Chapter 430: Stealing Box Office

The combined box office of "The Monkey King" and "From Vegas to Macau" did not exceed one hundred million, while the single-day box office of "Love Like the First Date" was more than double theirs.

This couldn't help but make all sides sigh with emotion—when the Principal went all out, he was ferociously unstoppable.

It also let people witness the power of "Internet + E-commerce."

The e-commerce is Tu Piaopiao; the internet is Chang'e Technology's new media—such power is at least one version ahead of the present.

Hong Kong films running into him—consider themselves unlucky.

What they didn't know was that this was the embryonic form accumulated by Fang Hong over four years—four years of diligent work, not daring to slack in the slightest, constantly investing and constantly laying out, before achieving this effect.

Only this effect wasn't ideal; the opening day didn't pass 200 million—if it had passed 200 million, it would have been ideal.

Now "Love Like the First Date" has an excellent reputation, breaking 8 points right at opening—that already counts as a masterpiece, and for an art film the box office is very impressive.

Of course, only the Principal plays this way; no one can afford to, and no one dares to play this way—what if it flops and loses a few hundred million.

This film not only won the audience's praise, but film critic Zhang Wei also commented: "This is one of the best Chinese-language films of the past ten years."

He only said 'one of,' so it seems he was still being conservative.

Cultural critic Hu Zhi Feng stated: "I recommend young people should watch this film—after watching, one's view of love will become more mature."

Audiences, scholars, all classes are very optimistic about this film, and Liu Tianxian, because of this film, once again reversed her previous image as a bad-film actress from "The Four 2."

At least no one says she acted poorly; everyone says this film is a masterpiece.

In any case, the audience has already gotten used to it—she just torments the audience with one good film and one bad film, so willful.

Wangyi once again called on her not to take other people's films, to cooperate peacefully with the Principal—they've been calling for this for several years.

Liu Tianxian can't do anything about it either; those are films she made before, and Enlight wouldn't just release them all at once for a clean break.

This year there's also "The Four 3"—also a source of melancholy.

A masterpiece like "Love Like the First Date" also has its flaw: watching it is too uncomfortable, so a lot of reverse propaganda appeared online.

"After watching, I don't dare to watch it a second time!"

"This film breaks people's defenses—after watching it, love is a turn-off!"

""Love Like the First Date" tells the secrets of young people's love affairs! Many couples broke up after watching!"

Such news and comments are quite numerous—the gist is: everyone, don't go into the cinema, because after watching you'll be unable to bear it.

Just a small dose from the competitors—no need to pay it any mind!

Just as all sides were very optimistic about this film, and there were also turn-off warnings, on the second day of the New Year, "Love Like the First Date" box office was 132 million, and it took a dive.

Meanwhile, the other two films' box offices rose to varying degrees—"The Monkey King" 78.51 million; "From Vegas to Macau" 23.05 million, together they broke 100 million.

But this dive made Chen Zhixi feel it was rather strange—even though "Love Like the First Date" is uncomfortable to watch, it shouldn't make the opponents' box office rise.

Moreover, the opponents' films' reputations were also terrible to the extreme, with online audiences condemning these two films with bitter words.

The reviews for "The Monkey King" are like this:

"The ugliness of this film has reached a level I cannot describe—after watching, I feel the IQ of the whole street has been dragged down."

"I heard it's a film that robs its own father—watching it is like money laundering."

"This is eighteen streets worse than the neighboring 'Love'—at least that one is good-looking and doesn't make people sleepy; this film makes people want to sleep."

"Go to hell—comparing this with 'Love' is simply a piece of shit; Fa Ge doesn't have a shred of integrity, taking on such a bad film."

"."

These are the reviews for "From Vegas to Macau":

"Have all the tickets for 'Love' been sold out? Making me watch this kind of trash."

"One star for the eternal Fa Ge!"

"Wang Jin, too bad!!!!"

"Recommend watching 'Love'—these two Hong Kong films are truly fucking rotten beyond endurance."

