Millennium director

"Honey, has your company been having a hard time recently?"

In the warm home, Liu Yifei was spraying alcohol in the living room to disinfect, and turned to Wu Yuan, who was sitting on the sofa and watching TV with a frown, and asked.

On TV, a news report about the launch of the Beijing Health Code was being broadcast.

"Huh?" Wu Yuan was stunned for a moment before reacting, and turned to look at his wife: "No difficulty."

"You're lying, right?" Liu Yifei wrinkled her pretty nose. She was obviously in her thirties, but she still had a girlish cuteness. "Now everyone on the Internet is saying that the film industry has been hit hard."

"Especially the cinemas. I don't know how many cinemas have closed down across the country. Will your Light and Shadow Times Cinema Line be unaffected?"

"I'm not lying to you." Wu Yuan shook his head: "It's not affected for the time being."

What he said was not completely a lie.

It's true that many cinemas in China have closed down or sublet in the past half month, but most of them are franchised cinemas and small independent cinemas.

After all, when there is a crisis in the industry, it is always the small ones who are the hardest to resist.

For large cinema chains, they can definitely hold out for three to five months without opening, and they have not yet reached the point where they have to start closing stores.

At least the early stage can be completely delayed, and the same is true for the Light and Shadow Times Cinema Chain.

What really worries Wu Yuan is that this black swan event lasted too long. Although the actual suspension of work was not long, after the subsequent cinemas were able to open normally, there were actually few customers, and no movies dared to be released.

It will take almost a year for the public to return to the cinema, and the film market will almost pick up by the Spring Festival in 2021.

For this, we have to thank the appearance of "Hello, Li Huanying".

The high box office of "Hello, Li Huanying" received a lot of ridicule at the time, most of which came from outside the industry.

Many people who can't eat grapes and say that grapes are sour say that this movie is well marketed, sells feelings, and is promoted by female boxing girls. Even many men just don't like Jia Ling, a big fat funny clown, who can make more than 5 billion box office for a movie, and they have to scold her because of their dark psychology.

But in fact, in the industry, I don't know how many people are grateful for this movie.

Because throughout 2020, China's film market was in a gloomy mood, with an annual total box office of only 20 billion, a decrease of 40 billion from 2019. This is not a halving, but a direct evaporation of two-thirds.

At this time, the entire industry is looking forward to a savior.

Then "Hello, Li Huanying" came.

The major theaters cried with joy, because this movie brought 5 billion box office to the theaters that had not made a profit for a year and were almost going to close down, which was equivalent to creating a quarter of the output value in 2020 in one month.

The major film companies also cried with joy. They were not jealous of "Hello, Li Huanying" making money at all, because this movie brought movie fans back to the cinema.

If there is one, there will be two.

With such a good start to the year, it can be said that it has activated the film market for all the movies released later, and it has also made the major film companies feel relieved and can arrange the release of movies normally.

It can be said that before "Hello, Li Huanying" became popular, all film companies were unsure. Everyone was afraid of encountering the kind of film winter in the 1990s. After all, many people have become accustomed to watching videos on their mobile phones at home. It is easy to leave, but it is difficult to pull people back.

In fact, by 2024, there will be a large number of people who used to go to the cinema frequently, but have never entered the cinema since the black swan incident in 2019.

This is the terrible thing about habit.

So until 2024, the domestic film market has not actually warmed up to the good market in 2019. For major theaters in China, the next few years will be a very difficult period.

Wu Yuan has been worried about this, not the short-term suspension of three to five months.

Compared with the difficulties in the next few years, this little thing is really just an appetizer.

But there are also things that make him happy.

For example, the film "Hello, Li Huanying" was also invested by Guangying Times, and it was Shen Teng who helped to connect.

In 2016, in order to express her longing for her late mother, Jia Ling created the sketch "Hello, Li Huanying". Later, Jia Ling came up with the idea of ​​adapting the sketch into a movie.

The preparation and shooting of the film took 3 years. During this period, Jia Ling took the initiative to reduce a lot of work, set up a screenwriter team, learned how to be a director, and found companies to attract investment.

After hearing about this, Shen Teng helped to contact Guangying Times, and Guangying Times has indeed expanded its strategy of investing in movies in recent years, from the previous self-production to a wide-ranging investment route without participating in production.

So the two parties hit it off, and Jia Ling set up a big-name movie to cooperate with Guangying Times, and divided the investment of "Hello, Li Huanying". After all, this is a low-cost comedy.

In fact, neither Jia Ling nor Guangying Times ever thought that the box office of this movie could set a record. They just regarded this movie as a comedy to test the waters. Success is the best, but failure is also okay. Just treat it as a trial and error.

So the filming of this movie started in full swing, and it started smoothly in September 2019 and was completed in January 2020.

However, the filming was suspended temporarily when the black swan happened just after the filming was finished. All subsequent release dates and trailers were cancelled. Only Jia Ling led the editing team to do post-production editing, but they were not in a hurry.

Now the entire film industry is cold, and no one is in a hurry to release new movies. To a certain extent, it has also cast a haze over the production team of "Hello, Li Huanying".

However, Wu Yuan was very relaxed. Instead, he called Jia Ling to comfort her and made a verbal agreement with her that the film would be released during the Spring Festival next year.

Others don't know, but he knows very well that because of this black swan incident, everyone is still in fear and dare not test the market reaction. Therefore, by the Spring Festival next year, the competition is the smallest in the past five years, and only "Detective Chinatown 3" can be regarded as a capable opponent.

Such a good time to steal the chicken must not be missed!

To be honest, if "Hello, Li Huanying" is released at a different time, if it is not in this extremely competitive Spring Festival period, it is pure dreaming to want to achieve a box office of more than 5 billion!

If this movie is released in the Spring Festival period of 2019 or 2018, it will definitely be popular. After all, Wen Qing is very lethal during the Spring Festival, but the maximum box office is more than 2 billion, because there are movies such as "The Wandering Earth" competing for the box office!

It can be said that "Hello, Li Huanying" can only and must be released in the Spring Festival period of 2021 to get the best benefits!

However, these things are not urgent for the time being. After all, it is only March 2020, and Wu Yuan is still enjoying his daily life with his baby. Compared with arranging the release of a new movie, he wants to hear his daughter call dad more. (End of this chapter)