Chapter 503: Turbulent and Grand

This National Day box office season, besides "Xinurufang," there's another fierce competitor: "Dear One."

This film stars Yan Zi and Huang Bo; this duo inevitably involves Alibaba—those who understand, understand.

Light Chaser is also involved; it's a union of two powerhouses, an unbeatable combination in this era.

They have money, manpower, and resources—Alibaba just isn't familiar with this market yet.

Another film, "The Golden Era," directed by Xu Anhua, is a collaboration of Youku, LeEco, Alibaba Pictures, and Baidu; Baidu even used its Big Data to predict this film would surpass 300 million yuan in box office.

This company just guesses blindly and achieves nothing!

There's also "Black and White 2," a Baodao production, featuring Huang Bo in a role.

Huang Bo keeps getting resources; if Fang Hong hadn't replaced the cast of "Xinurufang," this National Day, he'd have three films releasing.

He's literally the darling of every capital and film company—there's no choice, only he can carry the box office in this era.

Zhang Songwen still falls short of him, in both emotional intelligence and personal ability—he's far behind.

Besides these films, the rest are just obscure movies and Animation Department productions.

The investors behind this National Day season signal that major capitals are beginning to test the waters of film and deeply engage in film projects.

Because more and more investment institutions and internet companies are entering.

To respond to competition, Tu Piaopiao, along with the main creators including Yu Tu Han Jia Nü, launched a ticket subsidy craze for "Xinurufang," once again offering movie tickets at the ultra-low price of 9.9 yuan.

They had to do it—only about 30% of viewers buy tickets online, meaning 70% still buy offline.

They need to expand again and pull those people online.

Of course, the main reason is that the ticketing market is now extremely competitive, at a boiling point, and they must eliminate other competitors.

They must also fend off encirclement and blockades from giants.

Because giants are infiltrating the film market from every angle—not just through investment and acquisition, but Tencent and Wanda Film partnered to create We影时代.

They even bought Gewara with reckless abandon!

Gewara used to rival Tu Piaopiao as its biggest competitor, but now it's been swallowed whole by capital—simple and unadorned.

Of course, every day countless companies go bankrupt, and every day countless new ones are founded.

Take Wanda: not only investing, but also launching its own Wanda Film app ticketing platform.

Tencent created QQ Piaowu itself, aiming purely at "raising monsters," with participation as the goal.

Even if it fails, the investors survive.

In theory, one has the largest cinema chain, the other the largest traffic—they should've succeeded, yet both eventually failed.

This clearly shows that this market isn't just about strength—strength is merely the threshold; if the product sucks, it sucks.

First, get the product right, get the service right—but neither Tencent nor Wanda has that DNA.

Fang Hong knows Wanda and Tencent have never been honest—they never intended to bet on Tu Piaopiao, so he's always maintained controlling equity.

Of course, Fang Hong himself hasn't been honest either—Tu Piaopiao is just one link in his personal chain.

This film market isn't just Wanda and Tencent in ticketing platforms—Alibaba has also entered, launching Taobao Movies, which later became Tao Piaopiao.

Also, Huayi, Bona, and others have entered the ticketing platform arena—it's a chaotic mess.

Big names, institutions, and capital are all flooding into this industry—this is a sign of hot money entering.

Truly, one batch dies, another arrives.

Today's internet market is competing and expanding in every area—not just ticketing platforms, but even the ride-hailing war is raging.

Didi and Kuai Di are frantically dumping money.

The mobile phone circle isn't quiet either—Lenovo spent $2.9 billion to acquire Motorola, trying to replicate its PC industry success path.

Huang Zhang announced his return, vowing to lead Meizu to a glorious comeback.

360 and Coolpad formed a joint venture, Qiku, re-entering the mobile market to challenge Xiaomi, then at its peak.

The ever-restless Boss Jia boldly announced the "See Jihua" plan—in plain terms, he declared he'd build cars, entering the automotive arena and stepping onto the historical stage.

New forces like Xiaopeng, NIO, Youxia, and Qidian also emerged one after another—the internet car-building craze began spreading.

This is truly a tumultuous era, but Fang Hong can't afford to play, and he lacks the funds—he just wants to launch his short video platform.

He should be accumulating cloud computing and AI—that's what he should be working on; cloud computing helps video and Best Special Effects.

It can accelerate computation efficiency—for example, rendering one special effect takes ten days; with cloud computing, it's done in one.

This is the kind of computing his field needs.

"Xinurufang" ticket subsidies are in full swing; Tu Piaopiao announced: "'Xinurufang' presale box office has surpassed 110 million yuan."

They even posted cinema seat occupancy maps, all red—this news made the film market heat up again.

