Global Best Actor: Starting with Picking Up Attributes in America

Chapter 417 Over-marketing?

On the set of Avengers.

Everyone's talking about this.

Since becoming friends with Chen Xun, they have both registered on Weibo and frequently follow the developments in the domestic entertainment industry.

Chris Hemsworth, scrolling through the sarcastic comments from Chinese netizens, laughed so hard he almost fell over. He patted Chen Xun on the shoulder and said, "Bro, you're too ruthless! You've scared away all our domestic competitors. If I were them, I'd run too. Who would want to fight you?"

Chen Xun was both amused and exasperated: "What does this have to do with me? It's their own lack of confidence in their film."

"How can it be alright?"

Robert Downey Jr. leaned over, adjusting his sunglasses: "Everyone knows you're a box office lucky charm. Every movie you're in has grossed at least $10 billion. Releasing a film in the same time slot as yours is practically suicide!"

Just as the entire internet was joking about the Spring Festival film frenzy, a smear campaign targeting "The Wandering Earth" quietly began.

The first to jump out was Zhang Jiake, a veteran director in China who had spent half his life making art films.

This director did indeed make some good films in his early years.

But in the last ten years or so, the films he's made have been flops one after another.

The highest-grossing film didn't even reach 100 million.

They also like to criticize commercial films online, accuse audiences of having low aesthetic standards, and claim that Chinese films are ruined by internet traffic and commercial films.

Early that morning, Zhang Jiake suddenly posted a long message on his WeChat Moments, fiercely criticizing "The Wandering Earth" and Chen Xun and Guo Fan: "The film industry has long since changed. Instead of thinking about how to make good movies, they think about how to market and hype every day."

"A science fiction film, six months in advance, started to have a flood of press releases, praising everything from the Hollywood voice cast to overseas distribution, making it seem like Chinese films are the best in the world."

"What 'taking the Earth on a Wandering Earth' and 'the first year of Chinese science fiction' are nothing but bubbles built up by capital. Hiring a few Hollywood stars for voice acting and buying a few overseas screenings are enough to make them claim to have a simultaneous global release. In the end, it's just worshipping foreign things and relying on foreigners to gild their own image."

"Chen Xun is famous now. He made some money in Hollywood and came back to fleece domestic audiences. Guo Fan is the same. He gave up being a good director and followed the hype of capital, treating movies as a tool to make money. He has long lost the professional ethics of a filmmaker."

"Ultimately, a film's quality matters, not its marketing hype. Once the film is released and audiences realize they've been fooled, they'll naturally vote with their feet. At that point, the door that Chinese science fiction has just opened will be completely welded shut by you opportunists."

The moment this post was published on WeChat Moments, it was immediately screenshotted and shared online, instantly igniting a public outcry.

Several directors and screenwriters close to Zhang Jiake immediately followed suit, echoing his sentiments: "Director Zhang is right! The film industry today is too superficial; marketing trumps content. If this continues, Chinese cinema has no future!"

"A film that hasn't even been released yet is being touted as something amazing; excessive marketing will only erode the audience's trust."

"I've said before that China can't make good sci-fi films. Right now, it's all just marketing. It'll be exposed when it's released."

For a time, the online sentiment was indeed swayed quite a bit.

Some marketing accounts followed suit and started publishing press releases such as "The Wandering Earth is over-marketed" and "Chen Xun is exploiting non-fans".

Some people also dug up Chen Xun's previous charity activities, saying that he "did charity work to whitewash his image and to promote his movies."

When the news reached the Avengers set, Chen Xun had just finished filming a Spider-Man action scene and was removing his makeup.

Guo Fan called directly, his voice filled with anger: "Chen Xun, did you see that? Zhang Jiake and the others actually said those things about us! We've worked hard for three years, mortgaged our house, and risked our lives to make this film, and now it's considered speculation?"

"Have they become the ones harvesting the韭菜 (a metaphor for exploiting others)?"

"I saw it."

Chen Xun wiped the makeup off his face and said calmly, "Ignore them, they're just clowns."

, 7

"But I can't swallow this!"

Guo Fan's voice trembled: "They can't make good films themselves, so they can't stand seeing others do well."

"Where did we over-market? We were simply telling the audience the truth about the film. Should we, like them, hide it away and wait until the audience goes to the theater to find out it's a bad movie?"

"They're not unaware that we're not over-marketing; they're doing it on purpose."

Chen Xun advised Guo Fan: "They dare not release their own film at the same time as ours, because the box office will definitely flop. They are just making excuses in advance. When the film flops, they can say that it's not because I made a bad film, but because 'The Wandering Earth' over-marketed and squeezed out the screenings, and they can put all the blame on us."

Chen Xun understood these people's tactics all too well.

After the previous film, "The Wandering Earth," became a huge hit, many people jumped out to criticize it.

They say things like "good luck," "they caught a good time," or "it's all thanks to the contrast with their peers."

These people never reflect on their own problems; they only blame others, the market, and the censorship system for their failures. They never consider that they have been out of touch with the masses for far too long.

They sit in their ivory tower, making what they consider profound art films, but they have no idea what ordinary audiences want to see.

They criticize the audience for having low aesthetic standards, but they don't realize that the audience simply doesn't want to pay for their bad movies.

They say capital ruined Chinese films, but they don't realize that they are the ones who make a living off capital.

"So what do we do? Should we issue a statement to clarify?"

Guo Fan asked anxiously.

"No need! Arguing with them would only elevate them."

Chen Xun smiled and said, "The audience has discerning eyes. Whether the film is good or not will be clear after its release. Instead of arguing with them, we should focus our energy on the final publicity and use box office and word-of-mouth to prove them wrong."

After hanging up with Guo Fan, Chen Xun browsed Weibo and, sure enough, saw that the internet was in an uproar.

Zhang Jiake's fans and some online trolls stirred up trouble in the comments section, calling "The Wandering Earth" a marketing film that was just a way to fleece fans, and accusing Chen Xun of being a Western-worshipping opportunist who made money through shady means.

Social media is filled with netizens' rebuttals and complaints.

Ordinary viewers had long been fed up with these sour-tongued directors, and Zhang Jiake's long post only fueled their backlash: "Excessive marketing? I've been scrolling through Weibo every day and only seen three trailers. Is that excessive marketing? Those bad movies start hyping up couples and scandals a year in advance, why don't you say anything about that?"

"You can't make good films yourself, so you can't stand seeing others do well. Chen Xun won an Oscar in Hollywood, broke box office records, and came back to lead Chinese science fiction to the world stage. All you do is belittle people online. What kind of filmmaker are you?"

"They used their connections to get Chinese films released simultaneously worldwide, letting the world see Chinese science fiction. That's called cultural export! It's much better than you spending your whole life holed up in China, making terrible movies that nobody watches!"