1980 My literary era

Facts have proved that Teacher Lin is a very generous leader.

Yu Hua gossiped behind his back, and after being discovered by Teacher Lin, not only did he not suffer any retaliation, Teacher Lin actually gave Yu Hua very selfless guidance and help in literary creation.

So much so that Yu Hua has been so inspired in the past few days that he has been forced to stay up all night writing manuscripts.

"Take a rest, don't tire yourself out."

Cheng Hong was more than seven months pregnant at Yu Hua's home. She was getting heavier and heavier. She went to bed early at night. When she got up in the middle of the night, she found that her husband was still writing at the desk. She poured Yu Hua a cup of tea and advised him warmly.

Yu Hua heard his wife's words and said, "No, now that I have inspiration, I have to hurry up and finish it."

"We are not short of money now, why are you in such a hurry?" Cheng Hong expressed confusion.

Yu Hua shook his head, "You don't understand!"

He knew Teacher Lin very well. He took the initiative to write a book in order to apologize. With Teacher Lin's character, how could it be possible for him to leisurely write a novel for a year or two.

There is a saying that a country is easy to change, but a personality is hard to change. Although Teacher Lin is now the editor-in-chief, his methods of shutting down the black room have not failed at all.

At the end of last year, Jia Pingwa was imprisoned for fifty days, and she wrote a movie called "The Wasted City".

Teacher Lin's sword has not been unsheathed for several years. When he showed it last year, it was still cutting iron like clay, and the sword never gets old.

Yu Hua didn't want to be locked in a small dark room when the child was born.

Therefore, he had to get this novel out before the child was born, so that he could feel at ease.

He touched Cheng Hong's pregnant belly. It must be a son. If you soak the bean buns in your hands, your father and I won't have to be so angry!

"Farewell My Concubine" has been released for more than a week. After the premiere and roadshow held at the Capital Cinema in Yanjing on the 18th, the film's creative team went to the Daguangming Cinema in Shanghai. The roadshow scene was almost exactly the same as in Yanjing. .

Wherever the creative team went, there were huge crowds of people, including countless fans and moviegoers.

After spending a week traveling to several major cities in China, the creative team has now arrived in Xiangjiang.

"Farewell My Concubine" was released in Hong Kong a week later than in the mainland, just enough to hold another premiere to build up its momentum.

During the week when the creative team was promoting the film in the mainland, various news media including newspapers, magazines, radio stations, and television stations conducted comprehensive reports on the release and promotion of "Farewell My Concubine".

Before "Farewell My Concubine", no Chinese-language film had spent so much money and energy on promotion.

After spending so much money and energy, the results achieved are impressive.

In this era, box office statistics were not calculated through computer systems like in later generations. Instead, manual statistics and calculations were required, which was very troublesome.

Usually, it is already a great thing to be able to collect the box office once in a week.

On June 27, the tenth day after "Farewell My Concubine" was released, movie theaters around the world finally calculated the box office of the movie in the first week.

68.697 million yuan.

Lin Weimin received a call from Xu Feng, saying that the box office statistics were out and he wanted to give him good news. He was quite disapproving, thinking that it would cost him 20 to 30 million yuan.

But when he heard the number "68.697 million" from Xu Feng's mouth, he fell into rare silence.

68.697 million yuan, what is this concept?

At the beginning of the year, "Once Upon a Time: The Lion King" took in a box office of 150 million in the Mainland. Based on the fact that the first week's box office accounted for one-third of the total box office, it was about 50 million.

It is now June 1993. The ticket price for "Farewell My Concubine" in Yanjing, Shanghai, Yangcheng and other places is 4 yuan per ticket. This means that within a week, at least 17 million domestic viewers have watched it. this movie.

This is still a conservative calculation, because movie tickets in Yanjing, Shanghai and other places are already expensive, and other places will only be cheaper.

In addition, theater chains in various places concealed and underreported box office sales. This kind of thing was common in theater chains in the 1990s.

Chen Xiaoer's movies are all hits, but all of them are losing money. Many movie theater chains are almost unscrupulous in concealing and underreporting box office sales.

Based on this calculation, "Farewell My Concubine" is likely to have more than 20 million moviegoers within one week of its release.

When "Shaolin Temple" was released in 1982, it sold more than 100 million at the box office with a ticket price of just over 10 cents, and the number of moviegoers exceeded 1 billion, which was simply a miracle.

"Farewell My Concubine" will definitely not be able to break the record of "Shaolin Temple". After all, "Shaolin Temple" was released for more than half a year, but only looking at the number of moviegoers in the first week, "Farewell My Concubine" can indeed beat "Shaolin Temple" To put it bluntly, it is not difficult to surpass "Shaolin Temple" at the box office if inflation is not taken into account, but it is impossible to exceed the number of moviegoers.

Not to mention one billion people, even one tenth is impossible. The market environment is completely different, and the two are not on the same level at all.

After the shock and joy, Lin Weimin's mentality returned to normal. Of course he was happy about the high box office, but I'm afraid this momentum will not last long.

"You have to be prepared for a big drop in the box office next week." Lin Weimin told Xu Feng.

"I have contacted several theaters and the box office drop is very good. Although the second week is not as good as the first week, the box office should not be bad either."

Lin Weimin sighed, Xu Feng still didn't understand the mainland market well enough.

In the film market of the 1990s, there was a group of vultures. They depended on the mountains and rivers, and relied on the theaters to hide and underreport the box office.

