Chapter 389 Breaking The Box Office Record!
‘I think it’s going to do well, I’ve got a feeling it’s going to be at least 3.5 million yuan.’
‘Hahaha.’
‘Nice one.’
‘Amazing.’
‘Old Xing, what the h*ll’s going on in your head? If this movie achieves 3.5 million yuan, I’ll walk backwards from now on.’
‘Hahahaha.’
The production company of “Xu Qingling” was also discussing this matter.
‘What do you think will happen to the box office for “Fighting The Buddha”?’
‘I doubt it’d be low.’
‘It won’t be low? Are you serious?”
‘The movie just got removed from the recommendations list last night.’ ‘Well… that makes sense. But it’s been screening for a week now.’ ‘You’re right, it has been released for a week, but I don’t think it has that much potential left.’
‘What about you? Do you think it will do well?’
‘I don’t think so. I think it’d only receive two million at most.’
Everyone within the industry was eagerly waiting for the results. Those related to the “Fighting The Buddha” were clearly even more anxious.
Little bun lost sleep last night.
‘I don’t think I’ve got a strong mentality.’
The box office for iQIYI’s online movies were usually updated at 9 am. However, she got up before 6 am and stared at iQIYI’s server, wanting to see how the box office for “Fighting The Buddha” was.
Producer Zhao was no better than little bun. He had not slept for two days straight and had been scrolling through the server tirelessly. Ever since last night when there were no changes to the recommendations list at iQiyi, his heart had clenched.
Therefore, he tossed and turned for the entire night. At 8:30am, he kept staring at the data on the server to see the box office ranking list.
Director Wang and Chu Hong were the same. They were all waiting for iQIYI’s box office to be released.
As the time approached 9am, everyone involved could not help but stare at their computer screen or their phone screens, eagerly waiting for the rankings to be refreshed.
8:57am, 8:58am, 8:59am…
As time passed, more and more people started to pay attention.
Finally, when all eyes were on them, it was 9 o’clock!
Everyone held their breaths and refreshed the
page!
And then… nothing happened.
Su Yang was speechless.
Li Zijun and Producer Zhao were speechless.
Chu Hong, Director Wang and [In] Company were speechless
Everyone that had waited for the rankings to be released were speechless.
‘IQIYI has almost never delayed their box office rankings, yet they’ve delayed it this time?
‘This was too strange!
‘What’s happening!’
Just as everyone was curious, a message was posted at the servers of IQIYI.
‘Due to an issue with the server yesterday, the box office rankings will be delayed.’
Everyone was speechless.
‘This sudden delay is just ridiculous.’
At that moment, the people within the industry could not help but start discussing about the sudden delay in iQIYI’s box office rankings release and what the box office for “Fighting The Buddha” was like!
Just as everyone was still debating, the rankings were updated at 9:03am without a sound!
Box office No. 1: Fighting The Buddha, 5.2 million yuan.
Box office No. 2: Xu Qingling’s Holy Spirit, 570,000 yuan.
Box office No. 3: Thunderbolt Sweetheart, 184,000 yuan (Premiere)
Box office No. 4: Investiture of Gods – Jiang Ziya, 121,000 yuan
Box office No.5…
When the rankings list was released, everyone couldn’t believe their eyes. ‘Five million yuan in a single day!
‘It’s almost 2 million more than the previous day!
This is insane!’
All of a sudden, the news that “Fighting The Buddha” had achieved a box office breakthrough of 5,000,000 yuan began to spread like wildfire within the industry. After all, this was another movie that was hoping to score big with a small capital!
And as the news spread, many people realized that…”Fighting The Buddha” seemed to have broken the daily box office record of online movies!
‘Before “Fighting The Buddha”, iQIYI had one movie that managed to achieve 2.85 million yuan in a day that year and the total box office record for all the movies they had was 4.17 million yuan in a day that year. ‘The 3.13 million yuan that “Fighting The Buddha” received the day before yesterday has already broken this year’s daily box office record. Now that it’s at 5.2 million yuan, it’s broken iQIYI’s total box office record!
‘It’s even surpassed the original box office record by almost 1 million yuan! ‘This was simply unheard of!’ When the numbers were released, the entire industry fell silent.
Everyone who objected felt their ass burning. The directors who had openly criticized the producers of “Fighting The Buddha” secretly deleted all the negative messages he sent previously.
The production company for “Xu Qingling” the media whom they had previously bribed to remove the script. They even called Producer Zhao especially to apologize, saying that it was done by a temporary worker and hoped that Producer Zhao would not be angry at them.
Meanwhile, the well-known public accounts in the industry quickly deleted their negative comments about “Fighting The Buddha”, even deleting Director Wang’s exclusive interview and apologizing over the phone.
Truly the entertainment industry was the most realistic amongst all other industries.
The industry has always been a place where the strong preys on the weak, the shift in power changes so regularly that very few are able to catch up with the latest situation.
However, it was understandable why those people would do this. After all, if they did not delete their posts and articles, they would be the ones who would be embarrassed. When “Fighting The Buddha” becomes more and more popular, their posts would only end up becoming laughing stock for others.
As for “Xu Qingling”, the situation for them was even simpler. The articles they released were all used to tarnish the reputation of “Fighting The Buddha” in order to support themselves. Now that the “Fighting The Buddha” was quickly gaining popularity, their articles were like a joke and would only have negative effects, so they had to delete them as soon as possible.
