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

Chapter 373 The Eve of the Massacre!

The evening of June 9.

The conference room of Tianyu Entertainment was filled with smoke.

Deng Baichuan stared at the computer screen, his expression complex.

At this moment, an indescribable sense of powerlessness welled up inside me.

[XuanShi Tickets] Movie tickets are selling like hotcakes!
9月16日早上8点15分，《变形钢筋》19日首映场次刚开放预售，系统瞬间被汹涌的流量冲得几近卡顿。

The technical department's monitoring screen showed that the ticket purchase curve was soaring like a rocket.

In just 12 minutes and 38 seconds, all premiere screenings at 40 new cinemas across the country were sold out!
Back-end data shows that 110 million tickets were snapped up, averaging 1457 tickets sold per second, setting a new record for the fastest sell-out in Huaxia Film's history.

Even more outrageous is that, due to the "bundled sales" strategy, viewers holding tickets for "Transformers" can enjoy an additional 6 yuan discount. Coupled with Zhou Yangfang's adjustment of the theater's screening schedule, this directly stimulated "Transformers" pre-sale tickets to go even higher...

Their "Transformers" film, however, was under Zhou Yang's "Theatrical Alliance" umbrella, resulting in a nearly 3% reduction in market share...

All of these shares were given to "Deformed Steel Bars"...

Zhou Yang's forces came on strong, sweeping through the world...

Meanwhile, on their side...

Deng Baichuan looked up at the faces in the conference room, his heart filled with mixed emotions.

The smoke in the conference room was so thick it almost solidified. More than twenty people sat around a long table, but it was so quiet that the hum of the central air conditioning could be heard.

Old Ma fiddled with BaoTao.com's financial report, his fingers rhythmically tapping the table, his face growing increasingly grim.

【XuanShi Mall】has already stolen 15% of their traffic in just three days since its launch, with various promotional policies that have caught them off guard!
More importantly, to deal with Zhou Yang's overwhelming challenge, they need a lot of funds and the cooperation of merchants!

But, are these things really that easy?
In addition to this, there's the cooperation of these filmmakers in promotion and the money from investors!
But now, these filmmakers are all messing around over subsidies!

"A subsidy of 20 yuan per ticket?" Li Minghao from Huaying International frowned. "We only get 12 yuan in revenue sharing as a theater chain! If we subsidize any more, we really can't afford it. Is your ticketing system even ready yet?"

He kept complaining that Zhou Yang had completely gone mad, setting fires everywhere. They had cooperated in lowering prices, but now they weren't making any money. More importantly, Zhou Yang's ticketing system had suddenly stolen a large number of their viewers. Even though the movie was supposed to be a huge hit, their theaters weren't packed, and some theaters weren't even full...

Everyone's gone to the [Cinema Alliance]...

His gaze fell on Chen Lei, whose gloomy face was illuminated by the blue light from the projector as he stared at the plummeting pre-sale figures for "Transformers"...

How can a ticketing system be completed so quickly?
Even if it's done!
Crazy subsidies are needed!

"Wanda was planning a cinema-wide collaboration? Now they've backed down? We can't just keep subsidizing them, can we? Why don't you contribute some money to subsidize the cinemas? It's not enough for the event! Why are the cinemas in Zhou Yang's area so united? Everyone's willing to contribute their own money to cooperate with Zhou Yang's efforts?" Just then, someone stared in the direction of Wanda's representative and spoke sarcastically!

No sooner had he finished speaking than Wang Jiansen's assistant retorted, "If you're willing to give up 3% of the revenue share from derivative products, we'll cover it. Besides, we've already subsidized the prices of our products once. If we continue to subsidize them, there'll be no point in us doing this promotion!"

"Now is the time for us to unite against a common enemy, we're all on the same side! Let's not lose our composure..." Chen Lei stared in the direction of Assistant Representative Wang Jiansen: "We're here this time to negotiate and help each other make up for our shortcomings, we can't let Zhou Yang disrupt the market again!"

