Pei Qian hurriedly clicked open the movie’s promotional page to check.
Journey to the Flying Star
Action/Sci-Fi/Fantasy 3D IMAX
United States/134 minutes
Release date: 2011-03-12
Synopsis:
On the eve of World War I, traumatized former military officer Tim (played by John Stanton) accidentally travels to a mysterious planet and becomes entangled in conflicts among various factions on the planet. Although these factions all view him as a key figure to end the disputes, and he even wins the heart of the beautiful Princess Lynn (played by Deja Morton), can he let go of his past and change the fate of this planet?
After reading this synopsis, Pei Qian’s excited mood was instantly doused with cold water.
This story didn’t seem very appealing!
But on second thought… American films seemed to follow this formula. The globally successful “Avatar” was also about traveling to another planet and getting romantically involved with a local native girl, wasn’t it?
Hmm, close enough.
The key factors were the director and investment!
As long as the director was reliable and the investment was substantial, this film could easily crush “Beautiful Tomorrow”!
Pei Qian hurriedly looked up more information about this film.
After reading, Pei Qian let out a sigh of relief.
It was a sure thing!
Director Daryl had directed his first animated short film as early as 1988, and to date had accumulated multiple film directing credits and several Oscar nominations. In 2005, his animated film grossed 600 million dollars worldwide and won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. In 2008, his next sci-fi animated film won this award again.
“Journey to the Flying Star” was adapted from a classic American science fiction novel published in 1911, and it was now precisely the 100th anniversary of the original novel. The film’s total investment exceeded 170 million dollars, with a star-studded cast. The male lead, John Stanton, had undergone very rigorous physical training during filming, losing a total of 25 pounds while enduring pain to complete the shooting, exemplifying professional dedication.
In short, Pei Qian thoroughly examined this film’s information from beginning to end, and instantly felt reassured.
This was the standard American blockbuster template!
Look at this luxurious lineup, look at this lavish investment—a famous director, famous actors, plus a good script. If it were shown worldwide, wouldn’t a total box office of 600-700 million dollars be no problem at all?
In China alone, it would easily make 500-600 million yuan.
And Pei Qian was even being conservative with these estimates. Based on the investment of 170 million dollars, this film would only break even with a global box office of 500-600 million dollars.
If it exploded in popularity, it would aim for at least a billion!
Wouldn’t it be a piece of cake for theaters to schedule heavy screenings and squeeze “Beautiful Tomorrow” out of the picture?
Currently, theaters were giving this film 31.4% of screenings on its first day, and if its performance continued to be good, this percentage would rise!
Meanwhile, “Beautiful Tomorrow” had dropped to less than 15% of screenings.
The only thing Pei Qian felt somewhat regretful about was that this film was released more than half a month late. If it could have been released alongside “Beautiful Tomorrow,” it would have been certain!
But even releasing now wasn’t too late; at least it would significantly reduce Pei Qian’s subsequent income!
Thinking of this, Pei Qian felt greatly encouraged.
…
…
March 12th, Saturday.
Today was the weekend, no need to go to work, but for Pei Qian, starting from today, every weekend would be filled with very important tasks!
While eating Slackin’ takeout, he checked the OTTO E1 phone reservation situation.
Indeed, so far the number of reservations hadn’t reached 5,000. This batch of inventory would leave at least 4,000 units unsold, which was very close to Pei Qian’s estimated number.
And online, this number had also sparked quite a bit of mockery.
When the OTTO E1 phone first held its launch event, it created quite a buzz. The video of the launch event topped the AiLiDao website’s digital rankings, and Chang You’s tongue twister performance led to widespread imitation.
On the day of the launch, 1,000 units were instantly sold out, creating the illusion of high popularity.
Previously, many people had questioned whether this was hunger marketing, but now that they had opened deposit reservations, the reservation number was less than 5,000, an entire order of magnitude less than other major phone manufacturers’ tens of thousands of reservations.
So, people’s focus of criticism naturally shifted.
“OTTO Technology made a bad move here. They should have continued with hunger marketing, selling bit by bit to maintain the phone’s popularity. Now they’ve opened up sales, and everyone knows the phone’s true worth—only five thousand reservations total. Isn’t that embarrassing?”
“Couldn’t they at least fake it? Add an extra digit to the pre-order numbers to avoid embarrassment!”
“Haha, I think President Chang must have gotten overconfident. The first 3,000 phones all selling out gave him the false impression that this phone was very popular, so he set up pre-orders, and was instantly exposed!”
“When there was no stock, you said it was hunger marketing. When there’s stock, you say the phone isn’t popular enough. Trolls always stand undefeated…”
“Ha, the facts speak for themselves. I’m not asking for much—if this phone could sell a cumulative 30,000 units, I would reluctantly admit it’s successful. But can it? So far, it’s sold three thousand units with five thousand pre-orders, and it’s already peaked! Facts prove that relying on marketing and intelligence tax doesn’t get you far!”
Reading these comments, Pei Qian felt much better and even ate several more bites of food.
Especially the last comment, which righteously and emphatically declared that the OTTO phone had no future. This made Pei Qian feel very comfortable.
The only regrettable thing was that this commenter probably didn’t understand the market situation. Having sold just three thousand units had already earned Mr. Pei twelve million, and even after returning these profits to other departments, he still earned over a million.
If thirty thousand units were sold, wouldn’t that be the end of Mr. Pei?
