Chapter 472: Filming Screening Rate, Attitudes From All Sides

Translator: Atlas Studios  Editor: Atlas Studios

As Jiaxing Entertainment released the latest news, all the major cinemas reposted it.

As for the movie, ‘Kung Fu Hustle’, it was officially scheduled for Chinese New Year!

With Lin Fan and CEO Wang’s relationship, this was nothing.

Of course, the Spring Festival meant that the competition would be quite intense.

There was no doubt that only big directors and big companies could film movies that could be released during the Spring Festival.

Ordinary movies could not even be released in cinemas, let alone during the Spring Festival screening.

However, the main leads of ‘Kung Fu Hustle’ were not Lin Fan and Xia Wanqiu, but Xu Yang.

Xu Yang became the male lead of ‘Kung Fu Hustle’ and Su Muqing acted as the female lead, but there were very few scenes in the preview.

“Little Li, all the cinemas in Wanda should screen more seatings of ‘Kung Fu Hustle’. Boss Lin is also my friend. You can’t treat ‘Kung Fu Hustle’ as if it’s the most ordinary movie,” CEO Wang of Wanda personally said.

To CEO Wang, 100 million was a small goal. However, when it came to Lin Fan, CEO Wang valued it very much. Lin Fan had personally come to tell him that he wanted to release a movie and CEO Wang would give him face.

The more screenings there were, the higher the exposure. Of course, the essence of a movie’s box office earnings was still the quality of the movie.

“CEO Wang, I understand. It’s just that Lin Fan hasn’t filmed a movie before. I’m afraid…” Li Zhengyi said with a hesitant expression. After all, he was in charge of Wanda Cinemas all over the country. If the number of films filmed for ‘Kung Fu Hustle’ increased, the number of films filmed for other outstanding movies would decrease. It was already quite good that Lin Fan’s first movie could be filmed in cinemas and during the Spring Festival. If the quality of ‘Kung Fu Hustle’ didn’t work out, they would lose a lot of money. They might even lose more than a billion yuan.

There were too many outstanding movies during the Chinese New Year period. Although the movie market was average now and all kinds of movies could be filmed, the quality of the movies that could be released during the Chinese New Year period was still not bad and could obtain good box office sales.

“A loss of one billion…” CEO Wang was also a little hesitant. This was not a small sum.

“CEO Wang, why don’t we give Boss Lin face and screen ‘Kung Fu Hustle’ for more than three days? As for the subsequent screenings, let’s see how the quality of Boss Lin’s movie is. If the quality is high, we can increase the screening frequency. If the quality is low, let’s lower it,” Li Zhengyi said.

“Alright, make the arrangements. I still have work to do. I’ll get going first,” CEO Wang said and waved his hand.

“Alright.” Li Zhengyi nodded. He felt pressured to be in this position. After all, the cinema also had to earn money. It was impossible to increase the number of screenings for someone just because he had a good relationship with them. This would cause them to lose a lot of money.

Li Zhengyi felt that Lin Fan’s movie was very difficult to become popular. After all, television dramas and movies were completely different concepts. Usually, the first movie a company filmed would fail. It would be very difficult for the audience to like it.

A television drama could slowly advance the plot, but a movie could not. The audience, pace, and plot of the movie would be more demanding. If it was not handled well, it would completely collapse.

“CEO Li, that’s CEO Wang. How dare you say that about CEO Wang’s request? I’m impressed.” A manager followed beside CEO Li.

“I’m in charge of the screening of the entire Spring Festival movie lineup. There are some things that I still have to say. To be honest, I don’t think Lin Fan’s movie will become popular. The first movie is just to test the waters. It’s already not bad if it can be screened during the Spring Festival. Lin Fan also wants to use his connections to increase the number of screenings. If it wasn’t for CEO Wang, I wouldn’t even let him appear during the Spring Festival. Let’s give Jiaxing Entertainment 10% of the screening rate for the first three days,” Li Zhengyi said.

“10%? But this was personally proposed by CEO Wang…” the manager said.

Li Zhengyi smiled. “It’s fine. If there’s a problem, I’ll take responsibility. I can’t stand people who rely on connections. If the movie doesn’t have quality, it’ll be good enough to give him a 10% screening rate. If the movie’s box office doesn’t work in three days, the screening rate will be reduced to 1%.”

Li Zhengyi was very confident. He felt that nothing would happen if he did this.

If the movie was not popular, the screening rate would naturally decrease. This was something that everyone knew.

Only some outstanding movies would have their screening rates increase to 20% or 30%.

At that time, even CEO Wang would not be able to blame him.

Although CEO Wang was his immediate superior, earning money was still the most important thing. Could it be that he would rather lose more than a billion yuan because of Lin Fan? This was a stupid thing to do.

…

At the same time, the people from the various entertainment companies were all a little shocked.

After all, Jiaxing Entertainment did not even have time to advertise. The Spring Festival was in ten days.

Without publicity, how could ‘Kung Fu Hustle’ become popular without holding a press conference and promoting it to the fans?

At Yuehua Entertainment, CEO Li sighed. “Lin Fan is still too anxious. Although his ability is not bad, it’s difficult to release a movie in such a hurry…”

CEO Liu of Huace Pictures raised his finger. “Hehe, Lin Fan is indeed very capable, but he shouldn’t have entered the movie market. Jiaxing Entertainment hasn’t even completely stabilized the television drama market and they’re already stepping into the movie industry. They’re even specially competing with other movies for screening times during the Spring Festival. I wonder how many people they’ll offend this time.”

It could be said that the outside world wasn’t optimistic about Lin Fan’s martial arts.

On all the forums, Tieba, and Zhihu, there were big names who commented on ‘Kung Fu Hustle’.

“Jiaxing Entertainment’s television dramas are not bad, but it seems that the recently popular television dramas of Jiaxing Entertainment all rely on Lin Fan and Xia Wanqiu as the main leads, right?”

“Only these few people can do it. Lin Fan wants to film a movie while filming a television drama. Is he trying to earn money?”

“Of course. It’s to trick innocent passers-by. I think this movie is very ordinary. What’s there to see in Kung Fu Hustle? It’s just going to be about martial arts. I won’t watch this lousy movie anyway.”

“The old fans of ‘The Legend of Condor Heroes’ won’t want to watch Kung Fu. If it was a movie starring Lin Fan personally, I would want to watch it. What’s there to watch if this isn’t Lin Fan? I can say very clearly that I would rather starve to death than watch ‘Kung Fu Hustle’!”

…

Before the movie was released, it was already labeled as bad.

There were already many people on the Internet who were rushing for ‘Kung Fu Hustle’. They felt that such a movie was made to earn money.

China’s movie market was indeed ordinary, but it was very difficult to deceive the audience.

Soon, it was almost time for the premiere.

‘Kung Fu Hustle’ also released a simple promotional video and a list of main leads.

It would have been fine if it hadn’t been released. Once the list of main leads was released, negative comments flew everywhere online.

“Who is Su Muqing? The supporting actress who acted as Twenty Your Life On?”

“Su Muqing looks alright, but her acting skills are… indescribable.”

“Even Xu Yang is acting in the movie? How good can this movie be? I’m not watching it anymore.”

“If I watch this lousy movie, I’ll call myself a dog!”