Sohu Entertainment Special (HAMA/Wen) In the Spring Festival this year, Ning Hao and Andy Lau’s comedy "The Movie Emperor" was released seven days later, and it was moved to be released again on March 15th.
However, the escape strategy failed to change the fate of The Movie Emperor, with nearly 12% screenings on the first day, and the box office was only 2.45 million yuan, which was lower than Article 20 and Pegasus 2, which had been released for more than a month, and the attendance rate was at the bottom of all the films on that day. On the second day and the third day (Saturday and Sunday), the box office did not rise but fell, and there was no heat at all. It was difficult for the total box office to exceed 100 million in the end.
Publishers and creators should realize that it is not the fierce competition and insufficient film arrangement in the Spring Festival that led to the failure of this film, but that they overestimated their own works.
achieve many purposes at one stroke
From the creative source, "The Movie Emperor" is not a work that has much to do with the audience, but more like a top matching project with a commercial title.
Ning Hao is the contracted director of Joy Media, a Hong Kong listed company, and has a film appointment. It has been several years since the release of Crazy Alien in the Spring Festival of 2019, and he needs a new film to explain to the capital.
On the other hand, thanks to the financial support of Andy Lau’s "Asian New Star Guidance Program", Ning Hao became famous with Crazy Stone. He verbally promised to cooperate with Andy Lau once. For so many years, there was no role suitable for Andy Lau in his nobody movies to repay him, and he has always been thinking about it.
So there was the tailor-made project "The Movie Emperor".
Ning Hao said that once Andy Lau asked him, "I waited from my forties until I was almost 60 years old. Aren’t you filming me?" He felt that Andy Lau never lacked projects, and he seemed to have acted in everything, adding roles in various professions, except himself. He wants to go back to the beginning of his dream and shoot a Andy Lau that he has never shot before.
As far as Ning Hao is concerned, he has already proved his box office appeal through "Let Love Away" and "Crazy Alien", and "The Movie Emperor" can try other styles to find some novelty in creation.
As a comedy with a famous director and a big star, the topic of "The Movie Emperor" is commercial. If it can be expressed in it, highlighting the authorship, it can also be sent to a film festival.
Things developed in the expected direction. Since the project was established, "The Movie Emperor" has been highly regarded. Later, it was shown in Toronto, Busan and Pingyao Film Festival, which received a good response from fans.
After the promotion and preheating of several major film festivals at home and abroad, the film is scheduled to be released on November 17th. At that time, there were not many strong films on the market, and the market was relatively cold. The cinema was looking forward to this head hot film bringing a small climax.
However, the film side chose to withdraw from the file and moved to the Spring Festival file where the cake was bigger and the competition was more intense.
In order to cooperate with the publicity, the film also took the initiative to play a management role in the trailer for file change, as if the director and actors were also very passive about the decision to file change and were trapped by capital.
But in fact, Ning Hao’s Bad Monkey Film is the project filing party and the actual trader of The Movie Emperor, and it is the second largest producer after Joy Media. Ning Hao is not only the signing director of Joy Media, but also the second largest shareholder.
Andy Lau’s Dreamer Entertainment is also one of the main producers of The Movie Emperor.
Is it really weak and wronged to "listen to the management", or do you use the ignorance of the public to make marketing?
Of course, the filming of a movie will encounter all kinds of disappointments and constraints, and the box office is also the result of a variety of factors.
However, it is difficult for Ning Hao, who is rich in resources after his success, to win the sympathy of the audience. As the core creator, he made the film take on too many tasks.
Imagine what would happen if the famous satirical comedy Square and Main Competition, which were compared with The Movie Emperor by netizens, were shown in the Spring Festival file? However, The Movie Emperor is far less important than Square and Main Competition in international film festivals. Square won the Palme d ‘Or in Cannes, and The Main Competition was shortlisted for the main competition in Venice.
