Who said this top flow is crazy! This top flow is awesome!

Lao Chen had reason to be confused, because anyone could see the momentum of "Detective Chinatown 1899"—it was going to be a hit, even though the film's reception after its release was polarized... in other words, not very good.

But Director Chen, who has been working on commercial films for many years, understands that ratings are sometimes just for reference. For commercial films, the most important thing is always the box office. As long as you have high box office returns, all the flowers and applause will follow.

He has encountered situations where the film receives poor reviews but high box office returns more than once; in fact, it's become the norm for him.

The assistant swallowed hard and whispered, "As of 8 p.m., The Wandering Earth's real-time box office has overtaken ours... leading by 50 million, and the occupancy rate is also rising."

Chen Sicheng: "..."

“Impossible.” He paused, glanced sharply at the people around him, and only after confirming that no one was paying attention to them did he gesture for his assistant to move to a corner: “We were leading by 1.5 million before, and this is only the second day…”

The assistant cursed inwardly, "You're asking me? Who am I supposed to ask?"

The only option was to hand over the phone, which displayed real-time box office data from a reputable organization.

Detective Chinatown 1899's cumulative box office: 10.87 billion yuan

The Wandering Earth's cumulative box office: 10.95 billion yuan

Moreover, the numbers are still jumping, and "The Wandering Earth" is visibly increasing every minute.

Chen Sicheng stared at it for more than ten seconds, then suddenly laughed, a relieved laugh: "Damn, this is outrageous! Does that mean their box office today will break records?"

The assistant comforted him, saying, "Comedies tend to have a fast box office in the first half, but they are prone to collapse in the second half. This is normal. As for sci-fi films? What good are good reviews? They can't penetrate second, third, and fourth-tier cities, they can't penetrate county towns, and they can't be among the movie choices of the elderly and children."

Chen Sicheng, however, was not optimistic. He has never been an optimist, and the trajectory of "The Wandering Earth" had made him feel extremely uneasy.

……

Meanwhile, coconut jelly.

Chi Ye was curled up on the sofa scrolling through her phone, while the old lady was happily scrolling through her phone next to her. As for the children, they were being looked after by a nanny.

The phone screen displayed real-time box office figures. This summer, watching the number go from trailing by 1.5 million to now leading by nearly 1 million, he would occasionally let out indescribable laughter, which sent chills down Ike's spine.

What are you doing?

"I'm reading the comments section!"

"..."

I ignored Chi Ye this summer and continued scrolling through the comments.

"Holy crap, this comeback is so satisfying! These past few days have been filled with paid trolls, constantly trending negatively on social media. It's hilarious. What's the point of all that negativity?"

"The Wandering Earth has such a powerful aftereffect. This morning I saw many colleagues recommending it in our group chat, saying they've taken their parents to see it a second time."

"The fact that a domestic sci-fi film is made like this, and is actually overshadowed by a terrible movie that's full of commercials, means that everyone here bears some responsibility."

"How much is it now?"

"The county cinema increased the screenings of 'The Wandering Earth' to 60% today. The manager said it's because people who couldn't get tickets were the ones who saw it. This is the first time I've felt a movie has this kind of appeal."

"Everyone go see it! Everyone go see 'The Wandering Earth'! If possible, I recommend a giant screen; if not, IMAX or Dolby are fine too. I highly recommend it. Only those who have seen it on a giant screen know that it's a completely different movie in a regular theater and a giant screen theater!"

"Ikeno has once again proven that the Chinese entertainment industry can really be indiscriminately exploitative. With 'The Martian,' Ikeno seemed to have a passion for science fiction, and now with 'The Wandering Earth,' it's confirmed. He's a pure enthusiast, a true genius, and fucking amazing!"

"..."

The storm surrounding "The Wandering Earth" officially swept through the Chinese entertainment industry on the third day of the Spring Festival film season.

It started with Weibo, or more accurately, it was a simultaneous launch on both Douyin and Weibo.

The historic filming techniques, visuals, and special effects, the dedicated team, the high number of screenings and the constant buzz—and most importantly, the increasingly frenzied and crazy box office performance—all prove this point.

Therefore, every phenomenal work has its origins and patterns. The structure of "The Wandering Earth" is the template for the most classic phenomenal work.

From the initial release of the film to the spread of positive word-of-mouth, various "plaques" that had been used and discarded by countless people before, such as "The Rise of Chinese Science Fiction" and "True God of Science Fiction," were put back into use.

