I'm just trying to ride the wave of popularity!

Chapter 268 Crushed Arrogance
This battle!
Before this, no one thought they would lose!

The three major Hollywood studios and five major Chinese film companies jointly distributed the film, offering a 10% discount to cinemas nationwide and investing tens of millions of RMB in promotion, sparing no resources to pave the way for "Catwoman".

Subway ads, supermarket collaborations, online troll campaigns, even buying out prime-time screenings at 27 cinemas...

From Hollywood to China...

From North American theaters to Asian cinemas...

From Hong Kong and Taiwan stars to mainland directors...

Everyone was going all out to crush the Black Robe Alliance, determined to nip it in the bud!

Everyone thought it was a sure win!

however!
Nobody could have predicted this!
They actually lost this battle!

……

"Catwoman has been taken off the screens in North America, but it's still holding on in China. However, according to data from the three major theater chains and other smaller theater chains, it only grossed 210 million!"

"These 210 million are all thanks to the support of the most die-hard superhero fans..."

"Bro, that movie review article you posted more than 20 days ago seems to have suddenly become popular!"

"..."

10 month 6 day.

Film critic Liu Jiasheng, sitting in front of his computer in his study, looked at a box office data report from North America sent to him via Qdog.

Upon seeing this data, Liu Jiasheng was slightly taken aback…

I was somewhat dazed and incredulous, then filled with surprise, and then momentarily lost and bewildered!

A gust of wind blew by, and he subconsciously looked out the window, recalling the events of the past twenty-odd days, his heart filled with mixed feelings.

He witnessed the entire fierce box office battle.

On September 15th, when "Catwoman," with its $200 million production cost and a star-studded cast including an Oscar-winning actress, was released ahead of schedule and joined forces with five major Chinese film studios to launch a full-scale attack on "Black Robe Alliance," Liu Jiasheng, like countless netizens, was shocked!
Although in his view, "The Black Robe Alliance" is absolutely an anti-superhero masterpiece...

However, even in the Hollywood film industry, masterpieces can be born at the wrong time!
Moreover, this is a complete game-changer. What do Zhou Yang and Marvel Comics, a Hollywood company on the verge of bankruptcy, have to compete with?

Seeing those people in the Chinese film industry targeting Zhou Yang almost like madmen, and seeing a series of "accounts" that were clearly brought by the five major Chinese film companies, he couldn't help but feel a sense of tragic heroism!
Moved by this, he wrote a long film review entitled "The Tragic Martyrs," and after finishing it, he felt even more uneasy...

But this article was quickly suppressed...

On social media, even within Zhou Yang's own platforms like "Movie Home" and "Kuaibo," the sentiment that "Zhou Yang is doomed to fail" is overwhelming. Some even mock "Black Robe Alliance" as a "knock-off" and claim that "the original is coming to take him away."

Countless people predicted that Zhou Yang would become a victim of the game of capital, and ultimately, never recover...

During that period, Zhou Yang's fiancée, Zhang Ying, cursed those accounts online almost every day, angrily retaliating against them. The wealthy women of "Zhou Yang's Home" even spent a lot of money to fight against those online trolls, including publicly supporting Zhou Yang in various places, campaigning for him, and even preparing to pay for netizens to continue going to the movies...

However, they ultimately failed...

Despite such immense pressure and encirclement, advance tickets for "Black Robe Alliance" are still selling very well in Huaxia Cinemas, with many cinemas experiencing an astonishing shortage of tickets!
In particular, the cinemas that Zhou Yang has strategically partnered with have been relentlessly scheduling screenings, which has added a glimmer of hope to this desperate and brutal battle!

The box office performance of "The Black Robe Alliance" is very strong. Even with "Catwoman" taking away a large share of screenings in China, the film is still growing at a rate of about 800 million yuan per day...

Despite the strong performance of "The Black Robe Alliance" in the Chinese market, it still seemed somewhat powerless compared to the astonishing opening weekend box office of "Catwoman" at 2950 million RMB...

however!
Ultimately, movies are not a game of capital; the final winner is still the audience's choice!

No one expected that the highly anticipated "Catwoman" would backfire after its release due to its hollow plot and blatant product placement!
Despite numerous accounts in the film industry praising the movie after three days of release, its reputation has collapsed. Although the damage was temporarily mitigated, the box office performance has been disastrous!
After the premiere, pre-sale tickets plummeted, and three days later, daily box office revenue dropped by 40%. The outcry from audiences demanding refunds spread from Los Angeles all the way to Beijing...

On the fourth day, even the most bustling theater in Beijing, Huaying International, was starting to fill up its theaters for the screening of "Catwoman"!
This was a fierce battle...

【XuanShi Entertainment】is almost out of resources...

Before this, no one thought they could win, not even me. In "The Tragic Martyrs," I wrote with a profound sense of despair...

However, "The Black Robe Alliance" ultimately broke through the encirclement by capital.

When the box office phenomenon of "Catwoman" collapsed amidst audience rejection, Zhou Yang used a subversive narrative to prove that true cinema never needs a gilded pedestal.