Perhaps, Ning Hao’s goal is not "Square" and "Main Competition", but "Parasite" with fame and fortune, but Ning Hao doesn’t want to or dare to discuss such social issues as "Parasite".
evade major responsibility and take the minor
The heart of The Movie Emperor is inevitably utilitarian, and the creation is still full of twists and turns.
Ning Hao wanted to satirize the film circle, but he was wary, cautious, and scratched the surface. He took some well-known scraps from the circle as material and pieced them together. In the face of the public, even their basic selfish desires can’t be satisfied.
Facing the fans, the film is not profound enough. Many phenomena such as tax evasion, money laundering, triangle debt, financial fraud, buying box office, hiring water army and so on, as well as censorship, which is closely related to creation, have not been taken into account.
In the face of Andy Lau, the national idol, Ning Hao also showed a struggle. He seems to want to touch things that might have been dramatic, such as "suspicious perfect image" and "sincere hypocrisy", but he is afraid of his hands and feet, subverting and shaping at the same time, making the characters appear very divided and difficult to stand up.
Similarly, using stars, Dapeng’s Pancake Man is very frank. You know that the people inside are Wu Junru, Deng Chao and Ceng Zhiwei. You accept their half-truth drama and know that it is a kind of banter.
Liu Weichi in The Movie Emperor is ambiguous. He is not a combination of Andy Lau, Tony Leung Chiu Wai and Stephen Chow, but a collection of their names. He is not good enough and evil enough. He is serious, hard-working, dedicated, self-disciplined, vain, snobbish, selfish, arrogant, hypocritical and lascivious. All these good and bad qualities are put on Andy Lau, and the purpose of satirizing the big star is achieved, but the characterization is not completed and people cannot believe it.
Towards the golden mean
Of course, Ning Hao will also get the support of diehard fans. He doesn’t make movies for entertainment until he dies. He always wants to express something and put in his own feelings and opinions about the present.
"Let Heart Flowers Go" puts aside filth, vulgarity and laughter, and talks about "letting go".
"Crazy Alien" discusses the "vat culture" in the mix and match.
On the surface, The Movie Emperor is a satirical film circle, but in fact, it talks about the communication dilemma that is common in society. Most of the time, chickens tell ducks, and no one can really understand anyone. Behind a trivial matter, it is full of ineffectiveness and confusion.
However, this intellectual social observation is too far away for the public, and this theme is still on a big star, just like the grumbling of vested interests, which is difficult to make people empathize.
Look at other competitors in the Spring Festival stalls. Zhang Yimou’s Article 20 talks about self-defense related to the general public, Jia Ling’s YOLO encourages people who are confused to find a better self, and Han Han’s Pegasus 2 is about middle-aged people starting again after failure. Even Bear 10 has advanced to explore the meaning of life.
In contrast, "The Movie Emperor" is like a dull vegetarian dish, and the film side thinks that it is also a big meal that can be drunk during the Spring Festival, and the result can be imagined.
At present, the best-selling movies are either practical, such as "Put All Your Eggs" that can prevent electric fraud, and "Article 20" that can learn legal knowledge, or they can carry some public emotions, such as "Wolf Warriors 2", "Man Jiang Hong" and "She Disappeared", or they are hard-core enough in production, such as "Feng Shen" by The Battle at Lake Changjin, The Wandering Earth. In short, we should be extreme in one aspect, or have both and highlight in several aspects.
Ning Hao, on the other hand, went to the doctrine of the mean. Being familiar with various rules, he learned to hide from the left and flash from the right, hiding in a safe area.
Compared with the new generation of directors supported by him, such as Muye Wen and the Olympic bid, he didn’t have the strength that newborn calves are not afraid of tigers. Compared with Jia Zhangke, Lou Ye, Wang Xiaoshuai and other senior directors, he has long chosen the commercial route without their head iron.
The Movie Emperor, which doesn’t want to offend, please and want everything, is like the middle-aged crisis of the post-70 s famous director who is between the author and the craftsman.
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