Next, Pei Qian also glanced at player reviews for “BE QUIET.”
So far, players were still arguing about the purchase barrier for this game, while topics about the game itself were extremely few.
Although the game’s sales were growing, up until now, fewer than ten thousand copies had been sold in total.
Compared to previous games, this was a perfect start!
Pei Qian was very pleased. The discouraging process he had meticulously designed was effective, and significantly so!
Of course, it also received plenty of criticism.
This was precisely what players were arguing about most online.
When “BE QUIET” was first released and players discovered they couldn’t purchase it without first completing the ARG decryption, many players were already filled with anger, even dismissing the game entirely.
After the ARG puzzle was finally solved after a full week, many people happily wanted to purchase it, only to discover there were still prerequisites!
And these prerequisites would take nearly an hour to complete, including finishing a horror mini-game, and even requiring those without cameras to get one…
Although “Lonely Desert Highway” and “Game Producer” were now free, many who had never played these two games simply didn’t want to download them, let alone play them.
In short, going through these prerequisite steps discouraged a large number of players and also sparked huge controversy that continues until now.
Some players said that Tenda had become overconfident, letting themselves go wild and creating a meaningless promotion that actually affected the game’s sales, and they were waiting for the game to fail miserably.
Other players said that the game filtered out players through this method, preventing impatient casual players from entering the game, thus purifying the game environment and enhancing the gaming experience. It was part of the game’s marketing strategy and, judging from current results, very successful.
Pei Qian read these debates with great interest.
Pei Qian wanted to tell everyone that they were all right!
He did indeed hope the game would fail miserably, and he was indeed screening players—they were talking about the same thing!
Besides these two fiercely debating groups, there were also some posts that made Pei Qian marvel at the wisdom of the masses.
A player named “Super Average” posted a detailed guide for passing the prerequisites, including how long to drive in “Lonely Desert Highway,” what choices to make each time in “Game Producer,” how to operate on the TPDb website, and so on.
Most impressively, this poster had also figured out the ultimate shortcut for passing the final test: cut a hole in a piece of paper and place it over the screen, so that the eyes only needed to stare at the small part of the screen behind the hole, completely unaffected by the ghosts around the screen.
The ultimate test, which originally required over half an hour of attempts and extremely strong willpower to succeed, could now be passed in a single attempt by many people using this shortcut…
For this post, Pei Qian had only two words in capital letters: ADMIRATION!
Of course, there was a way to fix this loophole, which was to further adjust the gameplay to require players’ line of sight to scan all corners of the screen throughout, rather than just staring at one place.
However, considering that the game’s current sales weren’t great, obviously, the current challenge already had an extremely discouraging effect, so Pei Qian turned a blind eye to this.
After all, those who could reach this final step were already a minority among players.
Finally, Pei Qian opened the Dog’s Eye app to check the first-day box office performance of “Journey to the Flying Star.”
It was only noon, and “Journey to the Flying Star” had already broken 11 million, with the first day’s box office expected to be around 24 million.
Pei Qian couldn’t help but frown slightly—it didn’t seem as impressive as imagined.
But on second thought, today was only the first day of release. Tomorrow, Sunday, there would be another wave of moviegoers, and wouldn’t 60 million for the two days combined be easy?
Famous director + famous actors + big investment + grand scenes—how could it possibly flop? If it didn’t easily reach a box office of 600-700 million, how could it face others?
Pei Qian remembered that “Beautiful Tomorrow” had less than 8 million in half a day on its first day, with the first day around 17 million, and the Dog’s Eye app had already estimated its box office at 210 million.
And afterward, “Beautiful Tomorrow”‘s figures continued to rise, with the Dog’s Eye app now estimating its box office at 230 million.
Pei Qian hurriedly checked the estimated box office for “Journey to the Flying Star.”
“320 million yuan???”
“Such a good film with only this estimated box office? I don’t believe it!”
Pei Qian almost thought this figure was missing a zero.
But on second thought, the Dog’s Eye app’s box office estimates were just estimates, not necessarily accurate, especially in cases like this, where they were estimating based on half a day’s box office.
Hadn’t “Beautiful Tomorrow” been underestimated?
Go on “Journey to the Flying Star”! I’m counting on you!
Tomorrow you must use high box office numbers to slap the Dog’s Eye app in the face, to let it know what it means to have a dog’s eye view, no, to underestimate films!
Pei Qian looked at tomorrow’s screening schedule again. “Journey to the Flying Star”‘s allocation had increased from 31.4% to 32.3%. Although the increase wasn’t much, it would still have a good suppressing effect on “Beautiful Tomorrow.”
Because “Beautiful Tomorrow” had been showing for 19 days, and would be taken off in about ten days.
Moreover, “Journey to the Flying Star” wasn’t the only film putting pressure on “Beautiful Tomorrow’s screening allocation; other films were also being released during this period.
“Beautiful Tomorrow”‘s box office had now fallen to third place, with the top two positions held by “Journey to the Flying Star” and “The Pursuer,” the latter being a new film that had just been released a few days ago. Although its total box office definitely wouldn’t surpass “Beautiful Tomorrow,” it was a new film with high screening allocation, so its daily box office could still firmly exceed “Beautiful Tomorrow.”
Now the daily box office of the three films was at the levels of 20 million, 8 million, and 4 million, respectively.
But under the constant pressure from the two films in front, “Beautiful Tomorrow” seemed to be in its twilight years.