#Another masterpiece after The Martian#, and the related hot topics of #Visual effects surpass The Martian# are countless.

Coconut and Ikeno are definitely not short of money now.

"The Wandering Earth" was like a renamed version of "Traffic Earth," and from that day on, it began to soar.

"How was it? How was it?"

The next day, at 10:00 AM.

Outside a movie theater, Ling Han looked at her sullen assistant and became sullen herself.

She did not attend the premiere of "The Wandering Earth" because she had an engagement that she couldn't cancel, so she had to miss the opportunity to watch the film.

As a long-time fan of Ikeno, she wanted to buy tickets to see the movie as soon as she finished her work, but... she couldn't get any. She had been trying for two days and still hadn't been able to get tickets for a single showing.

Of course, this is related to her insistence on buying tickets for that day and the theater she chose, but... that's not a reason why she couldn't buy them.

Based on the various voices online today and yesterday, as well as the clearly "abnormal" box office performance of "The Wandering Earth," she had a vague premonition.

Something's not right, something's very wrong, things seem to be getting out of hand.

Didn't you get a ticket?

"without……"

"Ugh."

"If all else fails, we can just find a movie theater we know and go in to watch it."

The assistant carefully observed Ling Han's expression and made a suggestion.

“How can that be? I heard online that only a giant screen can provide the best viewing experience, and... it has to be counted in the box office, so we can’t make exceptions.”

Ling Han was very "professional," leaving her assistant speechless.

"Hmm... Here's what you should do, you go and try to contact them first, see if we can watch it and have it counted separately at the box office... It's unlikely to work, so you should try contacting scalpers."

"……it is good."

……

That evening, "The Wandering Earth" grossed 7.2 million yuan in a single day, directly surpassing "Detective Chinatown 1899" which had grossed 3.4 million yuan in a single day, and widening the cumulative box office gap to 5 million yuan. Its share of screenings nationwide reached a terrifying 69%, directly eating up more than half of the screenings of "Detective Chinatown 1899," which had previously held the top spot.

As for "Yang Jian 2", three days later, it has achieved an unprecedented "release-and-die" in the Chinese entertainment industry, with almost all of its screenings being taken over by "The Wandering Earth". Its Douban score has also experienced a historic drop, falling to 4.4.

Xu Zheng's "The Rider" grossed less than 100 million yuan in a single day, only 80 million yuan, failing to make a splash and going unnoticed.

"You mean Duo Shao?!"

"7.2 million in a single day?!"

When the box office results for "The Wandering Earth" were released on its third day, not only those in the industry but also those outside were shocked by the outrageous single-day box office figures.

—This has never been this outrageous since the market began.

It scored 7.2 on a single day, and the momentum of "The Wandering Earth" is still going strong. What will it be next?

8 million, 9 million? Or even 10 billion?
Is this even a domestic film? When has the box office ever been this hot?
No, not the overall market, but which movie was this popular?

The once-unrivaled "Wolf Warrior 2" only grossed 5 million yuan in a single day at its peak. Is "The Wandering Earth" going to surpass that by more than double?
"No way, this is outrageous! Are you sure this wasn't faked?"

"The extent to which the data was altered is outrageous."

"What do you mean by 'fake'? You mean stealing box office revenue? Yes, they did steal it, it seems like it was 'Yang Jian 2' that stole it."

"What?"

The film "Yang Jian 2" was exposed for box office fraud. The news broke that very night. Apparently, a viewer who wanted to see "The Wandering Earth" asked a scalper to buy a ticket, but the scalper recommended a different theater to him.

The staff then told him to order tickets for "Yang Jian 2" on his phone, print out the ticket stub, and then use a pen to change it to the theater for "The Wandering Earth" so he could go in and watch the movie.

This approach avoids taking up screen time from "Yang Jian 2" while still generating revenue by attributing box office earnings to "Yang Jian 2," and simultaneously allows audiences to see "The Wandering Earth"—a win-win situation.

But they didn't expect that their actions would be discovered so quickly and posted online.

This caused a huge uproar.

"Who told them to do this?! Aren't they trying to kill me?"

Director Wu was also shocked, mainly because he didn't actually instruct them to do this. First of all, this kind of operation is outdated. In other words, if they did it, they would be exposed and proven guilty sooner or later.

If someone really wanted to steal box office revenue, there would naturally be more covert and undetectable methods, rather than being so "openly" shameless.

What exactly happened at that movie theater?
Could it be that Ikeno deliberately paid me to sabotage me?!

