Chapter 235: The box office results are shocking!
“Love Is Not Blind” is actually a dark horse in the Chinese film market, even darker than “Crazy Stone”.

“Crazy Stone” was made with an investment of about five million and earned about 2500 million at the box office.

Love Is Not Blind earned 33 million yuan at the box office with an investment of about 3.5 million yuan, which is the highest ratio of investment to box office in the domestic film market in the past years.

Therefore, this movie is said to be the biggest surprise for both the producers and distributors.

After the filming of this movie was completed, the distributor tried to resell the distribution rights for 30 million yuan, which shows that they had no confidence. However, no one took over, so they had to do it themselves.

In addition, some analysts believe that this movie has a huge relationship with the most influential Singles’ Day of that year, Double 11.

It can be said that there is a relationship, but it is not a decisive relationship. The film did win the highest box office on Double Eleven, about 2000 million. However, on the first day of its release, the box office reached million, which was already a big hit.

Moreover, the success of the previous “If You Are the One” and “Perfect Match” and the subsequent “Beijing Meets Seattle” and “Ex-Files” series of films can be said to be in the same vein.

A light romantic comedy!
This market segment actually has a certain degree of hunger.

Because this type of movie perfectly targets today’s largest movie-watching group: young college students and young white-collar workers.

Especially for young men and women in love, this kind of movie is almost a must-see when going on a movie date.

On the contrary, audiences have become aesthetically fatigued by pure blockbusters, especially kung fu blockbusters, in just two or three years.

“Hero” had a bang from the start, earning 2.5 million RMB at the box office.

But after that, the box office performances of “House of Flying Daggers”, “The Promise”, “The Banquet”, “Curse of the Golden Flower”, “The Warlords”, “The Siege of the Forbidden City”, “Red Cliff”, etc. were only mediocre. Although the highest reached 3 million, it did not really surpass “Hero”.

There are many high-quality films among them, such as “The Warlords” and even “The Siege of the City” which is also highly completed.

Despite such a huge investment and such a splendid cast, “The Warlords” only grossed 2 million yuan in China. However, “If You Are the One”, a romantic comedy released not long after, grossed 3.5 million yuan.

Therefore, comedy is the greatest common denominator of Chinese films.

Romantic comedy is a professional track in comedy films.

Moreover, this kind of romantic comedy movie must have a strong mainland flavor, not a Hong Kong flavor.

The so-called Hong Kong-style love movies are similar to Louis Koo’s “My Amnesiac Boyfriend”, “Happiness Forever”, and even “The Lion Roars”, which have no chemical reaction in the domestic market.

So far, there is actually a lack of excellent romantic comedy films in the domestic market.

Therefore, the success of “Love Is Not Blind” is somewhat accidental, but we can work hard to gradually transform this accidentality into inevitability.

Historically, the promotion of this film started relatively early, but the promotional resources were not particularly outstanding.

However, Lin Xiao now has huge publicity resources at his disposal.

The promotion of this movie cannot be learned from “Crazy Stone”. It cannot rely on word of mouth to make a comeback, but it must go for a direct hit.

The premiere will be held on July 7th.

Then it was publicly announced that it would be released on August 8.

In the next month, we will carry out extensive publicity.

In addition to Facebook, the main promotional platform this time is Jiayuan.com, which may be more appropriate because it is a dating and love website.

Today, Jiayuan.com’s biggest source of income comes from a large number of offline matchmaking events.

The blind date activities for the next month include a private screening of the movie “Love Is Not Blind”.

Not only that, the flagship variety show “If You Are the One” will also have two special shows to promote “Love Is Not Blind”.

The male and female protagonists in this drama will be guests on two episodes of If You Are the One.

Zhijiang TV, Shanghai TV, Jiangnan TV, Jibei TV and Guangxi TV will all find every opportunity to broadcast the exciting preview footage of “Love Is Not Blind”.

So, this movie is a typical show of muscle.

All the film critics, all the media reporters, and all the theater managers felt that this movie was of good quality, but without a market, it was destined to not do well at the box office.

