199 Release Preparation

Wu Meng's joining has greatly improved the editing level of "Wolf Warrior", and also improved the overall level of "Wolf Warrior".

Seeing Wu Meng cut a short piece, Chen Fei's last trace of worry finally disappeared.

So next he can carry out the next more important task, which is to contact major theaters to prepare for the release of "Wolf Warrior".

The most critical point is to contact major theaters and discuss related screening work with everyone.

The importance of screening is self-evident. He will directly affect the final box office of the movie. Even if Chen Fei has so many resources, he dare not take it lightly.

Many movie fans have encountered such embarrassment: when he walked into the cinema, he saw the screens of the ticket desks filled with movies, but the only few movies he wanted to watch - either 10 am or 11 pm, and some cinemas didn't even have a single one.

This situation was particularly obvious in April and May.

Chen Fei had known a living example before: under the siege of Hollywood blockbusters "Speed ​​7", "Avengers 2", the super IP movie "He Yisheng Xiaomo" and "Left Ear", "Intruder", which has almost no room for survival in the cracks. The screening rate on the day of its release was less than 1.5%, forcing director Wang Xiaoshuai to send an open letter saying "This is a murder case" and called on the audience to "please support me!"

For a time, "Who is manipulating the theater to schedule films?" This topic that only people in the film industry would care about became the focus of discussion among ordinary audiences.

This shows the importance of screening.

This time Chen Fei has two things to do. One is to say hello to people in the circle in advance and tell others that my movie will be released soon. When is the specific time? It is best for you to prepare in advance, either in advance or push it back to avoid accidental injury.

Especially for some low-cost movies, they are easily cannon fodder at this time, so Chen Fei should remind some filmmakers first out of kindness and professional ethics.

Yes, he is so confident and so domineering. He just feels that once his movies are released, other works can only become foils, or even cannon fodder, and sacrifice in vain.

He was not self-righteous, nor did he become self-confidence. The reason why he was so confident was that the movie "Wolf Warrior" had already passed the market test in his previous life. At this time, the overall domestic market situation was similar to that in his previous life, so this movie would definitely be sought after by movie fans;

Another factor is that he modified the original film based on the original work, eliminated some unreasonable aspects in the original film, and strengthened the other exciting parts. He was willing to spend a lot of money on every detail, using the best, whether it is a camera or an editor, using the best. In addition, he was willing to do anything in publicity and marketing.

With all this, it would be strange if the box office of this movie is not exploded.

So, he was full of confidence at this moment.

In this work, in addition to saying hello to people in the circle in advance, another very important thing is to communicate with the person in charge of major theaters and reach a cooperation agreement on the screening rate, so as to make the cake bigger and stronger together.

The so-called screening rate is actually the screening space that a movie enjoys in the theater. The higher the screening rate, the more screenings it will be. It is like the lifeline of the film, which greatly affects box office performance.

At present, the total screen volume of China has exceeded 57,000 yuan.

Generally speaking, the opening hours of the theater are from 10 am to 24 pm (except for special events such as midnight shows). If calculated based on an average of 2 hours per video, deducting the interval between 15-20 minutes between each show, a screen can be screened 5-6 shows every day, and the total number of screenings throughout the day is around 300,000.

Due to the large base, in the current market environment, if the film can occupy more than 30% of the screening, it means that it has a screening volume of 90,000 shows per day, which is definitely the level of blockbusters; on the contrary, if the screening rate is below 5%, it means that the screening volume per day is less than 30,000 shows, which can only be regarded as a small and medium-sized film.

Some movies that were screened before, such as "Speed", have exceeded 10,000 "Zero Points" alone, and by day, the screening rate is close to 60%, and the total number of screenings in one day exceeds 200,000, and the box office of nearly 800 million on the first day. In contrast, some small-cost movies, such as "The Murderer", although with a good reputation, have less than 1% of the first day, and only more than 2,000 screenings nationwide, with a box office of only 500,000 on the first day, and were almost sentenced to "death penalty".

If that's the case, does that mean that the higher the screening rate of a film, the better?

The answer is - of course not!

For example, Chen Fei has watched "Doraemon" before.

"Doraemon: Walking with Me" was less than 30% of the films on its first day of release, which is not as strong as everyone imagined.

However, because of the good performance on the first day and the reputation is good, the film schedule on the second day was immediately increased to more than 30%.