The last time presales were this hot was during "Shu," and they also didn't care about cost.

Of course, "Dear One" didn't back down either—it moved its release date up to the 25th, with propaganda everywhere; even China Radio International, Beijing Times, Yang Cheng Daily, Yan Zhao Metropolitan Daily, and NetEase Entertainment publicly supported and promoted it.

Its first-day screen share reached a staggering 36.78%, ranking first.

Fang Hong never received such treatment—even his highest screen share was around 20%.

Of course, they have this power and status—it's undeniable; no other force can compare.

But how much box office it earns depends on audience votes with their feet—not just because you're powerful means you'll get high box office.

On the other hand, "The Nun" remains wildly popular globally, with high popularity—it's been in theaters for three weeks and achieved three straight overseas number-one rankings.

This weekend, it earned $35.4 million across 80 overseas markets, bringing its cumulative total to $192 million; combined with North America, its three-week cumulative box office reached $100.8 million.

Global cumulative box office: $292.8 million.

It became the highest-grossing film in "The Conjuring Series" across 32 overseas markets, and the highest-grossing Warner film of the year in 26 markets, including Columbia Pictures, Sweden, Romania, and others.

Its global box office has surpassed the previous "Annabelle"'s final global total of $257 million.

Its North American box office will soon surpass "The Conjuring" and "Annabelle," becoming the second-highest-grossing film in "The Conjuring Series" history in North America.

Such achievements can only be described as terrifying—"The Conjuring Series" is truly formidable.

Of course, this is within the horror genre and cannot compare to sci-fi or superhero blockbuster films.

The film had a huge impact, not just at the box office, but also on YouTube, where users filed complaints that its pop-up ads were too frightening, triggering mass collective complaints.

"You can't skip ads while watching videos, and you can't choose whether to view them."

"I nearly had a heart attack from The Nun's pop-up ad."

After facing controversy and user complaints, YouTube banned this pop-up ad and stated: "This ad violates horror content guidelines! It will no longer appear in advertisements."

Of course, the film's critical reception was still terrible, with a 26% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a CinemaScore of only C.

It's normal—horror films never get good reviews; they're only about scaring people, with no plot logic.

The Nun is still in theaters and continues to earn box office revenue; clearing three hundred million dollars is no problem.

Currently, the Zhong family can expect to receive about $73.2 million, but the exact amount will be determined after the film leaves theaters.

This money will not be held back—all of it will go toward paying the remaining balance to the film base; if it's insufficient, Yutu will cover the difference, as there are no longer tens of millions left.

The construction costs for the film base have now been fully paid, and the rest awaits completion.

Construction has been ongoing for over a year and is nearly finished.

Building the basic structure isn't difficult; the trouble lies in debugging machinery, installing systems, and other complex tasks—decorations and painting are not technical.

Of course, there will be ongoing maintenance costs, but with Yutu's current scale, it can afford them.

Without money, nothing is possible; once money comes in, it flows like water. After the film base is complete, a cinema chain must be established—that's another huge expense.

Additionally, the wedding requires expenditure; only one gold ingot has been bought for Liu Tianxian, and the remaining four gold ingots remain unpurchased.

We must continue working hard to earn money—the revolution is not yet successful.

The film The Nun still has $30 million in online streaming rights, though the actual value exceeds this figure, as the rights were licensed to Warner for distribution, and they also take a share.

After all, this film was so popular, and the overseas market is vast enough, so the licensing fees remain high.

Later, the $200 million box office film Liren Chushao was successfully acquired by Netflix for a record $450 million.

Think about how high Hollywood licensing fees are.

Of course, Netflix didn't just buy the streaming rights for this film with the $450 million—they purchased all subsequent IP rights as well.

Not only are domestic film and television rights prices rising, the same is true overseas, which is why Netflix is producing original content—licensing fees are simply unaffordable.

In truth, the path for film and television is the same domestically and abroad; it's just that others' markets are sufficiently vast.

The $30 million in online streaming rights revenue was almost entirely given to Yu Xian.

If he makes a few more films like this, won't he achieve financial freedom long ago?

Right now, he still can't achieve financial freedom—he's still a mortgage slave, still working, all because he bought such an expensive house.

Still, selling it would fetch him a good sum.

There are also revenues from physical media, pay-TV, and game merchandise development, which have not yet been accounted for.

It's said that the total sales of The Nun's merchandise—including dolls, apparel, and decorations—have already exceeded $100 million.

Just the single image of the female lead's terrifying "demon" likeness generated over $50 million in sales—it's still very profitable.

Foreigners are also perverse, fond of buying terrifying things; but then again, the world has all kinds of people.

(End of Chapter)