Then Lightning Entertainment will let everyone see that even a movie that you think has no future can create a box office miracle through our efforts.

Follow me and you will have meat to eat!
For the rest of you, what are you waiting for?
………………………………

The ratings of “Got Talent” in the UK exceeded 40%, setting a record for the highest variety show ratings in two years.

Shuang Lin’s production brought glory to the country, and Er Gou’s leadership brought glory to the country.

Two days later, this news spread in the country, and after a brief fermentation, it immediately detonated the entire public opinion.

People of this era still have filters for the Western world.

Is it true that Chinese TV copyrights can be so popular in the UK and set a record for viewership?

After the news came out, the first thing that came out was doubt.

Because the people are used to feeling inferior, they have always been accepting cultural inputs from abroad and have not yet successfully exported their culture.

This success came so suddenly that it was a little hard to believe.

Then, many people went to the UK to verify it through various channels, and found that it was all true.

When Ai Dajin participated in a program, he was also asked this question.

“I have verified this through my friends in the UK. The second season of Britain’s Got Talent’s audience share is no longer 40%, but has reached 45%. The first season was around 40%.”

“Of course it’s number one, the undisputed number one, it accounts for half of the ratings, it’s overwhelmingly number one.”

“It’s not only the No. 1 in this period, but also the No. 1 variety show in the UK TV market in the past few years.”

“This is also a phenomenal production in the British television market.”

“No one expected this result. A variety show with copyrights originating from China could achieve such a great success in the UK across the Atlantic Ocean. I don’t think Ergou himself would have dared to imagine this.”

Immediately afterwards, Shanghai TV also broadcast the most important news during the time.

“According to the news we just received, the program “Got Talent” produced by Shuanglin Production and our station has gone overseas and has achieved great success in the British market.”

“The first series of Britain’s Got Talent had 1060 million viewers, and the second series had 1180 million viewers.”

“This is a milestone for our country’s literature and art to go abroad!”

The entire news report took nearly two minutes to report in detail the huge success of the program in the British market.

Reporters from Shanghai TV also interviewed ITV’s creative director, Simon Cowell, co-producer of Britain’s Got Talent, and ITV’s president, and even interviewed random passers-by on the street.

Westerners tend to speak in an exaggerated manner, and since this is a news program tailor-made for them, these people naturally rave about Britain’s Got Talent.

Finally, the reporter interviewed Li Shuang, president of Shuanglin Production.

“The success of Britain’s Got Talent has had a certain impact around the world.”

“At present, TV stations in more than a dozen countries, including the UK, France and Australia, have contacted us and are interested in acquiring the copyright of the talent show.”

“I believe that in the near future, this program will enter the homes of audiences around the world.”

……………………

First it was Shanghai TV, then Zhijiang TV, Jiangnan TV, Jibei TV, and Guangxi TV all broadcast the news.

In a short time, this news that brought glory to the country spread all over the country.

The people of the Lightning Group couldn’t help but sigh that it was great to have a group of allies and a powerful interest group.

No matter what you do, you can get twice the result with half the effort.

Just when they thought that this was the end, CCTV couldn’t help it and found Lightning Entertainment and specially produced a news program.

After all, the result is so outstanding that the propaganda department above cannot sit idly by.

This is also a major achievement in the country’s overseas cultural exports.

So, Li Shuang appeared on CCTV news for the first time.

CCTV News also highly affirmed the achievements and contributions made by Lightning Entertainment and Shuanglin Production in the overseas expansion of cultural products.

The heat of this matter has risen to an alarming level.

Lightning Entertainment is striking while the iron is hot.

The “Britain’s Got Talent” program team publicly invited the champion of “China’s Got Talent” to become a guest performer on Britain’s Got Talent.

And not only the champion of “China’s Got Talent”, the armless pianist, was invited, but also the female lead of “Love Is Not Blind”, Qu Feifei.

One of the most popular people on Britain’s Got Talent, which has been on for several seasons, is Aunt Susan Boyle.