In a word, the higher the screening, the better, because if there are too many screenings at the beginning of the release and insufficient average attendance rate, the direct consequence is that the cinema manager's confidence decreases, and thus reduces the number of scenes on the second day.

If the number of scenes is guaranteed, the attendance rate of the film is quite high, which makes it difficult to get a ticket, and the theater manager will increase the number of screenings.

One increase and one decrease seem ordinary, but there are actually big differences, because reducing the number of screenings means that the popularity of the film is going down, often unstoppable and plummeting; the number of scenes increases, and it is difficult to get a ticket often gives people the illusion of "this film is not good", and everyone is prone to rush up and snatching up, and films such as "Beijing Meet Seattle" and "Wolf Totem" are representative.

If the two indicators of screening rate and attendance rate are high, can we determine that the film has a big box office sales?

The answer is still no!

However, the "double-high" film can at least create more opportunities for the box office.

In fact, the screening rate and attendance rate are both relatively false concepts, and their levels are relative.

Assuming that the scheduled videos are all before 10 a.m. or after 22 p.m., no matter how many schedules it is, it may not be useful.

Similarly, the attendance rate depends directly on the size of the theater. A small hall with 100 people and 80 people see the attendance rate; while a hall with 500 people and 200 people see the attendance rate, only 40%.

Therefore, what directly determines the box office is the ticket price and the number of viewers.

Ticket prices vary, for example, on Tuesday's movie tickets are half price, non-golden events are 20% off, and membership cards with different quotas can be discounted... The number of viewers is a direct reflection of the "movie-scheduling ratio" of films. The number of viewers is high, and the box office is definitely not different. Therefore, Korea and China generally do not count the box office of movies, but directly count the number of viewers.

Although the impact of the screening rate on the final box office of the movie is not so absolute, it can influence what movies the audience sees in the theater.

To meet the audience for a movie, it must first be evaluated by the theater manager: what time to arrange the theater, what capacity to have, etc. It can be said that the theater manager controls the life and death power of the film on the first day of the film in his thoughts. For the film crew and the publisher, to make the film impress the audience, the theater manager must first be impressed, because "the theater manager is also the audience."

So, what are the criteria for judging theater managers?

As professionals, they will have a basic prediction before the film is released. This prediction is not about speculating whether the audience likes it or whether the film has a good reputation, but about how many viewers will pay for the film. The more people are willing to buy tickets, the better. Simply put, the audience is willing to spend money, and whether they like it or not is their own business.

In order to complete this prediction, the theater manager needs to find more evidence to support: for example, whether the advance preview of a certain film is full, how does the audience react; whether its promotional offensive is strong, whether materials such as posters and trailers are attractive enough; and in addition, whether it is very close to young audiences.

After the first day of the release, the number of viewers can see the future of the film and the audience's reaction more directly and accurately. The theater manager will make adjustments in time, adding more for those with more people, and reducing for those with less people.

In a word, although the manager has certain authority to arrange the movie, what he wants to watch in the end is whether the movie can make money for him. What he values ​​most is money. Therefore, the quality of the movie, whether the movie can impress the audience, and whether the movie can win the support of the audience are the fundamentals that determine the final box office of a movie.

However, to a certain extent, the arrangement of theaters still plays a great role in a movie, so many film leaders have to ask for help in order to make the cinema schedule more movies.

For example, at the end of 2013, before the Hong Kong police and gangster film "Storm" was released in China, Liu Dehua, the starring, publisher and producer, admitted in an interview with reporters that he no longer wanted to release because in order to make the theaters line a little more films, he had to accompany the film merchants and theater owners to have dinner and drink. As a superstar, he had to smile in front of those theater bosses.

The star with the same experience is Huang Xiaoming. The movie "Why Sheng Xiaomo" he invested in and starred in was released. In order to promote this film, he also fought hard.

Before the release, Huang Xiaoming not only went to many cities to invite theater managers to dinner, but also picked up food for them, and then took his mobile phone to "please take a photo" with them and played "Muma". There is only one purpose, which is to win the favor of theater managers, and in the competition for films of the same quality, he can schedule more films for "Why".

It is precisely because of these factors that Chen Fei had to come to the scene in person and personally come to the distribution of "Wolf Warrior".

