Chapter 591: th in the Global Box Office
Time slowly came to the end of April, and more than a month had passed since the large-scale release of “Joker”.

April 27th is an ordinary day, but for the movie “Joker”, it is an extraordinary day.

On this day, the box office of “Joker” officially exceeded one billion US dollars, becoming the first R-rated movie in film history to break one billion US dollars at the global box office.

“Joker” has grossed $3.46 million in North America, making it the top-grossing film in North America this year.

The film was even more popular overseas, with box office revenue reaching 6.62 million yuan and a total box office of 10.08 billion US dollars.

The film earned 4.2 million yuan at the mainland box office, equivalent to about million US dollars.

In its previous life, the domestic box office of “Joker” was almost negligible. This time, because of Liu Zhou, it is winning the Oscars and competing for the global box office rankings.

This makes everyone more enthusiastic about watching “Joker”.

This helped the film earn 50 million US dollars in mainland China, and it can be said that almost all of this was Liu Zhou’s credit.

These will be his bargaining chips when negotiating with Warner for the next movie.

It is precisely because of the 50 million US dollars box office in the mainland that “Joker” broke the 1 billion US dollar box office mark faster than in the original time and space.

This also allows “Joker” to officially surpass Christopher Nolan’s “Batman: The Dark Knight” with a box office of one billion US dollars, ranking tenth in the global movie box office rankings.

Ahead of him are “Star Wars: Episode 1: The Phantom Menace” with $10.3 billion and “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides” with $4 billion.

However, this summer, Hollywood will have two blockbuster movies released.

One is the first combination of Marvel superheroes, “The Avengers”.

Needless to say, this movie officially announced the formation of the Marvel Universe and it was a huge success.

“The Avengers” grossed $15.2 billion worldwide, second only to James Cameron’s “Titanic” and “Avatar” on the global box office list.

The other is “Skyfall”, which is considered the most successful film in the 007 series, with a global box office of 007 billion US dollars, helping Daniel Gregg become a world-class actor.

Once these two movies are released, “Joker” may be squeezed out of the top ten in the world.

However, the movie has not yet been completely taken off the screen and is still reaping box office revenue around the world.

With the support of the mainland box office, it should be no problem for “Joker” to surpass “Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace” and “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides” in terms of final box office.

When the rankings are finalized this year, “Joker” should continue to rank among the top ten in the world.

In fact, there is no need to wait until the end of the year to determine the global rankings. Right now, the fact that “Joker” has surpassed “The Dark Knight” in box office to become one of the top ten in the world has already caused Liu Zhou’s fame to soar around the world.

Of course, the fame brought by the box office is part of it, but there are also many people around the world who like him because of the movie “Joker”.

This is an R-rated movie. R-rated movies generally have some restricted content, but quite a number of people like this type of R-rated movie.

And if the movie gets their approval, they will easily become loyal fans of the movie or the movie director.

Now, around the world, many R-rated movie fans have become fans of Liu Zhou.

Just like Christopher Nolan after “The Dark Knight”, this movie directly made him gain a large number of fans and also won recognition from many peers.

The same is true for Liu Zhou now. Through the movie “Joker”, he has also gained a large number of fans overseas.

At the same time, many big Hollywood directors expressed their praise for “Joker” and Liu Zhou.

Among them are well-known directors such as Spielberg, Martin Scorsese and Peter Jackson.

Christopher Nolan even praised Liu Zhou for creating a brand new Joker.

By now, Liu Zhou has finally gained a place among the world’s great directors.

The movie “Joker” not only has high box office, but also has very good reputation.

This is a great bonus to Liu Zhou’s status in film history.

If Liu Zhou’s next film can once again achieve outstanding results or strong reputation, then Liu Zhou’s position will be completely consolidated.

If he doesn’t do anything that damages his character in the future, Liu Zhou will be the person that cannot be avoided when talking about the history of global films in the future.

This is overseas. Liu Zhou has gained great reputation in China.

Since the second week of the movie’s release, when the global box office exceeded 400 million US dollars, domestic media and netizens have been closely following the real-time box office of “Joker”.

As the box office of the movie continued to rise step by step, it finally broke the billion dollar mark, which made the Chinese people excited.

Although “Joker” is not a Hollywood movie, the director is indeed a genuine Chinese.