He had a fat body and a mediocre face, but after he went on stage and sang “I Dreamed a Dream” from “Les Miserables”, he amazed the audience and finally won the second place.

She then became famous around the world and earned tens of millions of pounds.

So now her Qiao Duan is going to be snatched away by Qu Feifei.

Of course, Qu Feifei is not as fat as her, nor does she look as plain, so the contrast wouldn’t be that great.

But Au Feifei is Chinese, so there is still a sense of contrast on the stage of Britain’s Got Talent.

It’s too late for the third period, so I can only take the fourth period.

Qu Feifei had been practicing for who knows how long for this day.

It was part of the plan to have her on Britain’s Got Talent. It was also part of the plan for the two shows to interact with each other.

Using this incident to promote the movie “Love Is Not Blind” was a complete surprise.

……………………

7 Month 31 Day!
The fourth episode of Britain’s Got Talent is officially aired.

At this time, the ratings have completely stabilized and are rising with each episode. Although this episode is still being aired, everyone has roughly judged that it should be over 12 million.

If we continue to work harder, the audience share will exceed 50%.

In the fourth episode, the production team took a risk and invited Chinese contestants.

It’s just that at this time, audiences in the Western world are more curious about China than hostile.

Before 2008, China rarely appeared in the public opinion of the Western world. In the eyes of Western people, China is ancient and mysterious.

Halfway through the show, Qu Feifei came on stage!
“Wow……”

“An oriental face.”

“Where are you from?” Simon Cowell asked in English again.

“I’m from China.” Ou Feifei, she spoke Chinese.

The whole audience was in a state of confusion.

“exuse me?” Simon Cowell.

At this time, the host quickly ran out: “Sorry, sorry, I just stepped away for a while.”

“Simon, I have to explain to you that there is also China’s Got Talent in China, thousands of miles away, so we had a small interaction.”

“We invited contestants from China’s Got Talent to try their hand on our stage.”

There is actually a little bit of confusion here. Qu Feifei has never been on “China’s Got Talent”, but that’s the power of capital.

The host continued: “And these two Chinese contestants can hardly speak English at all.”

“So, sorry!”

The head mentor Simon Cowell smiled awkwardly at the two female mentors, and then he seemed to want to communicate with Qu Feifei on the stage, but after trying several times, he gave up.

“Please begin your performance.”

This awkward exchange was intentional, intended to lower the audience’s expectations and create a contrast.

Au Fei-fei: “Next I will perform an excerpt from the opera Cats.”

The language used is still Chinese, and even the name of the opera is in English, still for the sake of contrast.

The audience was even more confused.

What are you talking about? What are you going to perform?

Even when the accompaniment of the opera “Memory” sounded, most of the audience were still confused and didn’t know what it was.

but……

Wait for Qu Feifei to speak!
moment……

Stunning…

Now in terms of professionalism and singing ability, Ou Feifei is undoubtedly better than Aunt Susan.

After all, she is the top star of Lightning Entertainment and has the most professional team behind her.

Moreover, her smoky voice is not suitable for singing opera, which makes the contrast even greater.

So, the expressiveness of the moment.

It’s even more amazing.

Coupled with the dumbfounded expressions of the three mentors.

The whole effect is maximized.

The reason why I didn’t choose Susan Boyle’s famous song “I Dreamed a Dream” from “Les Miserables” is mainly because “Memory” is more suitable for metaphysical techniques.

In her previous performances, Ou Feifei loved to sing high notes. At the beginning, she was really full of emotion and had no skills at all.

After two or three years of training, I now have both emotion and skills.

So the excerpt “Memory” from “Cats” originally didn’t need to have such high notes.

But in order to show off her skills, she just rushed up like crazy.

A man with a smoky voice, singing opera, and showing off his skills by singing high notes crazily.

A completely strange Chinese person who doesn’t understand English at all.

Using wild high notes, he madly performed the song “Memory” which was supposed to be ethereal.

The effect can be imagined.

The huge contrast creates a huge sense of surprise.

Many audience members were terrified by the song. This is what Ou Feifei is best at. When she sang “A Diao” and “Wukong”, she liked to use her crazy high notes to overwhelm the audience.

