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

Chapter 980 Rebuttal (13)

"Asura" was released for three days before being withdrawn from theaters...

Actually, it's quite normal for films to be withdrawn from release schedules. Other films that were withdrawn in July this year include "Legend of Ravaging Dynasties 2" and "New Shaolin Temple".

It's not surprising that it was temporarily withdrawn after its release!

"Where Are You Running To?" and "That Youth That Whistled By", etc.

Le Vision Pictures' statement regarding the withdrawal of "The Youth That Whistled By" is already quite bizarre. Although the tone was full of dissatisfaction, they still emphasized that it was "adapted from a rare and banned book," implying that it was their own loss that you couldn't see it. But at least they admitted that "the box office failure was due to market reasons," and they didn't criticize the audience for unfair ratings on Weibo. They accepted the loss and withdrew from the competition, which showed a good attitude.

The postponement of "Asura"...

The reason is: Cat's Eye is unfair!

Taopiaopiao gave it an 8.4 rating, while Maoyan only gave it a 4.9…

Conclusion: I was ripped off by Maoyan!

Director Bi, who wrote "Dream Chasing in the Entertainment Circle," expressed his appreciation, saying, "This is the most Hollywood-level Chinese blockbuster I've ever seen in a movie theater!" and "Asura, which should definitely be rated 9 points or higher, has been labeled a terrible movie!"

If you criticize Douban, Shen Yan probably won't say anything... But you criticize Maoyan?
"Previously, Maoyan's rating system was 'If you bought a ticket but didn't write a review, it would automatically give you a perfect score...' So, most movies had ratings above eight points. Moreover, you could not only get a rating from Maoyan itself, but also rate them directly on Meituan, Dianping, WeChat, etc."

"After we went public, we made some changes. Now we mainly divide ratings into pre-release ratings and post-release ratings. Pre-release ratings mean that before the official release, we invite movie-loving viewers from Zhihu, Tieba, Xiaohongshu, and Maoyan communities to watch the movie, and each person gets one vote..."

"This is the most honest review...because Maoyan didn't participate in the marketing, there's no need to cover for them...4.9 points, that's 4.9 points!"

"Let me tell you, if a movie has a rating of less than 9 on Maoyan, you shouldn't buy tickets. It's not worth watching!"

"Dying to Survive had a pre-release rating of nearly 9.9, which is why we dared to hold large-scale preview screenings!"

"We didn't distribute the movie 'Asura'; it was distributed by Taopiaopiao, and Ali Pictures also invested in it..."

"It's touted as a 7.5 million yuan blockbuster... What does 7.5 million yuan even mean?"

"To put it simply, the combined production cost of 'The Martian' and 'The Wandering Earth' is 7.2 million!"

"Let me first talk about the production company of this film, Zhenjian Pictures, whose founder is Yang Zhenjian... who started his business with the 'Painted Skin' series."

The producer's actions over the past few years can be described in four words: "working in isolation."

He thought that today's audience was the same as the audience a few years ago; if you fed them shit, they would open their mouths and obediently eat it.

They refuse to believe that the audience has any intelligence.

"Look at how he promoted 'Asura' and 'Painted Skin' using the exact same tactics... He's using the same marketing methods from 10 years ago, contacting Hollywood teams and promoting the use of big stars!"

What's the use?
Did we use big stars in "Dying to Survive"?

Also, a large part of the special effects for Avengers: Infinity War were done by our special effects company, including Avengers: Endgame!
Open your eyes and see the world!
And yet, they're inexplicably confident. With "Dying to Survive" and "Hidden Man" already on the market, they stubbornly insist on rushing in, then vehemently criticize ticketing platforms for any negative reviews. It's unclear whether they're genuinely confused or simply shameless.

"There's a high probability of that... This incident teaches us that filmmaking must keep up with the times! Times are changing, and so are audience tastes... Are we still using the same old formulas from ten years ago to make movies?"

The comments section was full of accusations of money laundering… Shen Yan shook his head: “It shouldn’t be, it’s just a financial product… In the past few years, many movies had just a script and then they would release financial products to raise funds, and the investors would buy the money when the movie was released.”

They can make their financial statements however they want... Unfortunately, times are changing too fast, and various financial products are collapsing one after another. I guess the main controllers of *Asura* are probably in a similar situation!

"I know the inside story about the cancellation, because of the performance-based agreement in the distribution contract between the production company and the distributor."

"The production and distribution companies for this film are not the same. The production companies are Ningxia Film Group and Zhenjian Pictures, while the distribution companies are China Film Group and Perfect World Pictures..."

"Let me first explain the background: The producers had very high expectations for this film. They genuinely believed that the film's story, cast, and release during the summer season would likely result in a box office of at least 20 billion yuan, and it might even reach 30 billion yuan!"

"In this state of blind confidence, they signed a betting-like issuance agreement with the issuer, with different distribution ratios in stages."

"The dismal box office performance after three days of release is far from what was initially predicted, and it's certain that we'll lose money."
If the screening time is extended further, according to the relevant agreement in this distribution entrustment, the proportion of the 4500 million box office revenue already achieved will increase as the screening time continues.

In other words, the film was pulled from theaters after only three days to minimize losses. Since it was already a guaranteed money loss, the goal was to lose as little as possible – that's the situation!

"The production company immediately withdrew the film as soon as it was released, which was a timely measure to cut losses in the face of harsh reality."

"The 7.5 million figure is absolutely outrageous. I could tell at most 1.5 million was cut from the production budget for this movie. The special effects are all just templates... It's very cheap!"

"Their box office predictions are based on historical performance. 'Painted Skin' was the third-place film that year, accounting for more than 5.3%; 'Painted Skin 2' accounted for nearly 4.5%... So 'Asura' only accounts for 3%, which is still more than 20 billion!"

"Percentage? I'm talking about the percentage of total box office revenue for a single film... Wolf Warrior 2 accounted for over 9.5%."

"After the film market was liberalized, the highest percentage was for 'Hero,' exceeding 25%!"

"That's how they calculate box office revenue; they don't watch the movies and analyze whether the audience can accept them..."

"Furthermore, there is a truth: any fantasy film that uses Western aesthetics and styling to depict Chinese fantasy is, if not absolutely, at least 90% of the time, a bad film!"

"Everyone wants to see a big-budget fantasy production, so Lu Yang and I are preparing a film called 'The Wonderful Night at the Film City'... It's definitely a big-budget Eastern fantasy production."

"The production cost should be over 3.5 million..."

"Using movies to launder money... that probably exists... but I don't know how it works!"

"Some people must have contacted me, but Ji Xiang stopped them all..."

"Oh, 'Zaijiutang' will wrap up filming in about a week..."

"It's just an independent film with a budget of 3000 million, something I made for fun..."

"Alright, that's enough about Asura..."

Then a bunch of people in the comments section asked him to review "Hidden Man"...

Shen Yan smiled and said, "I won't comment on Professor Jiang Wen's film..."

(End of this chapter)