As for apologizing… this had always been the case in the entertainment industry. Trample on the weak, apologize when they become popular. Everyone was used to it already. There was no such thing as honour and dignity. After all, there were too many people in the industry that managed to gain popularity overnight.
Of course, other than these sort of people who would submit to the strong, there were also stubborn people like Director Wang and Chu Hong who refused to admit their defeat.
The two of them sat in the coffee shop and were both speechless as they looked at the data.
Director Wang lowered his head and muttered, “How is this possible? How could they have achieved such good data?”
He looked at Chu Hong with bloodshot eyes. “These results should be mine!”
Chu Hong, who was sitting opposite him, felt an itch below her. She crossed her legs silently and rubbed them lightly to relieve the itch. Then, she said to Director Wang sternly, “Have you lost your mind? Would you have been able to produce such a film if you were in charge?!”
Director Wang lowered his head. ‘It’s just as Chu Hong says. If I was the one filming, I probably wouldn’t have done so well.’
Seeing Director Wang’s gloomy expression, Chu Hong consoled him, “Actually, you don’t have to be so worried, it’s only been 2 days. “Fighting The Buddha” was still on the recommendations list for 2 days in a row so it’s normal for it to become popular. Let’s wait and see what happens on the third day.” Even though Director Wang knew that Chu Hong was trying to console him and that she herself might not even believe her own words, he still nodded, and a sliver of hope appeared in his heart!
However, the box office of “Fighting The Buddha” on the third day gave Chu Hong and Director Wang a tight slap in the face!
“Fighting The Buddha”s box office earnings on Friday was 4.13 million yuan!
Even though it had dropped by close to 1 million yuan, it was still a record that had broken the previous daily box office record. Everyone was shocked speechless.
‘It’s literally impossible to beat this box office, it’s dominating the entire industry by leaps and bounds!
If everyone had previously thought that “Xu Qingling” had the highest chance of winning this year’s box office champion, now those same people thought that “Fighting The Buddha” had a 90% chance of winning this year’s box office champion!
In fact… if the movie managed to keep up its trend consistently, there was a possibility of it being able to compete for iQIYI’s total box office rankings!
After all, the cumulative box office for “Fighting The Buddha” had already surpassed “Xu Qingling” and reached 14.18 million! Moreover, it looked like 30 million was not the highest it would achieve…
“”Fighting The Buddha” has already become this year’s hottest online movie. It even has a high chance of reaching the top!’
This caused many people within the industry to start watching “Fighting The Buddha”. They pulled the movie frame by frame to see how it could be that good.
In the end, they were stunned after watching it for only 10 minutes!
‘Is this the special effect of an online movie?’
‘These special effects are just too good! This is already the standard of a cinema’s special effects! In fact, it even surpasses many movie’s special effects in the cinema!’
‘How can this scene be so beautiful? It’s like being in a fairyland! How did they create this scene?!’
‘This director’s photography skill is really too awesome!’
‘This director is awesome, and so are the special effects! Which team made this?’
‘Wasn’t there a problem with the production cost of “Fighting The Buddha”? How could they have produced this with 5 million yuan?!’ After watching “Fighting The Buddha”, the reviews within the industry were all very high.
After all, online movies were all commercial movies with the sole aim of making money. Films like “Fighting The Buddha” that completely conformed to the rules of the iQIYI inspired them. ‘So movies could be filmed like this…’
Of course, what shocked them even more was the special effects and images used in “Fighting The Buddha”. The level had already far surpassed that of online movies, and it could directly be released in cinemas.
Therefore, they could not help but look up more information about the production company for “Fighting The Buddha”. In the end, they realized that it was a small company that had just changed owners. Even the post-production special effects were done by the small company.
‘Is this company… that awesome?’
On the third day, iQIYI finally found out that “Fighting The Buddha” had not been removed from the recommendations list yet. However, because the bugs were still being repaired and the momentum of “Fighting The Buddha” was so strong, the operations department decided to let the movie remain on the recommendations list for the time being after some discussion and would consider changing the recommendations list after the technical department found the bug.
Thus, this further maintained momentum of “Fighting The Buddha”.
The box office for “Fighting The Buddha” rose again on Saturday, achieving 4.51 million yuan on that day! It broke 4 million yuan for three consecutive days! A cumulative box office of 1,869 million yuan! The trend was as stable as ever!
The miracle for “Fighting The Buddha” continued!
Su Yang did not pay attention to the jubilation in the industry because his goal was already achieved when the box office of “Fighting The Buddha” rose steadily.
On Thursday, the moment iQIYI’s rankings were announced, a system notification popped up in Su Yang’s mind. (Silver quest, Foundation completed. Please check your reward.)
‘What? It’s done?
‘Truth be told, I had thought that the Silver mission would be completed through the movie, but I did not expect for it to be completed so quickly!
‘It seems like I’ve only waited for a week and my mission is completed after gaining popularity for 2 days?
‘However, it does make sense. The production cost of “Fighting The Buddha” was only 5 million yuan but I’ve already earned more than 10 million yuan. Thus, it’s normal for me to complete the mission so quickly.
‘Since the mission is completed, everything else is simple!
‘Since today’s such a good day, I might as well
of my outstanding luck and draw out a new Silver ability and give my Silver ability a second point!