Now do it again.

At the end of the song, the two female mentors’ mouths were wide open and couldn’t close.

Simon Cowell covered his temples with his hands, as if he could no longer bear the bombardment of Qu Feifei’s high notes.

“What? What?”

Although he didn’t say it out loud, his mouth shape and expression were full of shock and disbelief.

Of course, these expressions and performances were all designed in advance.

But it does greatly enhance the show.

After the singing!

The audience burst into warm applause. The three mentors were speechless for a long time, looked at each other, and then took a YES photo.

Qu Feifei is still very cool on the stage.

“Thank you!” She uttered the first English sentence of the night.

“Thank you!”

Then, she just left.

“Wow… I still seem to be recalling her voice in my mind.” Simon Cowell said: “I really didn’t expect that I could sing an opera in this way, singing Memory.”

“It’s just completely ignoring the original techniques of opera and performing it with extreme emotions.”

“It turns an ethereal opera into one that is full of powerful explosiveness.”

“It’s just incredible.”

………………

Just when the British audience thought that these were all the surprises the Chinese players had to offer.

The armless pianist plays “Starry Night” in the dark.

The lights are on!

The whole show reached its climax.

When Qu Feifei finished singing just now, the three mentors did not stand up.

This time, all three mentors stood up and applauded.

All the audience stood up and applauded.

This show caused great surprise and shock in China, while in the UK, their emotional performance was even more exaggerated and extroverted.

and so……

This shocking performance is even more extreme!
……………………

The next day, ITV counted the ratings for the fourth series of Britain’s Got Talent, which reached 1260 million viewers.

The audience share officially exceeded 50%.

This news was already very popular in China, and it became even more popular.

On various portal websites, several major TV stations broadcast the performances of “Britain’s Got Talent” by Au Feifei and the armless pianist.

Especially on the Facebook video youtube, there is a full clip of two people performing.

Moreover, the editing was very unique, making the performances of the two people extremely stunning, and more scenes were focused on the shocked expressions of the three mentors and the dumbfounded expressions of many audience members present.

This has greatly satisfied the sense of satisfaction of many people in the country.

What everyone likes most is the scene of Chinese people conquering the Western world and amazed foreigners.

Just look at the expectations and pride of the domestic people when Yao Ming was in the NBA and you will know that most of them are not real fans, they are just motivated by national sentiment.

In this atmosphere, the popularity of “Love Is Not Blind” is getting higher and higher day by day, which is completely incomparable to “Crazy Stone” at that time.

This kind of publicity resource really makes countless people jealous.

The pianist who won the “China’s Got Talent” championship also expressed his willingness to participate in the promotion of “Love Is Not Blind” to repay Lightning Entertainment for its kindness.

Lightning Entertainment still gave a rejection, but it’s okay to work hard to promote the popularity of this film.

But…can’t cross the line.

Moreover, Lightning Entertainment was also very smart when promoting this film. Through massive publicity, it instilled Qu Feifei, Love Is Not Blind, and related trailer images of the movie into countless people’s minds.

However, I never brag about how great my movies are.

Instead of blindly raising the audience’s expectations, they forwarded a large number of criticisms of the film by some film critics to create a conflict in public opinion.

With such amazing popularity and publicity, although major theaters are not optimistic about the film’s marketability, they still give it a relatively high screening schedule.

Just give it a try. If the attendance is not good, reduce the number of screenings.

In the end, there were 33 cinema chains across the country with a total of 2400 screens, and approximately 20000 screenings throughout the day.

The screening rate of “The Matrix 2” is 53%, and that of “Love Is Not Blind” is around 33%.

The remaining other movies only account for 12% of the screenings.

There are still quite a lot of screenings for “The King’s Avatar”. There is no way around it because the other party has a big investment and a big production, and it also has the signature of big brother Jackie Chan.

With a screening rate of 35%, I am already very satisfied.

“Love Is Not Blind” is, after all, just a low-budget movie, even lower than historical ones, only around five or six million.

