Chapter 387

"What else can be done?"Even the big shot was helpless.

"Let it be, whatever happens. We'll strive to strengthen cooperation with Xu Can and try to get him involved in some co-production projects."

Facing the big shot's words, the deputy smiled on the surface but raged internally:

"You're willing to bend and stretch, but it depends on whether Xu Can is willing; the initiative is now in his hands."

My lord, the times have changed.

……

The Chinese premiere of Chouzhelian Alliance saw cinemas across the country packed to the brim, completely sold out!

Forget the IMAX halls; even at 120 yuan per ticket, they were full, and tickets were impossible to grab!

All were real audiences, not a drop of fake water, completely different from the ghostly army occupying seats in some future script-killing movie!

As for the other 3D and 2D general halls, they were equally packed!

Many quite marginal seats required queuing early to grab; queue a bit slower and you couldn't even get those tickets!

Indeed, waiting a day or two would let you grab good seats, so there was no need to watch the midnight premiere.

But who could resist Xu Can's Chouzhelian Alliance?

You couldn't even endure one night, let alone one or two days!

By then, you'd probably be spoiled by everyone around you.

On university campuses or in offices, classmates and colleagues around were passionately discussing who was stronger, Iron Man or Lei Shen,

discussing Loki's true level, discussing who could control the Hulk when he went berserk, discussing whether the villain in the second part was Thanos.

If you hadn't seen it, you could only stand there like a primitive, listening to everyone around you discuss, staring blankly.

This was the charm of Xu Can's movies!

From the early Iron Man and I Am Not a Medicine God, to later Interstellar and Pacific Rim,

Xu Can, far away in Hollywood, had gradually become China's top celebrity!

He hadn't bought traffic, hadn't participated in variety shows to刷 presence, and hadn't even had any scandalous news exposed,

yet whenever his movie was released, Xu Can remained the most discussed topic among those around him!

As Xu Can's cousin, Xu Yuling naturally enjoyed supreme treatment.

She had long become a legendary figure in the entire school; not just anyone could get first-tier singers like Xu Song and Soda Lan to personally hold concerts for her.

On the day Chouzhelian Alliance was released, when tickets for the IMAX hall at the Wanda Cinema next to the school were impossible to get, with 120-yuan tickets炒 up to 240,

Xu Yuling actually pulled out six tickets for the core seats in the golden viewing area, row 8, and invited several close girlfriends to watch the premiere together.

Her classmates were already stunned by her generosity, gratefully following Princess Gao Yuanyuan through a pleasant two and a half hours in the cinema.

"Wow! Iron Man is so handsome!"

"I like Captain America!"

"Why do I feel Loki is handsome too? This movie is so good!"

"I wasn't even a Marvel fan before, but now I'm hooked; I'm going to catch up on Iron Man!"

"Doesn't anyone like Spider-Man?"Xu Yuling was curious.

In her opinion, her older brother Xu Can was the handsomest in Hollywood, bar none.

"Me, me, me!"

Several girlfriends raised their hands simultaneously.

"Lingling, can I be your sister-in-law?"

One of them, the girl with the best figure and universally recognized as the school beauty, said half-jokingly.

She would never admit that sometimes, while her roommates slept, she looked at Xu Can's photos and made her right hand into a Spider-Man gesture.

Before Xu Yuling could speak, other girlfriends nearby laughed and complained:

"Do you think you can compete with Taylor Swift?"

"What if Lingling's brother likes Eastern plain-clothed beauties?"

"Even then, it wouldn't be you; Liu Liu Tianxian and Gao Yuanyuan are all lining up to wait."

Xu Yuling was torn between laughter and tears; why did all the good-looking girlfriends around her want to be her sister-in-law? Was it because of this that you were playing with me?

After the screening, it was already three in the morning; while the girls were joking and playing, other audiences were passionately discussing this Marvel superhero blockbuster.

Everyone's face glowed with excited redness, discussing heatedly, showing no sign of sleepiness at all.

"Awesome! Xu Can is awesome!"

"Ahhh! So satisfying! Can't wait to see the second part!"

"Have to wait a year; how to endure that!"

"By the way, didn't they say Spider-Man 3 is about to be released?"

"Oh right!"

They quickly realized that Xu Can's Spider-Man 3 was filmed almost simultaneously with Chouzhelian Alliance,

and it was said to be released in early 2010!

Just after finishing Chouzhelian Alliance, while audiences were savoring it, they had already started looking forward to the next work!

……

North America, 20th Century Fox headquarters.

The 78-year-old media mogul Rupert Murdoch presided personally, while a group of Fox executives below trembled in fear.

"How is it? Tell me the situation?"

Although he was old and weak, the momentum formed by years of power still made people tremble with fear.

"It's like this…"the Fox executive president said nervously:

"The Avengers' opening day box office..."

He paused, then gritted his teeth and said it anyway.

"110 million..."

The 70-year-old Murdoch nearly passed out at the words, and said, trembling:

"How much?"

"110 million US dollars, Mr."

Rupert Murdoch, who had been sitting proudly in his chair, visibly hunched over.

A month ago, everyone had expected Avatar to be able to go head-to-head with the Chouzhelian Alliance,

James Cameron's decade-in-the-making, generation-defining magnum opus Avatar,

barring any accidents, should at least have been able to lock down the box office crown and dominate the market, right?

Although the single-day box office, or opening weekend box office, might not necessarily break 100 million,

it should at least have established absolute dominance and surpassed Titanic in total box office, right?

After the internal test screening, the response was generally quite strong.

Rupert Murdoch, James Cameron, and others were of course brimming with confidence, feeling they could go toe-to-toe with Xu Can.

After the opening weekend box office came out, Avatar had solid momentum in its second week, and the confidence of everyone at Fox grew even stronger.

But when the Chouzhelian Alliance actually hit theaters, everyone was stunned..........

110 million US dollars on opening day — not a week, not the opening weekend, but a single day!

The Los Santos Times, on the second day after the premiere, urgently added a front-page headline, with bold, oversized lettering conveying the shock of the news!

The Dark Knight's opening day of 65 million US dollars had once been hailed by the media as a record unlikely to be broken within 10 years,

yet just a little over a year later, the Chouzhelian Alliance shattered that record!

This means one thing — a piece of news that struck terror into the heart of Hollywood collectively, drove them all collectively mad!

The Chouzhelian Alliance's opening weekend box office is likely to break through to an unprecedented height!

IMDb opened at 8.6, Rotten Tomatoes at 91% freshness, MTC at 90,

the film's word-of-mouth is top-tier among commercial films, and will naturally drive subsequent box office growth!

Sure enough, all weekend long, nearly ten thousand theaters across North America were sold out! Every single screening was packed!

Whether teenagers or working adults, watching the Chouzhelian Alliance became the coolest, most popular thing to do!

Set up over two years, a visual-effects commercial blockbuster that's a thrill from start to finish — plenty of laughs, plenty of heat,

it directly turned this originally not-so-hot Christmas window into something that surpassed even the summer window!

In the past, on Boxing Day after Christmas, North American audiences actually didn't have much in the way of great entertainment options.