[The tampered memories of superheroes, the bloodstains under the mechanical aunt's apron, the absurd product placements in the live stream... every frame is a sharp counterattack against the Hollywood assembly line.]

There were no winners in this battle, only the persistence of a group of madmen, and the arrogance crushed under the wheels of time.

The wind outside the window is warm.

Liu Jiasheng looked at the comments and reposts flooding the comments section of his previously suppressed post, "The Tragic Martyr," on the [Movie House] forum...

He clenched his fist and excitedly wrote "Crushed Pride" on the manuscript.

After finishing writing it, he posted it on the internet immediately...

........................

10 month 6 day.

[Huaying International]. The office was filled with smoke.

Li Mingrui chain-smoked cigarettes, his eyes fixed on the sunset outside the window.

The afterglow of the setting sun cast a long shadow of him, as if mocking his all-out gamble.

The office was littered with box office reports for "Catwoman," whose glorious opening day figure of 2950 million was now an irony, while the screenings of "The Black Robe Alliance" were spreading like wildfire...

From the 20th to today, the total box office of "Catwoman" in China is close to 1.4 million RMB, far below the expected target of 4 million RMB!
In contrast, "The Black Robe Alliance" grossed over 50 million yuan in its first three days after its premiere on September 12, and nearly 140 million yuan in total after eight days...

Even during the 16-day period of suppression, it still achieved an astonishing box office of 1.35 million RMB!
The film grossed 2.75 million yuan in 24 days!
Staring at this set of data, I stubbed out my last cigarette, staring at the glaring contrast curves on the computer screen…

Five major companies spent tens of millions on advertising, three major cinema chains offered a 10% cut of revenue, and they even used all their media resources to launch a campaign against the company…

But in the end!
Catwoman's box office in China stopped at 1.4 million yuan, while that damned Black Robe Alliance is rushing wildly toward the 3 million yuan mark!

There was a knock on the office door.

The secretary walked in silently, head down...

"Mr. Li, the shareholders are very unhappy about this..."

When Li Mingrui heard this, he was not surprised, and nodded.

"I know……"

This battle!
Huaying International gave it its all, but also suffered heavy losses!

Over the past two weeks, apart from the initial three days of a surge in Huaying International's Hong Kong-listed shares, the stock market has been crashing almost every day since. Today, it plummeted by 12%, wiping out nearly HK$1.5 million in market value. Huaying International has become almost the biggest joke in the entire Hong Kong stock market…

Just yesterday, shareholders bombarded Li Mingrui's office with questions, all angrily demanding why he had missed out on the screening rights for "Black Robe Alliance".

The same storm swept through Tianxing Films and Fengyu International.

The joint attack by the three theater chains not only failed to suppress "The Black Robe Alliance," but also allowed 27 small and medium-sized theater chains to make a fortune.

Even more fatally, because Zhou Yang refused to authorize "The Black Robe Alliance," and with Hollywood movies leaving a vacuum period after the summer season, the three major cinema chains could only try to compete for the National Day holiday in October with "Catwoman" and other domestic films scheduled for release...

However, during the summer blockbuster season, established Chinese film directors were almost completely defeated by Hollywood films, while films by new directors performed only moderately well at the box office. Coincidentally, the entire Chinese film industry was in a state of transition during the National Day holiday, resulting in the three major cinema chains achieving a ten-year low in attendance and delivering a disheartening performance...

Huaying International was alright, but Tianxing Film and Television even had a day with zero admissions to its screening rooms.

Upon witnessing this, short-selling institutions in the secondary market reacted swiftly, causing the stocks of the three major cinema chains to plummet, with a combined market value loss of over HK$4 million.

"Mr. Li, let's back down!"

The setting sun outside the window gradually disappeared into the distance.

The sunset glow lingered over half the sky...

The secretary timidly offered a suggestion.

When Li Mingrui heard this, he sighed: "Do you think I haven't considered bowing my head?"

When he said those words, there was a slight bitterness in the corner of his mouth!
these days……

He did consider backing down.

They also tried to contact Dong Qichang, hoping he could act as a mediator and mediate the conflict between them and Zhou Yang.

but!
On the other end of the phone, Dong Qichang remained calm throughout.

Just one sentence...

"Mr. Li, if only you had known this would happen, why did you do it in the first place? Actually, before the premiere of 'Catwoman,' we all had a chance to sit down and talk..."

"But after the premiere of 'Catwoman'..."

"You probably know Mr. Zhou's personality; he's a ruthless person who will stop at nothing..."

“He remembers all the things you did to us!”

"He would rather let the other 27 cinemas burn down than give the three major cinema chains any chance..."

"..."

At the end of the phone call, Dong Qichang's voice was filled with melancholy!

A gust of wind blew.

As darkness fell over the distant land...

The telephone rang frantically.

Li Mingrui answered the phone!
On the other end of the phone, there was a barrage of curses from the capital behind [Huaying International], which was particularly jarring!
Li Mingrui took a deep breath!

Finally, I gritted my teeth!
"I'm going to [XuanShi Entertainment] myself!"

(End of this chapter)