"President Chen, the subsidies must be real money. Zhou Yang's coal bosses are burning through cash, but what about us?"

"We're putting up these posters too. We've been doing it since before the domestic film protection month, and we don't know how much money we've spent on them!"

"Yes, you're creating a god, you're promoting it, you're spending money, but what's the result? Will there be a second Zhou Yang? If this money were used to support our market, would our market be like this?"

Before he could finish speaking, Old Ma interrupted him: "Everyone!"

He stood up: "Zhou Yang's online store is using movie tickets as coupons, and our [BaoTao] clothing category saw a 40% drop yesterday! If this continues, the online shopping industry will collapse..."

The entire conference room was in complete chaos!
Almost everyone was expressing their opinions and fighting for their own interests, but no one spoke up on the issue of "spending money," putting all the pressure on a group of capitalists led by Chen Lei.

At this moment, these capitalists remained silent, their faces grim.

Just as Chen Lei was about to say something...

The CFO suddenly rushed in and whispered something in his ear: "Hong Sheng's cash flow is in some danger... The invested projects haven't broken even yet, and the scale has expanded too much!" Chen Lei raised his hand to stop him, his gaze sweeping over everyone in the entire system, before finally narrowing his eyes.

"Keep burning." Chen Lei's voice was hoarse but his eyes were bloodshot: "We at [Hongsheng Capital] are making a statement: we'll allocate 3 million yuan from our real estate fund to subsidize the film market!"

After saying that, he looked at Wanda Realty: "You Wanda Realty have plenty of funds, so you should also contribute money to subsidize and continue to run activities and burn money!"

The representative from Wanda Realty remained silent for a moment, then stared at Chen Lei: "How long will this battle last?"

"It won't take long, at most a month!"

The people at Wanda Realty shook their heads: "A month? Probably not. Zhou Yang may seem to be throwing money around, but in reality, they already have the ability to generate revenue, and those coal bosses..."

The meeting room was completely silent.

Chen Lei looked somewhat gloomy.

He looked down, staring at the files of the coal mine owners with whom Zhou Yang had cooperated.

Finally, it scanned everyone again.

At this very moment, on this table, there is a wide variety of goods, from online shopping malls to brick-and-mortar stores, from entertainment companies to cinemas, and even offline retail...

Everyone could see the future trend clearly, and they had a considerable amount of funds. If they united and shared a common hatred for the enemy, it would be easy for them to defeat Zhou Yang.

Let's really start fighting!

Results will be seen within a month!
However, everyone was rendered speechless by Zhou Yang's beating.

Moreover, everyone has their own agenda, and it's impossible for them to go all in with him!
His gaze finally fell on Deng Baichuan.

"General Manager Deng..."

"You mean, Mr. Chen..."

"Why didn't you just ignore those few million and recruit Zhou Yang directly? Why all this trouble?"

Deng Baichuan looked at Xu Haibo.

Standing there, Xu Haibo thought of that young heartthrob Zheng Yichen and his gang again...

He immediately lowered his head.

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

【XuanShi Entertainment】

The evening sun shone into Zhou Yang's conference room.

The conference room in Zhou Yang was also filled with smoke. Li Dachun smoked one cigarette after another, his legs crossed.

“President Zhou, our future system is very large. Theoretically speaking, I shouldn’t be looking for you. After all, I’m now, like in the plays, a regional warlord, holding the power of life and death. But there are some things I need to discuss with you for peace of mind…”

"Mr. Li, stop beating around the bush and just tell me what you want to do?" Zhou Yang looked at Li Dachun's expression and felt helpless.

"Mr. Zhou, I have a few coal miners who are very interested in art and want to come here for a career change. They all want to be prominent figures... and they all want to contribute to our domestic special effects, film industry, and domestic products..."

"so……"

"They filled out an application form, wanting to join our capital system and play with us..."

"Mr. Li, we now have more than thirty companies in capital. We have many projects at the moment, but as you know, we are not that short of money right now..."

