Chapter 344: Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons, the Explosive Rise of the Spring Festival Movie Season

The first day of the Lunar New Year is supposed to be a time for relaxation during the New Year holiday, but Wei Yang still paid a little attention to business.

"Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons" was released on this day!

Before this, the main schedules for domestic films were the summer vacation and the Lunar New Year.

The time ranges of the two schedules are not consistent. For example, for the summer vacation, most people say it is from early June to late August.

But some only count the two months of summer vacation, that is, July and August, and some statistics also include September.

The Lunar New Year is more complicated, and the algorithm is different for each, but if it is counted broadly, theoretically, the end of November to the beginning of March can be said to be the Lunar New Year.

However, this statement may be revised soon, and the Lunar New Year will be from the end of November to the end of January, because the Spring Festival is independent.

As the hottest schedule in the future film market, the Spring Festival is not a must-fight place at this time.

In previous years, the Spring Festival was just one of the nodes of the Lunar New Year, but with the continuous rise of the film market, the increase in theaters, and the improvement of the economic level of the people, more and more people are willing to go to the cinema.

During the Spring Festival holiday, the young generation is tired of the old habit of visiting relatives and friends, and prefers to bring friends or the whole family to have fun, such as watching a movie.

The box office data of the Spring Festival has been rising all the way. In 2010, because of "Avatar", the 7-day Spring Festival box office totaled 339 million yuan.

In the following two years, although the box office of the Spring Festival was not so impressive, it also rose steadily after eliminating "special factors".

More and more people are aware of the development prospects of the Spring Festival in these days.

However, the summer vacation and the Lunar New Year are still the most important periods until the release of "Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons" this year.

According to Wei Yang's understanding, there are certain unexpected factors for the release of "Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons" during the Spring Festival, mainly due to the progress, and it did not catch up with the Lunar New Year.

The release on the first day of the Lunar New Year is a gimmick, but it also comes with risks. No one dares to guarantee that the Spring Festival will be popular.

There is no doubt that this is a gamble.

However, due to the preparations and marketing by all parties, as well as the previous market performance, the possibility of losing the bet is very low, at most it will be affected.

Wei Yang knows that he doesn't care about the movie "Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons", but he cares about the birth and influence of the Spring Festival.

If nothing unexpected happens, he will have a movie that will compete in the Lunar New Year or Spring Festival next year.

So he has to do some research, analyze the market, and learn from other people's marketing plans.

The success of "Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons" is largely based on Stephen Chow's personal brand and appeal in terms of marketing and publicity.

At the same time, the bundling of Stephen Chow and the Journey to the West IP, and the huge popularity of Zhizunbao and Zixia are also the key to attracting countless fans and passers-by.

The bundling of personal appeal and CP and IP.

Wei Yang can completely copy these to himself, and they are even his important selling points and marketing routes.

It's a pity that he debuted too late, and no one owes "him" a ticket, so he can't hype up feelings in the short term. Otherwise, [Professor Gu/Li Chengyin/Lu Xinghe/Zhang Wansen, who we chased together in those years], can at least be worth hundreds of millions of box office.

As a professional screenwriter and an excellent businessman, Wei Yang knows better than anyone how profitable feelings are.

Take the three beauties of the Chinese Paladin for example. Now they are working together to make a movie. Although the lineup is luxurious and the momentum is huge, it is not very touching to the audience.

After several years, it would be best if the people who have not cooperated for many years come together again after a long absence, that is "Goodbye My Youth", and kill people at will.

Wei Yang did not go to the movie, but his cousin went. After returning, they told him their opinions, some praised and some criticized.

"It was quite scary at the beginning, and a child was scared to tears."

"Some plots are a bit awkward and seem old-fashioned."

"That empty gentleman is very funny, I laughed to death."

"Sun Wukong is a little dwarf."

"Love you for ten thousand years, the emotional line is touching."

"I don't feel anything, it's just so-so."

