Chapter 204 Monthly Sales of 1600 Million
After the news that the Hong Kong movie "Duds" grossed more than 10 million Hong Kong dollars reached Beijing, China Film Group Corporation immediately knew that its opportunity had come.
They immediately contacted newspapers to spread the news and promote theater reform.
Those theaters that were still planning to hold out, felt that the game was over after seeing this news.
"Duds" is the first truly co-production film and is part of the country's Hong Kong strategy.
Now "Mr. Donkey" has been released in Hong Kong and has done well. If it is not released in the mainland and the box office share is not given according to the co-production contract, it will be equivalent to the country breaking its promise to the mainland.
Under such a great pressure, those theaters had no choice but to surrender. If they still dared to stop it, they would be courting death.
However, the information is not smooth now, and it is not easy to count the box office. Therefore, China Film adopted the idea of regional broadcasting.
They divided the country into several regions, and then sent people to release the film in each region one by one. In this way, they could calculate the box office statistics as much as possible.
China Film Group did not expect to get all the box office revenue. They only hoped to get back the money for the film, and the rest could be subsidized to Tomorrow Film Company. As long as Tomorrow Film Company was guaranteed to get a share of the revenue, then the co-production contract was completed and the country's face was saved.
As for the losses they suffered, they can slowly settle with these theaters in the future. After all, China Film Group is in the long-term business, and anyone who dares to offend it will be played to death.
However, there are all kinds of strange things in this world, and there are always people who take chances.
After the success of the hunger marketing, Liu Hongmin immediately hid his achievements and fame and went back to the villa to continue discussing the wedding with Li Lizhen.
Zou Shifang reports the latest box office data to Liu Hongmin every day, "Old Liu——"
"I'm not old!" Liu Hongmin interrupted him without any hesitation, "Speaking of other things, I'm hanging up now."
Zou Shifang smiled, he knew Liu Hongmin was still angry. Last time when he announced the good news, he did not give Liu Hongmin a chance to show off, which made Liu Hongmin very unhappy, and he did not talk to him properly for many days.
"You haven't even given birth to your child yet! And yet you already have the temper of a child!? Lao Liu, I'm not saying anything bad to you, but you need to be steady. You're going to be a father."
"Just say what you want to say. Don't delay me from accompanying Zhen!"
"Brother Wei asked me to ask you, why don't you allow the company to use this means of influence?"
"Brother, there is nothing perfect in the world. Hunger marketing is not a perfect publicity plan. It can make a product attract the public's attention and make people ignore the shortcomings of the product and mistakenly think that it is a perfect product. This is its advantage and also its disadvantage. When the shortcomings of this product are exposed, it will cause public opinion to backfire and turn it into an unqualified product."
"All of our films are high-quality and we want long-term profits. However, hunger marketing is for short-term profits. Donkeys is destined to fail in Hong Kong. After using hunger marketing, we can increase the box office in the first few days and reach the goal of 10 million box office."
Zou Shifang sighed, "I'm sorry to trouble you. Getting married is a hassle."
"I can't say that. I'm honored to serve my country."
The box office performance of "Mr. Donkey" was in line with Liu Hongmin's expectations, with most of the box office revenue coming from the first four days. The box office revenue from the remaining twenty days did not catch up with that from the first four days.
Because of the wedding and Li Lizhen's pregnancy, Liu's parents decided to stay in Hong Kong for the New Year. As for Liu Hongjun, he was unable to come to Hong Kong due to the specialty of his major and became a lonely person. Fortunately, the confinement nanny at home could cook for him so that he would not starve to death.
Liu Hongjun was also happy and relaxed. When he had nothing to do, he would exercise, play games, and hang out in those controversial workshops to learn their techniques. It was not until the New Year that he felt lonely. He called Liu Hongmin early in the morning and said, "Brother, you are so mean to leave me alone in Beijing."
"Are you feeling wronged now? When I first heard that you were home alone, I was so happy that my mouth was cramped."
"Brother, I'm wrong, okay?"
"Okay, I'll ask Lao Ma to prepare food and gifts, and Lao Ma will come to find you later."
"Okay, I'll go change my clothes..."
Liu Hongmin hung up the phone and was about to leave when the phone rang again.
He picked up the phone again, "Hello!"
"Mr. Liu, I'm Richard, Happy New Year!"
"Richard, you are so thoughtful." Liu Hongmin laughed and felt in a good mood. "Happy New Year to you too."
Richard continued, "Mr. Liu, I called you this time to wish you a happy new year, and mainly to get your report on the sales of Dead Man's Chest."
"From what you said, the sales of Dead Man's Chest should be very good."
"It's more than good!" Richard said excitedly, "It's simply great! After our statistics, the sales volume of Dead Man's Chest is 16 million copies!!!"
Sixteen million copies!!!???
Liu Hongmin raised his eyebrows. Although he was a little surprised, it was all within his expectations.
"Mr. Liu, are you unhappy?"
"I'm happy! Sixteen million copies can bring me sixteen million US dollars." Liu Hongmin smiled, "However, compared to my children, this money is nothing."
Richard laughed in silence, "Mr. Liu, what you said is very good!"
Liu Hongmin was amused. Who said foreigners don't flatter? As long as there is enough benefit, they can do anything. What's the big deal about flattering? It's nothing.
Richard continued, "Based on current sales estimates, the total sales of Dead Man's Chest will surely exceed 30 million. According to the data, the sales of the Little Devil increased the most."
Liu Hongmin nodded. The Lies incident did make him hate the Japanese. So even if Random House is there, bookstores will pretend to obey and secretly promote your new book according to their own preferences.
Even if they bought the goods, they could just put these magazines and newspapers aside, preferring to lose money themselves rather than let Liu Hongmin make money. This kind of killing 10,000 enemies and losing 800 of their own was very common among the Japanese.
Therefore, in recent years, the sales of Liu Hongmin's novels in Japan have always been lower than those in other developed countries and regions.
As time went by, there were fewer and fewer Japanese who hated Liu Hongmin in the past two years. Since the Japanese signed the "Plaza Accord", the Japanese economy has become even more inflated, but the Japanese did not take precautions at all and still happily invested money in the stock market.
Therefore, the Japanese forgot about Liu Hongmin, and the sales of his novels gradually increased.
(End of this chapter)