"The Principal has a conscience for once, support the Principal!"

"."

In any case, they're super bad films—if there were no opponents and the audience had no choice, that would be understandable, but now being comprehensively suppressed by Jade Rabbit, they shouldn't be rising.

With strong opponents in play and the audience having a choice, they should be declining day by day.

Just as the film market was shifting with the wind, at Liu Tianxian's big Villa, Fang Hong, Xu Liyun, Liu Xiaoli and others were spending the Spring Festival together—they didn't need to visit relatives and such, having already done so before.

They only needed to make a phone call.

And this Spring Festival was a Spring Festival spent by two families together—quite harmonious, sitting together eating New Year's Eve dinner, chatting, playing Dou Di Zhu and such, quite happy.

Liu Xiaoli has rich-lady friends and would also go out to gatherings to play mahjong; Xu Liyun is still the same, liking to watch TV dramas, and still liking to watch idol dramas.

Just bored, that's the hobby!

Now she is watching "The Heirs"—this TV drama was shelved for about a year and finally released, already several episodes aired.

Starring Zhao Xiaodao, with handsome guys like Cai Wenjing and Dou Xiao in supporting roles.

This drama was also broadcast on both satellite and online platforms, given to Jiangsu Satellite TV, not given to Hunan Satellite TV—and once aired, it sparked a ratings frenzy.

Because the episode count was relatively small, only 20 episodes, it was sold to Jiangsu Satellite TV at a price of 10 million per episode, totaling 200 million.

This was the first round—because it was so explosively popular, the second and third rounds have also been sold; normally the second round requires a 50% discount on the licensing fee.

Relying on this TV drama, Zhao Xiaodao caught fire again, showing a trend of replacing Da Mimi's ecological niche—after all, that one is pregnant. Seeing this situation, Da Mimi, even while pregnant, had to cover her baby bump and come out to work—if she didn't work, her position would be gone.

It's just that Zhao Xiaodao is unsophisticated, so the threat to the post-85 flowers isn't particularly big, but it has produced pressure—do you think she won't become fashionable?

Therefore, Zhao Xiaodao's rise has also attracted the hostility of many small-timers, and along with it come boundless dark materials—saying she's unsophisticated, saying she's uncultured—this is something she must go through.

Xu Liyun was watching TV, and Fang Hong and Liu Tianxian were also sitting together on a carpet not far away, with a cat beside them.

The two were bored; Liu Tianxian was holding a bottle of nail polish, painting Fang Hong's fingernails—the nails were painted crystal clear and translucent, with glitter on top.

She lowered her head, carefully painting his nails, and said: "Hey, do you think we might, like in the film, slowly accumulate some small conflicts, and then the conflicts grow bigger and bigger, and we'll separate in the future?"

Earlier she had been quite moved watching "Love Like the First Date," so she had been wanting to discuss this topic with this man.

"Won't happen?" Fang Hong said.

"Why?"

"The two of us are completely different from the couple in the movie, okay? And our personalities are different too — we say whatever we have to say, never keep things bottled up, and we can accept each other's shortcomings."

Fang Hong looked at her gentle little face and said again: "Mainly because we've both grown up and know that love is reality."

Liu Tianxian smiled in relief, finished one hand, and gently blew on it with her mouth: "The other hand."

"If you let me go out like this, how am I supposed to face people?" Fang Hong switched hands.

Liu Tianxian didn't even look up, her face a picture of gentle concentration: "It's New Year's — who are you going to see?"

"You, of course. It's been so long since I last saw you, I missed you to death." Fang Hong laughed.

Liu Tianxian gave him a coquettish, reproachful glance: "It's only been ten days and you call that a long time?"

They had just seen each other at the premiere not long ago — about ten days from now — and during that time she'd been out running Propaganda Department work and had only just gotten back.

"Haven't you heard the saying 'one day apart feels like three autumns'? For us it's been over ten years." Fang Hong talked nonsense and leaned in to bump her head.

Liu Tianxian smiled sweetly: "Don't distract me. When I finish painting them for you later, don't blame me."