As we all know, the core of a movie is the director.

Therefore, the performance of “Joker” is also Liu Zhou’s performance.

In the past, who would have dared to imagine that any domestic director could make a movie with a box office of over one billion US dollars?
The box office of over 100 million U.S. dollars for Li An’s “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” has already been greatly praised by the media, not to mention that the box office has now exceeded 1 billion.

So Liu Zhou has not had any public activities for nearly a month, but he has become the focus of attention in recent times.

As of today, the box office of “Joker” has officially exceeded 1 billion US dollars, and Liu Zhou’s popularity has also reached its peak.

Moreover, Liu Zhou found that he did not need to win the Oscar for Best Director or the Best Picture award to prove that he was the best director in the country.

In addition to awards, box office is also a plus.

Previously, Liu Zhou was able to be compared with Zhang Yimou to see who was the top director in China because of their box office results.

Since he entered the industry, the movies he has shot have all performed well at the box office.

“The Martian” grossed 2008 million yuan in 7.2, becoming the box office champion of Chinese-language films.

At that time, a domestic film was considered a big hit if it grossed over 100 million yuan, and the highest was no more than 400 million yuan.

“The Martian” earned more than 700 million yuan in one go, which was far ahead of others.

However, in this life, due to the influence of Liu Zhou, Zhang Yimou’s box office performance is much better, and his reputation is also much better.

In particular, the film “Red Cliff” he shot broke the box office record of “Avatar”, greatly enhancing his historical status.

Although this movie is starred by Liu Zhou, as mentioned earlier, the core of a movie is still the director, so this is the greatest benefit to Zhang Yimou.

However, Liu Zhou later made “Interstellar”, which grossed 13.4 billion yuan, becoming the first domestic film to break the billion yuan box office.

Of course, the most important thing is that the box office of “Interstellar” broke the box office record set by “Avatar” in China.

This achievement had a greater impact on Liu Zhou.

Later, Liu Zhou directed another film, “Aftershock”, which also grossed over 1 billion yuan and had other positive impacts.

In addition, both films achieved good box office results overseas, which brought Liu Zhou’s reputation and industry status to its peak.

However, Zhang Yimou, as the chief director of the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games, a global grand event, not only gained great reputation in China, but also became famous overseas.

Therefore, Liu Zhou did not dare to say that he could suppress Zhang Yimou.

Fans of the two often quarrel over who has a higher status in the industry.

However, it can be seen from this that the two people’s influence and industry status are comparable.

This is also the reason why Liu Zhou wanted to win the Oscar and surpass Zhang Yimou. But now it seems that it is no longer necessary.

“Interstellar” and “Aftershock”, which have box office revenues of over 1 billion yuan in China, cannot surpass Zhang Yimou because their box office revenues are not high enough.

As long as the box office is high enough, even the Oscars will succumb, and most of the awards will be given to “Titanic”.

The same goes for domestic media and netizens. As long as the box office of the movies directed by Liu Zhou is high enough, they will be able to conquer them.

“Joker” has conquered them with its billion-dollar box office and its position in the top ten of the global box office history list.

Because of Liu Zhou’s extremely high popularity during this period, there has suddenly been a discussion online about who is the number one director in China, Liu Zhou or Zhang Yimou.

Now the support for Liu Zhou and Zhang Yimou was no longer evenly matched as before, but became a one-sided trend.

Most netizens support Liu Zhou surpassing Zhang Yimou and becoming the number one director in the country.

Even some of Zhang Yimou’s fans believe that Liu Zhou has surpassed Zhang Yimou in industry status.

Only some die-hard fans are still holding on.

So to a certain extent, although “Joker” did not help Liu Zhou win the Best Director award, its super high box office has ended the debate between him and Zhang Yimou as the number one director in China.

This made Liu Zhou wonder if it was necessary to continue making movies that would qualify for the Oscars. Perhaps it would be a good choice to stop filming and bid farewell to the film industry now.

However, thinking of the script he had already prepared, Liu Zhou gave up the idea.

Since domestic audiences are obsessed with the Oscars, he will help them realize it.

The next day, Liu Zhou came to Jiahe Group.

He felt as if everyone had a smile on their face, and the way they looked at him became more respectful.

I didn’t understand what was going on until I asked Zhang Zhao and Liu Zhou.