……………………

“The investment cost of this film is only 560 million, but the publicity cost is simply incalculable.” Xia Xi said: “If it is all in money, it will not be less than million.”

Where is it limited to 30 million?

These satellite TV channels and these ace variety shows have used such great power to promote “Love Is Not Blind”.

In addition, the popularity of “Britain’s Got Talent” has aroused a sense of pride in cultural exports, and Qu Feifei and the armless pianist have amazed the audience in the UK. These are things that cannot be bought with money. It can only be said that the time, place and people are right.

So this time the distributor of “Love Is Not Blind” is not just Bona Film Group, but also Lightning Entertainment.

Lin Xiao knew that Crazy Stone could be passed down through word of mouth, but Love Is Not Blind couldn’t do that. Good wine needs no bush.

8 Month 12 Day!
“The King’s Avatar 2” and “Love Is Not Blind” were released at the same time.

Director Yang of Jibei TV usually doesn’t watch movies, let alone this kind of romance film, but because it was a movie produced by Lightning Entertainment, he wanted to have a rare romantic moment and asked his wife to go to the cinema.

When I got to the cinema, I found that there were so many people?

It was only Thursday night, wasn’t it? Besides, the audience were all young people, and there were almost no people of his age, which made him feel a little embarrassed.

If he were allowed to choose, he would probably choose “The King’s Avatar”, after all, he has been watching Jackie Chan’s videotapes for twenty years.

Before the movie started, his wife suddenly asked a question.

“Does the TV station get paid to promote Love Is Not Blind like this?”

Director Yang: “Collect it.”

“But the price is completely different.”

When the movie was about to start, Director Yang took a special look and found that the entire theater was nearly half full, which was a good attendance rate.

Next, the movie begins.

The two of them watched the movie with great interest. The plot was light and smooth, and it was easy to empathize with the movie without any viewing obstacles.

110 minute later.

The movie has finished playing.

“It’s really good. It tastes very good when you taste it carefully,” said the wife.

Director Yang nodded: “Not bad.”

But that’s all. In his opinion, it is definitely far inferior to “Crazy Stone”.

Young men and women may feel more deeply touched and give higher scores.

When I watched it, I thought it was a really good movie, quite nice and interesting.

After watching it, it will leave an impression.

For example, some scenes in movies can also linger in your mind.

Even boyfriends and girlfriends can have in-depth discussions.

When friends ask me how is this movie, I will answer that it is very good and I can give it an 8.

But…I am not very willing to recommend it to others.

Unlike Crazy Stone, there is a strong urge to share. Director Yang even thinks that this movie will not be very successful at the box office, at least it will be much worse than Crazy Stone.

……………………………………

August 8th has passed.

The first day of broadcasting is over.

There is a certain amount of discussion on both Facebook and Renren community, but not as much as “Crazy Stone”.

“This film appears to be a comedy, but it is actually a tragedy.”

“Men and women in cities only get along, but they don’t have deep feelings for each other.”

“After watching this movie, I found that emotions can really be acted out.”

“It seems like they are in love and close to each other, but in fact they are just huddling together for warmth.”

“The heroine Huang Xiaoxian seems to be a victim, but to some extent she is actually the perpetrator.”

“Ou Feifei’s acting is amazing, especially the last scene, it’s just amazing.”

Of course, there are also long articles that use a lot of words to discuss gender relations, and they are written with great depth because they are all personal experiences.

But there are not many posts like this. Maybe they can resonate with people, but it takes time.

In short, just looking at the popularity of the online community, there is a big gap between it and “Crazy Stone”.

But in fact, before the two movies were released, the popularity of “Love Is Not Blind” far exceeded that of “Crazy Stone”, by many times.

It’s just that this movie was watched and then it was over, and there wasn’t much discussion about it.

On the contrary, the discussion about “The Matrix 2” was extremely heated and completely polarized.

Half of them praised him enthusiastically.

“The action is first-rate, the scenes are first-rate, the acting is first-rate, and the movie-watching process is simply a pleasure.”