“That’s true, but Mr. Zhou, none of us here are short of money. Everyone’s here to become an ‘entrepreneur,’ we all want status and prestige. You’ve been making such a big splash lately, everyone’s getting a little envious and wants to show off…”

"..."

Zhou Yang looked down at a stack of coal mine owners' files and was somewhat amused and exasperated: "President Li, have you brought over most of the coal mine owners' groups in China?"

"Pretty much, but there are still some people who aren't really interested... Everyone wants to play the role of 'respectable' capital... Your 'China Film Industry' project is quite well done, it makes everyone feel a sense of mission, everyone is in the news, everyone has a lot of face... We all want to follow your next project and become 'red capital'..."

"..."

Zhou Yang watched Li Dachun speak eloquently, and finally said helplessly, "Next, I want to start a project called 'Rise of Domestic Products' to resist foreign capital. Do you want to get involved?"

"Let's play! Everyone should play! The project is big enough, isn't it fun?"

"That's big enough, that's great!"

"Also, we've heard that Hollywood seems to be working on 'Transformers 2' and a MonsterVerse project. I don't know the specifics, but I'm thinking of investing heavily in a robot romance movie, a heartwarming and healing animated film, called 'Robot Whale'... Besides that, I'm thinking of starting a MonsterVerse movie project, with the first film being a gorilla. These projects are all quite big, some might cost around 2 million RMB..."

"Film it! Hurry up and film it! This is great! A movie like this will make the news, right?"

"Yes, we can get it done. These are our key projects for 2007, of course, not excluding 'Wu Hun 4' and the tokusatsu cinematic universe... Of course, there's also 'Black Robe Alliance 3'... We plan to officially start competing with Hollywood in 07, though of course, there's also the risk of losing..."

"Sure, sure! The more projects the better... So, all my coal-mining friends, come in and follow your lead, everyone can have fun?"

"Okay, I'll review the materials myself. We must ensure the people involved are of good character, not shady or messy, and that the information is positive!"

"Upright, absolutely upright! Overflowing with positive energy!"

"can!"

Just then, Zhou Yang received a phone call.

The call was from Chen Lei.

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

Early in the morning of June 9.

The meeting finally ended.

People gradually dispersed.

Chen Lei sat silently in the chair and closed his eyes.

This meeting resulted in him giving up a lot of profits and continuing to inject a significant amount of RMB into these companies.

Not to say it was a desperate gamble, but I was exhausted...

What's even more regrettable is that at this moment, they are in a passive defensive state.

He glanced silently at the upcoming Hollywood movies.

He actually has quite a few Hollywood movies in his possession, but he can't possibly use them to crush Zhou Yang's films.

Zhou Yang's thuggish behavior clearly shows that the local gang doesn't follow the rules...

They've met their match in the Chinese market.

Finally, he dialed Zhou Yang's number.

He wanted to talk to Zhou Yang.

"Mr. Zhou..."

"Mr. Chen..."

"Mr. Zhou, we can sit down and have a good talk. Personally, I think if we keep fighting, not only will the whole market be disrupted, but no one will make any money... What are your terms? We can sit down and discuss them properly... There's no need for this... Which part of the profits do you want? We can divide it up... The market is so big, there's no need to target us specifically... Besides, the capital behind us is also enormous. Let's not make things difficult for everyone..."

"President Chen, things have come to this point, and it's no longer a matter of me simply wanting to call a truce..."

You mean there's no room for negotiation?

"It's not that there's nothing to talk about, but rather..."

"But what?"

"This truce isn't an invitation for me to join you at the table; it's a mid-game break to regroup and prepare supplies. You and I both know that..."

"..."

"Moreover, this battle is not one I want to fight, but one that the Chinese film industry and the Hollywood film industry must fight, and one that this era must fight!"

Zhou Yang hung up the phone.

And at this moment...

There was a knock at the door.

The secretary walked in with her head down.

The latest box office figures are out.

After seeing the latest box office data...

Chen Lei closed his eyes, and when he opened them, his eyes were bloodshot and even slightly ferocious...

(End of this chapter)