Of course, Chen Fei could not run at one cinema and one cinema across the country. He didn’t have the time and energy, so his approach was to focus on the big and let the small, and personally consult the top five cinema chains in the country. The others were left to the people below, or completely handed over to the market, so that the market could choose for itself.

In addition, he could not have accompanied others to drink alcohol and take care of health like King Liu. He has the qualifications and abilities to do not have to do that.

At present, the largest cinema chain in China is Wanda Theater, but this institution is already Chen Fei's possession. With his order, he had to give him the best resources obediently.

Of course, outsiders don’t know for the time being. At this time, the outsiders only knew that Wanda had been acquired by a foreign-funded institution of the United States, but they did not know the specific details. People thought that Wanda had transformed into a foreign-funded enterprise.

So Chen Fei just called the heads of five other theaters except Wanda and held a meeting together.

The heads of these five theaters have given Chen Fei a face and arrived on time.

"Mr. Liu, Mr. Yang, Mr. Zhao, Mr. Hua, Mr. He."

Chen Fei walked into the conference room and shook hands with the few people who were already waiting inside.

These people are the heads of major theaters.

"Brother Fei!"

"Brother Fei!"

Everyone greeted Chen Fei with a smile.

After sitting down, Chen Fei spoke first: "I invite you to come today to discuss the screening of "Wolf Warrior" with you. Everyone should know that the movie "Wolf Warrior" was specially designated by the National Defense Education Office of the Ministry of National Defense and Defense Education, which is of extraordinary significance."

From the beginning, Chen Fei pulled the banner and took out the title of the National Defense Department to hit those guys.

He actually knew very well in his heart that although those people were respectful to him on the surface, privately... few people may really take him seriously.

Because those who can sit in their position are used to eating and have high vision. Many celebrities have to be humble when they arrive. Some actresses even have to accompany them to drink. People like Chen Fei not only don’t come to the door but also ask them to come to the door. They must have resentment in their hearts, so Chen Fei first brought out the title of the National Defense Department, and the meaning is very clear. You can do it. This is a movie of the National Defense Department. If there are fewer films, you can think clearly about the consequences!

After hearing this, those guys naturally laughed: "Brother Fei, please rest assured. We must give "Wolf Warrior" as much as possible."

These words are actually false, but Chen Fei doesn't care. He just needs to convey the meaning he should convey. If someone really doesn't give face later, then clean up one by one. Anyway, none of these people's butts are clean, so it's easy to clean them up.

The person in charge of a theater chain asked Chen Fei with a smile: "Brother Fei, why didn't you see Mr. Wang today? Didn't you invite him?"

The youngest Wang he mentioned was the person in charge of Wanda Cinema.

These people often hang out together and live a life of living together. Because that guy has rich family and has some connections, he knows where to play, he often takes them together. At work, they often unite together to embarrass some people, or suppress some movie directors.

To be honest, the five people in front of you, and the so-called Young Master Wang, the theater managers whom Chen Fei looked down upon, are the eight kings in the film industry, and many directors dare not offend them because they often get together and are unanimous. If one dares to offend them, which one of them will be excluded.

At this time, they found that Chen Fei did not invite that guy, and they were puzzled. After all, Wanda is the largest theater in China, and it is even greater than the sum of the two companies they were present. If "Wolf Warrior" wants to get a good start in the box office, it is impossible to bypass him.

After listening to the other party’s question, Chen Fei replied lightly: “Mr. Wang? Oh, he is no longer the person in charge of Wanda, why are you asking him for?"

What?

When those people heard this, their eyelids were thumping.

Although they knew that Wanda had been acquired by foreign capital, they still didn't know that Wanda had changed people, because according to the information they had found out, foreign capital would not interfere with Wanda's operations except holding shares. Everyone thought that Young Master Wang would definitely continue to be responsible for Wanda Cinemas, but-

Some people here have heard of one thing. Chen Fei went to Wanda headquarters a few days ago, but Mr. Wang ignored Chen Fei at all and did not give him any face.

But now Mr. Wang has been stroked!

Could it be...

Is it because of Chen Fei?

Mr. Wang offended Chen Fei and was then punished by Wanda?

Thinking of this, the eyes of several people looking at Chen Fei couldn't help but change again and again.

Another person asked carefully: "Brother Fei, where is Wanda?"

"Oh, Wanda has agreed to guarantee the 60% scheduling rate of "Wolf Warrior" first. Then make arrangements based on the subsequent situation."

What?
To be continued...