer's box office, and it also pointed out the way forward for Hong Kong films: Hong Kong people work behind the scenes, mainlanders stand in the spotlight, and the mainland takes the lion's share of the profits while Hong Kong people take a smaller share.

Although it's a small amount, in a place like Hong Kong, the revenue from a blockbuster film in mainland China is enough for a whole crew to live comfortably and financially independent for a lifetime...

and then?
Small places are small places; they become arrogant when they gain power, and become conceited when given a little sunshine. They take trivial matters as imperial edicts. "Monster Hunt 2" has gone back to the old ways, with Hong Kong people stealing roles from mainlanders, Hong Kong capital taking away mainland capital's share, and Hong Kong crews squeezing out mainland crews.

The end result was that although they made money, this big IP, which could have been made into a fifth installment, failed miserably with just two films.

From "Monster Hunt" to "Monster Hunt 2", the entire Hong Kong film industry overestimated itself and failed to recognize that it was the winds from the mainland that propelled them to success. Instead, they thought that their success was due to their own efforts in stepping on their own feet!
Why bring out a washed-up Hong Kong star to play the male lead?
You've lost your mind!
The first movie's main character and plot were quite good, at least passable. But the second movie had to come up with this inexplicable plot involving Tony Leung and a fake man...

One theory is that Bai Baihe got into trouble, which led to a major change in the script for the second part, resulting in very little screen time for the male lead, and Tony Leung's character felt out of place.

Liang Chaowei has been involved with bad movies in recent years.

"The Ferryman," "Monster Hunt 2," and "Europe Raiders"...

Back in the lounge, Shen Yan said to Rao Xiaozhi, "I think the script for 'Panic Gun' is pretty good. If you want to film it, I suggest you use a few actors from 'I Am an Actor'..."

"I Am an Actor...that Tencent variety show?"

"You didn't see it?"

"I only followed a few episodes..."

"Zhou Yiwei, Lan Yingying, Xin Zhilei, and Ren Suxi are all quite popular!"

How much did this show cost?

"I don't know," Shen Yan shook his head, "Anyway, it was invested in by Tencent...they have money!"

The show "I Am an Actor" has introduced many good actors, the kind with real acting skills...

Moreover, every episode of the show trends on social media…

Because there really are young actors coming here to undergo tribulation!
We can't get top-tier celebrities, but we have tons of young actors...

The program itself is positioned as an S+ level program, with high-quality, sophisticated, and cutting-edge production, and it dominates the broadcast index chart.

According to data from EntGroup Video Intelligence, as an "S+ level" program produced by Tencent Video, "I Am an Actor" has had a daily broadcast index that is far higher than the average of popular online variety shows during the same period since its broadcast. Every time the program is updated, the daily broadcast index rises to a high point.

Judging from the daily broadcast index rankings of online variety shows, the program topped the list on the second day after its premiere and remained the daily broadcast champion for several consecutive days.

To be honest, this variety show had a very high production cost!
This includes not only compensation and the like…

The short films performed by the contestants were built using a 1:1 scale set and switched scenes using the Huarong Road puzzle mechanism.

Each recording session requires 6-8 sets of real-life set vehicles.

The program strives for a cinematic quality, with extremely high requirements for props, sets, and set design!

The entire process was filmed in a cinematic style, using multiple cameras, storyboards, and including post-production editing, color grading, and special effects. The process and standards are close to those of film production, and the post-production costs are quite high!

There are also additional copyright fees, script development costs, and the salaries of a large crew: cameramen, lighting technicians, sound engineers, art directors, costume designers, makeup artists, prop masters, and other staff...

However, after the first episode aired, more than a dozen companies joined in to co-produce it…

Later, the number increased to thirty... including but not limited to: Bona Film Group, Tangren Media, New Classics Media, Hiti Media, Huace Media, Enlight Media, Wajijiwa Entertainment, Ciwen Media, etc...

Everyone knows this is a great platform for showcasing your work!
Oh, and they even invited Zhang Yimou to the finals... It really boosted the hype!
Barring any unforeseen circumstances, this variety show will definitely have a second and third season...

"Panic Gun" is the same as "The Nameless"...

This script is good!

Despite being released during a lackluster period without any star power, the film "Original Timeline" surprisingly grossed 7.9 million yuan at the box office...

It's a miracle!

Of course, the sequel, *The Unknowns: From Darkest to Brightest*, was truly a piece of garbage…

(End of this chapter)