Industry insiders reveal four magic weapons for box office success of "Laughing Jianghu"

Last weekend,"Orphan Zhao" and "Laughing Jianghu", the two vanguard teams of the New Year's Eve stalls, had a head-to-head confrontation at the box office. The production and publicity cost is only a small cost of 40 million yuan, and it grossed more than 60 million yuan in box office nationwide within three days of its release. It made the film investors Benshan Media and Bona Films laugh from ear to ear.

A film with a very poor reputation has achieved surprisingly high box office sales. Even colleagues in the industry can't help but envy and hate it. The film's publicity plan has become a secret that colleagues are competing to inquire about. Our reporter interviewed a number of industry insiders yesterday and revealed the secrets of the box office miracle of"Laughing Jianghu": the location, schedule, star appeal, and publicity. The collective contribution of these four factors has become "Laughing Jianghu". Four magic weapons.

Secret 1: Regional advantages

Northern theaters crowd out "The Orphan of Zhao"

Movies are an art that has no borders or regions, but "Laughing the Jianghu" may be an exception.& rdquo; Talking about why "Laughing Jianghu" won the box office in its first week, Wu Hehu, deputy general manager of Shanghai Lianhe Theater Line, bluntly stated that regional advantage is a major box office magic weapon for "Laughing Jianghu". He revealed that in the northern region where Zhao Benshan is extremely popular,"Laughing the Jianghu" is the box office champion. As far as I know,"Laughing the Jianghu" was released on its first day, and all theaters in Shenyang with more than 6 halls grossed more than 100,000 yuan that day, which is unbelievable in Shanghai. rdquo; Wu Hehu said with a smile that when he was in a meeting in Beijing, when he met his colleagues from all over the country, he made a fool of himself because he boasted about the box office of "Laughing the Jianghu" in Shanghai: I told the manager in the north that the total number of theaters under our theater line was 1.15 million yuan a day. I thought the results were good. They all laughed when they heard it. In their eyes, this box office was nothing." rdquo;

Film scholar Ge Ying believes that the initial success of "Laughing the Jianghu" does not rule out the suspicion of using regional advantages to crowd out "The Orphan of Zhao". He told reporters that he learned from insiders that some theaters in the north deliberately included "Laughing the Jianghu" in the prime time period and relegated "The Orphan of Zhao" to the unpopular period during the filming. Although there are differences between the north and south audiences, such competition seems a bit too much." rdquo;

Another industry insider also revealed to reporters that filming time is very important for a film. For example, most white-collar workers only have time on weekends. When they walk into the movie theater during prime time on Saturday night to watch "The Orphan of Zhao", they find that there is only "Laughing Jianghu", so in most cases, they will watch "Laughing Jianghu". rdquo; This industry insider revealed that a friend of his found in theaters in the north that the schedule of "Laughing the Jianghu" exceeded 60%, so it was not surprising that the box office was good." rdquo;

Tip 2: Seize the opportunity during the schedule

Before the New Year blockbusters start

The schedule of "Laughing the Jianghu" is well chosen. If it were put in any other schedule, it would not have as high a box office as it is now.& rdquo; Ishikawa, a professor at the School of Film and Television of Shanghai University, told reporters that the film distributor, Bona Films, specially launched "Laughing the Jianghu" as a stepping stone to the New Year's Eve, taking advantage of the schedule. ldquo;"Laughing the Jianghu" is like a platter of popular elements. It has no complete story and few artistic and aesthetic pursuits. To be honest, I almost quit halfway through the process of watching the film. But launching such a funny movie at this juncture tells the audience that the festival is coming and it is time to relax. rdquo;

In Wu Hehu's view, choosing to collide with "Orphans of Zhao" and avoid the later releases of "Let the Bullets Fly" and "If You Are the One 2" is a wise choice. However, he is not optimistic about the stamina of "Laughing the Jianghu", which started successfully in the first week. Wu Hehu said: The audience in the first week is generally impulsive consumers. They will watch the movie no matter how good or bad it is. After watching it, they will choose to praise or criticize it. But in the second week, consumers become more rational and will read online word-of-mouth and media reports. They are the key to determining the real future trend of the film." rdquo; A publicity official from a mainland film company analyzed: Before "Laughing the Jianghu", it happened to be a depressed post-National Day episode, and there were not many films to watch."Ha 7" was also average, so it was really advantageous to arrange it for this period." rdquo;

No matter what the box office looks like in the future, there is no suspense about "Laughing the Jianghu" making money. Film critic Wei Junzi even predicted that its box office will not exceed 100 million yuan. If "Three Guns Surprise" was one of the only two money-making films in 2009, then "Laughing", which cost 40 million yuan to produce and promote, was obviously one of the money-making films in 2010.