“Only big productions like this are worth buying a ticket to the cinema.”

“Big Brother is always Big Brother, and he really didn’t let us down.”

Posts like this are everywhere.

The other half of the posts were just full of swear words.

“To promote the tenants, you’re going to shoot this kind of rubbish?”

“What the hell?”

“With so many top stars, it’s not easy to make a movie so ugly.”

In the Facebook community, such abusive posts can still be retained, but in the Renren community, such posts will disappear quickly.

Even in the Facebook community, posts criticizing “The Matrix 2” will soon be drowned out by a large number of positive posts.

How many trolls did they hire? It seems that Renren.com is going to earn some PR fees again.

………………………………

Sunday, May 8.

Many film critics began posting articles on Facebook and Renren, starting a game of guessing the box office results.

“Love Is Not Blind” is just as I expected. Although the quality of the movie is good, the plot is too light and flat. It did not cause any heat, let alone discussion.”

“Although The Matrix 2 has received mixed reviews, its popularity on both Renren and Facebook far exceeds that of Love Is Not Blind.”

“So according to my judgment, the first-week box office of “The Matrix 2” should be around 2000 million, and the first-week box office of “Love Is Not Blind” should be around 33 million.”

“Love Is Not Blind” cannot replicate the miracle of Crazy Stone and cannot create a word-of-mouth effect.”

“But this can’t be called a failure, after all, this isn’t the work of Er Gou. It’s just that to some extent, this movie is a waste of publicity resources.”

“A month before its release, the film was heavily promoted on several major TV stations, giving people the impression that Er Gou was flexing his muscles and fists, wanting everyone to see how powerful he is. He was able to push a low-budget romance film to fame with his powerful resources.”

“But the fact is that if the quality of the movie is not good, no matter how strong the recommendation resources are, it is useless.”

“I hope that Master Ergou can learn from this and respect the laws of the market.”

Zhou Xingchi saw this article in his office and thought it made sense. He also agreed with the box office prediction.

After all, this film critic is best at predicting box office results, not only for domestic films, but even for Hollywood, his box office predictions are relatively accurate.

Especially this year’s “50 First Dates”, the final North American box office was almost exactly the same as he predicted, 1.2 million US dollars.

……………………………………

Next Tuesday.

Countless people flocked to the official website of Sichuan Pacific Cinemas, waiting for the box office results of the two movies last week.

Because Manager Liu always has the earliest data, she first calculates the box office of Pacific Cinemas and then divides it by the market share.

Last year’s “Crazy Stone” made her an authority in one fell swoop.

Because the box office data she gave at the time was greatly questioned, but the final results proved that her data was correct and even slightly conservative.

At 3:30 p.m., Sichuan Pacific’s official website released last week’s box office data.

The first week box office of “The Kiss: Reborn” was 2 million.

The first week box office of “Love Is Not Blind” was 33 million.

When this data came out, there was a complete uproar.

what? !

Is this number serious?

The first week box office of Love Is Not Blind was more than three times that of The Matrix Reborn?!
Doesn’t that count?

The key point is that last year’s “Crazy Stone” only had a box office of 1160 million in its first week?

The box office of “Cell Phone” in its first week was only 2680 million?

The key point is that after the release of “Love Is Not Blind”, the discussion on the Internet was not very hot, not as hot as “Crazy Stone”.

How did you get this box office?

After checking the data again, I found that this box office was the second highest in the first week box office history of movies since theater statistics were kept, second only to “Hero”.

Isn’t this box office too crazy?

This is a very low-budget production with an investment of only five or six million?
But when Lin Xiao saw the box office data, he felt differently in his heart.

The current film market is still too small. A first-week box office of 3800 million is only the second highest in the history of cinema films?
要知道历史上，《失恋33天》在2011年11月8日上映的时候，首周票房轰到了1.85亿左右。

But the figure of 3800 million is enough to scare everyone.

…………………………

Note: I finally updated it an hour earlier. Dear benefactors, if you have monthly tickets, please continue to give them to me, and give me some encouragement! Thank you!
(End of this chapter)