The cousin liked this movie and recommended it to her classmates. The cousin thought it was okay, but didn't think it was a bad movie.

Wei Yang looked at the comments on Douban and the emerging Zhihu, and then quickly closed them.

As expected, most of them were negative reviews.

Users of these two platforms have too high requirements for movies. Sometimes they are "objective" for the sake of "objectivity". Even if they give high scores, they will deliberately find faults and point out shortcomings. Even if you get all the top ten directors in the world, they will still be criticized.

And more importantly, those who are willing to speak and comment have some opinions. They don't necessarily praise if they are satisfied or indifferent. They just give five stars and forget it.

If it is Wei Yang's own movie, he will watch it more and "self-abuse" to find the real shortcomings.

But it is not his movie. He is too lazy to watch a bunch of online critics "show off their skills" and instead opens several other platforms.

Weibo has been a disaster area for water army in the past two years. It is also not objective, especially some popular comments, which must be watched by movie marketing.

Platforms such as Bilibili, Tianya, and Tieba, which are not closely related to movies, are relatively better, especially for scattered posts. Water army is too lazy to care, and one or two nitpickers occasionally are harmless.

From the overall comprehensive evaluation of all parties, "Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons" has a good reputation.

"Subversion" is the key word. Some people approve of it, while others resist it. Stephen Chow is sometimes a genius director, a master of craftsmanship, and sometimes a fallen idol, stepping down from the altar.

It's very divisive!

Especially the latter's rhetoric, Wei Yang is particularly familiar with it. It seems that since "Kung Fu" and even earlier "Shaolin Soccer", every time a movie is released, Stephen Chow has to step down from the altar.

And Wei Yang is the same. After his peak masterpieces "My Love from the Star" and "Eastern Palace", Wei Yang has stepped down from the altar every now and then with many works of Blue Whale.

Sometimes he is convinced. Is your altar a staircase? Every day...

So Wei Yang has become accustomed to it and responds coldly to these so-called god-making and god-destroying.

Today they praise you to the sky, and the next time they trample you to the bottom, and soon after, they will be fanatically pursued again because of something, or they will be reviled by thousands of people because of something.

So when you are a public figure, especially a public figure, you must have a strong psychological quality and thick skin.

Wei Yang calmly summarizes all the comments, and then makes a judgment, and then waits to see the marketing layout and word-of-mouth guidance of the distributor, learns from it, and discards the dross and retains the good.

Blue Whale is not without similar experience, but it still needs some adjustment in the film market.

The previous "Famous" was okay, with good luck and sufficient preparation, but "Lost in Thailand" was not expected enough at the time and had never experienced such a large-scale movie, so there were still many loopholes.

"Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons" is a good comparison and learning object. In the future, Blue Whale will face many challenges and must accelerate its growth.

Therefore, even Wei Yang, who has always been against working overtime during the Chinese New Year, made a rare exception. After sending out red envelopes, he x-on:many responsible persons and related teams in the work group, keeping an eye on "Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons". He wanted to see the relevant summary report after the New Year holiday.

"It's getting more and more inhuman."

Boss Wei saw that everyone in the group [received] one by one, reflected on his own behavior, and then sent a request to the executives of Jade Shrimp and Coral Entertainment.

Although the main business of the two companies is film and television investment and artist management, it is good to learn more about business.

That night, Wei Yang received the news that the first-day box office of "Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons" was over 83 million (including previews and pre-sales), breaking the first-day box office record of domestic films held by "Painted Skin 2".

It broke 300 million in four days!

On the fifth day of the Lunar New Year, the last day of the New Year holiday + Valentine's Day, the box office fell back, with a single-day box office of 126 million!

This number broke the single-day box office record of "Transformers 3", the highest in the mainland film market.

Compared to some people who simply exclaimed that another phenomenal hit movie has appeared, those with a longer vision saw the rise of the Spring Festival period.

Starting next year, the Lunar New Year period and the Spring Festival period are expected to be separated, and countless film crews have cast their eyes on this new period full of opportunities...