Tip 3: The lineup is interesting

Zhao Benshan Xiaoshenyang has a wide audience

Everyone loves Zhao Benshan. This sentence is no exaggeration in mainland China. From the indispensable top dish of the Spring Festival Gala to the friendly image on the screen and on the screen, Zhao Benshan's strong appeal has become a safety pin for ratings and box office in many cases. Therefore, Zhao Benshan was able to take the initiative to pick up the lead in the film, which in Ge Ying's opinion has already allowed "Laughing the Jianghu" to win at the starting line. ldquo; Zhao Benshan and Xiao Shenyang are definitely important factors in the success of "Laughing Jianghu". Being able to invite Zhao Benshan to come out of the mountain,"Laughing Jianghu" has already been half successful." rdquo;

Because Zhao Benshan and Xiao Shenyang participated in the performance together,"Laughing Jianghu" inevitably carries a hint of a duet twist, and some of the paragraphs were even reported by netizens to look like duet twist. Wu Hehu questioned this: Both the audience and the movie content of "Laughing the Jianghu" are inseparable from the duo and sketches, but the plot of the movie has many divisions. rdquo; In addition, the slightly vulgar scenes in the movie in order to cater to the audience are also questionable in Wu Hehu's view. Although the movie is easy-to-understand, taking one step further will be vulgar. "The Orphan of Zhao" is meaningful but not interesting, while "Laughing the Jianghu" is neither meaningful nor interesting.& rdquo;

But no matter how meaningless and uninteresting,"Laughing the Jianghu" still stands out at the box office. In the eyes of professionals, this is closely related to the sharp decline in Chen Kaige's appeal. Ishikawa admitted that Zhao Benshan may be more popular among the general audience. Chen Kaige focuses on the high-end intellectual market, while "Laughing Jianghu" focuses on the low-end market, with a relatively wider audience. rdquo;

Tip 4: Propaganda and create weird tricks

Small costs put on a big coat

While the box office of the film is rising steadily, the promotion plan of "Laughing the Jianghu" has also made insiders envious. How did the film distributor Bona Pictures turn a stone into gold and turn a low-cost film like "Laughing the World" into a dark horse that grossed 60 million yuan in box office in the first week?

Wu Hehu told reporters that although the distributor would do a lot of gimmicks to promote the film before each film is released, Bona Pictures 'promotion this time can be said to be a surprise victory. ldquo; Before the release of this film, the distributor deliberately did not arrange for theater managers across the country to watch the film in advance." rdquo; According to Wu Hehu, since people in the film industry are not allowed to see it first, no one knows the quality of the film. The sense of mystery created as well as Zhao Benshan's master-apprentice team in Shenyang are full of expectations. In addition,"Laughing Jianghu" also successfully exploited the loopholes of "Orphan Zhao" before its release: because "Orphan Zhao" was released on the 4th, most theaters cleared the schedule on the 3rd, and "Laughing Jianghu" was released one day in advance. rdquo; Wu Hehu said with a smile that since the next two days were weekends, most of the theater's filming staff were at home on vacation, so during the weekend,"Laughing Jianghu" and "Orphan of Zhao" were on the same footing. No one would come to adjust the previous filming plan, and no one would compress the number of "Laughing Jianghu", which meant that there would be enough screening time for three days at once. rdquo;

Not only that, some industry insiders also revealed that "Laughing Jianghu" also used disguise. It was originally a low-cost film, but it was tied to "Let the Bullets Fly","If You Are the One 2", and "Orphan of Zhao" in terms of publicity, so that it gave people the illusion that "Laughing Jianghu" was also a blockbuster. Coupled with the lineup of Zhao Benshan and Xiao Shenyang, it was easier for people to think that it was a blockbuster. Since it was a blockbuster like "Orphan of Zhao", it was easy for the audience to choose the former when entering the theater. rdquo;