"If I don't blame you, who would I blame? You're the one painting them." Fang Hong said.

"Blame yourself." Liu Tianxian said.

Just as the two were flirting, Fang Hong's phone suddenly rang. Just as he was about to fish it out of his trouser pocket—

"Don't get it on your pants, it hasn't dried yet!" Liu Tianxian stopped him.

"Then help me get it." Fang Hong tilted his body, signaling her to take the phone.

Liu Tianxian set the nail polish down, took out the phone for him, glanced at the screen and said: "It's Chen Zhixi calling."

Fang Hong took it, swiped to answer, and Chen Zhixi's voice came through: "General Manager Fang, I've noticed some signs of our box office being stolen on the market."

"The other side did it?" Fang Hong was very calm.

This was an industry norm — as long as it wasn't too excessive, generally no one pursued it, because it was impossible to pursue. Could you monitor every cinema?

So Chen Zhixi should have known that, but the fact that she called meant the other party was stealing their box office, not the cinema.

Because generally box-office theft was done by cinemas — bypassing the system with handwritten tickets, or running dual systems not connected to the official system, so the cinema could pocket everything itself, avoiding taxes and not having to share with the producers.

That was the cinema stealing on its own, generally very hard to regulate, but the theater chains also suffered losses because they couldn't get their share — which was also the point that made the authorities furious, since it amounted to tax evasion.

But audiences weren't fools and could expose it at any time, so not every cinema did this.

But even so, it remained rampant despite repeated crackdowns.

*Lost in Thailand*, *Beijing Love Story*, and *Dad Where Are We Going* all had box-office theft — tens of millions had been stolen.

"Pretty much. Rabbit Tickets has ground inspectors on site, and we've tracked down five cinemas, all in third- and fourth-tier cities." Chen Zhixi said.

Rabbit Tickets had roughly a thousand ground inspectors distributed across the country, though most were in first- and second-tier cities, with only a few in the cities below.

Big cities generally didn't do this — first-tier cities were all brand-name venues with heavy foot traffic, and getting caught meant heavy fines they couldn't afford, since it amounted to tax evasion.

Small cities were mostly operating at a loss, with inadequate regulation — nothing to be done. And the policies continuously issued over the past two years were working to standardize the industry.

In January this year, new film management regulations were also issued, strengthening film market management and standardizing the cinema ticketing system.

The opponents stealing box office were doing it through the revenue-sharing phenomenon. Previously the share was at 57%; now it had been raised to between 60% and 65%. The distributor and the cinema reached an agreement giving the cinema a larger share, so the cinema was happy to help steal box office.

Of course, it evolved into a clever method: rebates!

But rebates couldn't steal someone else's box office — you couldn't have your system issue your tickets while showing someone else's film.

So this method, with a slight twist, could both report box office and give rebates.

And now there's a new method: signing direct ticket-purchase agreements!

That is, buying tickets in the form of private screenings — renting out the cinema outright, then buying up all the seats through a third-party ticketing platform.

If a cinema has 100 seats, you directly buy the box office — that's where ghost screenings come from.

This method even has an overall term: money laundering!

The later *Ip Man 3* used exactly this method — one ticket for 233 yuan, treating the authorities like fools. The production company was driven to bankruptcy, and the investors ran off.

Jade Rabbit only did private screenings and didn't buy box office — the tickets were genuinely sold to audiences.

So the methods of stealing box office are myriad: structured tickets, malicious refunds, group tickets — as long as someone wants to steal from you, just pay the money, and they can steal it any way they want.

This thing is nothing more than profit — pay enough, let the cinema make enough, and it's done. But it can't be done so brazenly.

If big companies could do it brazenly, then dark-horse films couldn't exist — they'd just steal you to death.

The theater chains have to manage this, have to take responsibility. If your qualification is revoked, you're finished — don't think theater chains just take the money and do nothing!

Likewise, if a cinema as a franchisee has its screening qualification revoked by the authorities, it has to change careers.

(End of chapter)