"It's a cinema on the investor's side. They did this to avoid breaching their contract."

The producer had already investigated thoroughly. With the huge success of "Yang Jian", "Yang Jian 2" naturally benefited in terms of contract terms. At the time, in order to cooperate as soon as possible, most major cinema chains signed agreements guaranteeing a minimum number of screenings. The meaning was simple: during the release of "Yang Jian 2", the film's screening share in a certain cinema must not be less than a certain amount.

This was an agreement that benefited the creative team of "Yang Jian 2", but it didn't have much impact on the cinemas. After all, who could have imagined that "Yang Jian 2" would suddenly flop like this? It was more abrupt than the end of the world tomorrow!

Now that everything has happened, everyone has their own methods to avoid violating the agreement, and this is just the most clumsy one right now.

Director Wu was so angry that his chest ached, and he felt his blood pressure soaring. He was on the verge of crying.

"If this happens, won't we go bankrupt completely?!"

He shouted, "I don't believe it! It must be Ikeno getting revenge! Ikeno is deliberately getting back at me!"

Everyone: "..."

At this point, people started to think outside the box. The reputation of "Yang Jian 2" was indeed terrible. Making a sequel like this was not its biggest problem. Its biggest problem was the metaphor of its biased stance.

The deliberate distortion of ancient Chinese mythological figures, along with the recent revelation that the actress playing the Third Princess cheated on her way to high marks during her school years… these are all too sensitive issues. I bet the authorities are eager for "Yang Jian 2" to be pulled from theaters right now.

Once the film is taken off the screens, it will mean losing all their savings. After all, when everyone saw how popular "Yang Jian" was, they all gritted their teeth and emptied their pockets to make as much money as possible for the sequels.

Even if Director Wu himself doesn't say it, more than a dozen investors have been providing strong support.

If we can't recoup our costs and end up losing everything, then...

Director Wu swallowed hard and immediately gestured: "Debunking the rumors, debunking the rumors! This wasn't done by us. Whoever did it, let them step forward!"

……

Director Wu was really anxious, and the denial statement from "Yang Jian 2" was released very quickly. But not long after, before the netizens could respond, Ling Han's assistant used his own account to reveal the whole process of the box office theft.

Not only were people inside and outside the industry stunned, but the Film Association also quickly issued a document. Two days later, "Yang Jian 2" was officially notified to be taken off the screen for rectification. As for when it will be re-released after rectification, only they know.

It wasn't until then that everyone realized that "Yang Jian 2" might be completely doomed. Although the Film Association didn't have the power to remove films from theaters, this document was still very powerful. The timing of its submission was perfect, and the response from higher authorities was extremely swift, far exceeding that of typical films.

Ikeno...Ikeno...This time he's not here to take down Director Wu's life alone; he wants to completely take over all the screenings and resources for "Yang Jian 2"!
Ikeno himself was unaware that the misunderstandings about him had reached such a deep level, but the end of the screening of "Yang Jian 2" did indeed add fuel to the fire for the final take-off of "The Wandering Earth".

Homelessness has truly become a "traffic" topic.

On its fourth day of release, "The Wandering Earth" maintained a daily box office of over 7 million yuan, officially surpassing 30 billion yuan in total box office revenue.

The figure dropped slightly on the fifth day to 36 billion.

On the sixth day, 42 billion.

The seventh day, the eighth day...

In just ten days since its release, The Wandering Earth has officially surpassed 50 billion yuan at the box office, leading the second-place film, Detective Chinatown 1899, by 34 billion yuan.

It's worth mentioning that while "The Wandering Earth" was soaring, "Detective Chinatown 1899" also suffered from a bad reputation, with its box office declining day by day. It has been declining from the top spot during the Spring Festival season. Chen Sicheng is completely dumbfounded and did not expect this situation.

The Wandering Earth achieved such a terrifying record precisely because of the assistance and comparison from two competing companies, as well as, most importantly, the share of screenings.

It was only at this moment that everyone realized that Ikeno seemed to have added another masterpiece.

But this seems to be more than just Ikeno's representative work. Compared to his previous work of the same genre, "The Martian," this one has generated such a huge buzz that it has completely dominated the nation in terms of popularity and online traffic.

If "Yang Jian" during the National Day holiday was a phenomenon, then "The Wandering Earth" was a super phenomenon. Ikeno's cumulative box office has officially surpassed 300 billion yuan because of this movie.

He became the first actor in China to break this box office record.

Officially crowned No. 1. (End of Chapter)