The box office of "Farewell My Concubine" in its first week was nearly RMB 70 million. If inflation is not taken into account, this number definitely set a record for the first week box office of domestic movies. For those vultures, how could they give up this gluttonous feast so easily?

After hearing what Lin Weimin said, Xu Feng couldn't believe it, "It shouldn't be the case, right?"

"You should communicate with Factory Director Cheng and see what his opinion is."

Lin Weimin did not persuade Xu Feng, but asked her to ask Cheng Zhigu, the director of Yan Film Factory. He is a veteran in the film industry and knows more about things in the film industry than Lin Weimin.

Not long after the call was hung up, Lin Weimin received a call from Xu Feng again. Cheng Zhigu's statement was almost the same as Lin Weimin's.

Xu Feng couldn't help but feel extremely anxious. The box office of tens of millions a week, even a tenth of it, was still millions. It was more uncomfortable for her to have it stolen by some criminals from the theater chain than to kill her.

Naturally, Xu Feng called again to ask for advice. Cheng Zhigu didn't have any good ideas for concealing and underreporting the box office. Over the years, this behavior has become a deep-rooted bad habit in the film industry. His opinion was to find a model and kill him. .

But killing the chicken to scare the monkey, not to mention timeliness, deterrence is an issue. Will other movie theaters be afraid of the film studio?

Even if this thing is to be done, the film bureau must take action.

Faced with Xu Feng's anxious tone, Lin Weimin sighed and said, "Let's do this. I'll find a way at the film bureau, and you can organize a team of 100 people to monitor the votes."

"What do you need someone for?"

"Cooperate with the Film Bureau to carry out a special operation to crack down on "concealed and underreported" box office sales. We are responsible for providing personnel and funds, and the Film Bureau provides guidance."

Xu Feng just didn't understand the mainland film market, but he was also a good person. After listening to Lin Weimin's words, he immediately understood what he meant.

To put it bluntly, if the film bureau is asked to provide people and funds to do this kind of thing, even if it has achieved results, people may not be willing to do it, after all, it will offend people.

But if their film studio provides the money and people, the film bureau only needs to use their mouths, and the results of the work will be obtained. They will naturally be happy to cooperate, and offending people will not be a big deal.

Lin Weimin said that he organized a team of 100 people to monitor the votes. Based on the one-month time limit, even if each person spent 1,000 yuan, it would only be 100,000 yuan, compared with the millions or even tens of millions that may have been concealed and underreported. The box office is a drop in the bucket in comparison.

Xu Feng took action without saying a word, and Lin Weimin also called Teng Jinxian.

He has a good relationship with Lao Teng, but always relying on favors and benefiting oneself at the expense of others will not work. Mutual benefit is still needed.

The producers of "Farewell My Concubine" provided people and funds to cooperate with the film bureau in launching a special campaign to crack down on "concealed and underreported" box office sales. For Teng Jinxian, the director, it was not only a political achievement, but also a boost to local distribution companies.

In the first half of this year, in order to promote film reforms, the Film Bureau gave these local distribution companies a lot of sweet dates. Now that they have had enough benefits, it is time for them to learn the rules.

Anyway, thousands of municipal and county-level distribution companies across the country have now opened their doors, and the film bureau has no worries about no one cooperating with the promotion of film reform.

In engaging in political struggle, it is wise to recruit and attack groups, so that we can win many of our people and only a few of those on the opposite side.

Sure enough, after Lin Weimin finished talking about the situation in "Farewell My Concubine" and his demands, Teng Jinxian immediately understood the mystery. He told Lin Weimin: "Don't worry, I'll make a call and get back to you with news. "

After saying that, he hung up the phone, then dialed Tian Congming's number and told Lin Weimin's request, the ins and outs of the whole matter, and the hidden mystery.

After hearing this, Tian Congming pondered for a moment and sighed: "I really won't be willing to pull this Lin Weimin over!"

Teng Jinxian smiled and said: "Then you should talk to the organizational department. We must respect personal opinions, but we must also obey the organizational arrangements."

Tian Congming laughed and said: "Old Teng, aren't you afraid that Lin Weimin will know that you are causing trouble behind your back and poke you in the back?"

"I'm doing this for his own good. He's still young and his journey has been so smooth that he doesn't even know how difficult an official career is."

Tian Congming nodded with sadness, and then said: "Okay, let's do it like this. Since we want to do it, we should do it on a larger scale. I will contact comrades from several other departments to try to make this operation deeper and more practical. , the thunder should not be loud and the raindrops should be light, this is also a good opportunity for us, it is time to clean up some disobedient brothers."

Tian Congming's tone was light, but Teng Jinxian heard a chilling air.

To be able to reach this position in his thirties, Tian Congming is by no means an easy person. In the first half of the year, he went around among various forces, making excuses and making plays at every turn. This was not for the sake of being humble and trying to compromise.

Now that the film reform situation is gradually becoming clearer, Lin Weimin happened to hand over a knife.

The time, place, and people are favorable, and Tian Congming doesn't mind giving a good lesson to some "princes" who consider themselves to be separate parties.

Teng Jinxian put down the phone, thinking about what some colleagues might have suffered, and couldn't help but mourn for them.

If the water is clear, there will be no fish. As a veteran who has been involved in the film industry for 30 years, how can Teng Jinxian not be aware of the dirty things in the film industry?

Some people are confused about the importance and think that they can fight against the organization by joining a group.

As everyone knows, this is exactly the way to die.