“It’s actually very simple. To celebrate your movie Joker breaking through the billion-dollar box office, I announced yesterday that every employee in the company would be given a month’s salary as a bonus.”

“No wonder they are so happy. I thought I probably don’t have such a strong influence, but the success of the movie actually made them feel the same way. It seems that money is the most practical thing.”

“They have been working very hard since the Spring Festival, so giving them a month’s salary as a bonus is a reward for them.”

“Just take care of the arrangements on this matter. By the way, what’s going on with Xu Zheng?”

“It’s not a big deal, he just officially decided to leave Jiahe and start his own business.

He is currently preparing for his own company, but this old guy is a bit unkind, he wants to leave on his own, but he actually wants to bring Ning Hao along to start a company with him.”

“What did Ning Hao say?”

“Of course he refused. He is very happy with the current situation.”

“A warning to Xu Zheng. The box office of Lost in Thailand has made him a little proud, but he has no capital to be proud in front of Golden Harvest.”

“Lost in Thailand” has also been completed, with a final box office of 12.6 billion yuan, surpassing “Aftershock” to become the second highest-grossing Chinese-language film in domestic box office history.

This resulted in an overwhelming amount of praise and compliments pouring down on Xu Zheng.

He originally warned himself not to get carried away, but inevitably he became a little complacent in the end.

However, the box office of “Lost in Thailand” is indeed something he can be proud of.

But one should not get carried away by success.

Ning Hao is the core director of Golden Harvest. If you want to poach him, you will be undermining the foundation of Golden Harvest.

And what qualifications do you have to poach Ning Hao from Jiahe?
Maybe he thought that if Ning Hao went out to form a partnership with him, Ning Hao would be able to earn more.

But not everyone is as obsessed with money as he is.

What’s more, Ning Hao earned a lot of money at Golden Harvest and had a sufficiently free creative environment. He didn’t have to worry about anything except movies.

So he rejected Xu Zheng’s invitation without hesitation.

“I have already warned him. He wanted to continue cooperating with Golden Harvest on the Lost series, but I rejected it outright.

I plan to keep this series in the dark for two to three years. I want to see how good Xu Zheng is and what kind of results he can achieve after leaving the “Lost” series.”

“Okay, let’s just be businesslike with him from now on.”

“I see, Mr. Liu. By the way, Kevin Chandler, the vice president of Warner, has sent you an invitation to attend the movie celebration party in Hollywood.”

“Forget it, just turn it down for me. I’m too lazy to participate.”

“You are the star of the celebration party. Wouldn’t it be inappropriate if you didn’t go?”

“There’s nothing inappropriate. The movie hasn’t even been completely released yet. They’ll hold another one when the time comes. I’ll go then.”

“Okay, then I’ll report your opinion to Warner.”

What Liu Zhou didn’t expect was that just after Zhang Zhao replied that he didn’t have time to attend the celebration banquet, Kevin Channer came to China the next day.

Looking at the somewhat dusty Vice President of Warner in front of him, Liu Zhou couldn’t help but laugh:
“Kevin, it’s just a celebration banquet, it’s not worth making such a fuss, right?”

“Of course, you yourself may not realize how popular you are now. As long as you go to Hollywood, there will definitely be many Hollywood actresses throwing themselves at you.

Several other major Hollywood companies will also treat you as a guest of honor.”

“So you came here just to invite me to the celebration party for the movie?”

“This is just one of the reasons, Liu, do you really not have time to participate?”

“Forget it. I’m too lazy to run around. Let’s talk about it after the movie is over.”

“Ok.”

“What about other reasons?”

Kevin Qianna suddenly felt a little embarrassed and said with a smile:

“Also, I want to ask you, do you have any plans for subsequent movies?”

“This is the main reason why you came to China.”

“Yes, I have been thinking about this since you told me last time that you had an idea for a new movie.

You are so popular now, I am a little worried that you will be hired by other companies. “

“I promised to work with you and I won’t break my promise.”

“Of course I believe in your promise. I wonder if you have finished writing the script now?”

“It’s created, take a look.”

After saying that, Liu Zhou opened the drawer and handed a script to Kevin Channer.

Kevin Chandler took the script and saw three big words on the cover:

“Green Book”!
(End of this chapter)