And at this time, Little Hus could once again use its [Potential Sniffing].
Su Yang asked Li Zijun, the person-in-charge of the publicity department of Jiadian Group, to lead the publicity department to come up with a few feasible proposals for publicity.
It was the beginning of January, and there was only a month left before the movie was scheduled to be released. Hence, they had to hurry up with the publicity. So, after receiving this mission, Li Zijun worked overtime and came up with a few proposals to let Su Yang choose from.
After receiving the proposals, Su Yang did not even bother to look at it. He simply threw it in front of Little Hus so that it could see how it would affect the movie.
There were only five sets of proposals, and it was exactly the number of times that Little Hus could sniff in a day. So, in just a moment, Little Hus picked out the best proposal.
The best proposal was not bad, utilizing a tactic where the audience would be kept in suspense. They first promoted the movie type, lowered the anticipation, and increased the relatable topics for discussion. Then, they took out the promotional video and trailer step by step to attract the audience. According to Little Hus, it could increase the box office by 400 to 500 hundred million yuan at a promotional fee of only 20 million yuan.
Of the box office, there would only be about 100 million yuan out of the 400 to 500 million yuan going to the company in the end. So Su Yang would still be making a huge profit after the 20 million yuan spent. Therefore, Su Yang did not hesitate and decided to go ahead with this publicity proposal.
20 million yuan was a huge sum of money after all. Hence, after the payment was approved, all sorts of information, topics, and photos of “Wandering Planet” flooded the internet.
It had to be said that the discussionable topics that the movie could have were very high, so it was much easier to promote it. The promotion of “Wandering Planet” attracted too much attention from the netizens.
‘A movie produced domestically?
‘A giant sci-fi production?
‘An adaptation of a famous science fiction writer’s short story?
‘These three elements combined…
‘It’s like the recipe for a bad movie!’
When they saw this promotional video, many netizens wanted to curse how they would be flipping over if this movie was not terrible!
Truth be told, there was nothing that could be done about their way of thinking since domestically-produced movies had disappointed everyone too many times. Everytime they advertised the movie that was domestically-produced, and sci-fi genre, in the end, it would turn into a situation where they would go from loving it to hating it so much that they wanted to tear the producer’s head off.
Especially now that the direction domestically-made movies were becoming more and more obvious, being reputed to all be movies adapted from a certain novel, also known as IP.
This concept was good, and those novels were indeed adapted from the original. But, out of 10 adaptations, was there even one of them that could be watched?
Everything about how awesome and epic the movie should be, combined with the cheap special effects… These were all lessons of experience for the audience.
Thus, these movie and TV series adaptations have ended up ruining many classic novels.
Therefore, when the audience saw these three keywords, they could not help but label the movie as a piece of trash.
The only thing that was out of everyone’s expectations was who the film’s production company was… Jiadian Pictures.
Jiadian Group was now a big conglomerate in the country. The company seemed to have some specialty in all the fields they were involved in, making them admirable.
This was especially true with their recent historical “Legend of Wu Zetian”, which had created a series of records.
However, judging by Jiadian Pictures’s “results”, who had produced one huge internet movie, and another TV series… They had not actually been involved in big-screen productions before.
Actually, the only movie that they had been involved in was “Wolf Warriors”, which was produced by Wu Feng’s company. However, Jiadian Pictures could only be considered as an investor, so it was not a very convincing portfolio.
So… They even dared to make a big-screen movie after filming a huge internet movie and a collaboration on “Wolf Warriors”? On top of that, they were even going to be producing a sci-fi movie?
Thus, everyone had all sorts of questions on Jiadian Pictures’ capabilities at that moment.
Furthermore, there were only a few people who paid attention to the producers. Instead, most people only looked at the main casts, the directors to measure the quality of the movie.
However, you must not forget that the director of “Wandering Planet”, Guo Fan, was a newbie. Although his debut production was not bad, he was still not recognized by the audience. And the main lead… Well… Was Su Yang.
The moment they saw the name list of the main cast and the male lead’s name, most people thought that the movie was Su Yang’s plaything.
After all, Su Yang was a rich person, wasn’t he?
So, could you stop a billionaire from filming a movie?
However, when they found out that Su Yang was playing around with the movie, they still felt that Su Yang was a little shameless. ‘Just look at Boss Ma, even though he was playing with the movie, he hired a bunch of big shots within the entertainment industry and made them play with him.
‘Now that’s satisfying.
‘Yet, you, Mr. Su… You only hired a few actors who aren’t as famous as you, that’s just being a little too stingy.’
In fact, they were right.
Because of Su Yang’s numerous online battles and the increasing popularity of Jiadian Mobile’s glass phone, Su Yang’s fame was much greater than that of the female lead and others in the movie. In the entire movie, only Wu Feng’s fame could be compared to Su Yang’s.
However, everyone knew about their relationship. Hence, it was obvious that Wu Feng was there as a favor to Su Yang by acting as a guest. In fact, they even thought that Wu Feng might not have even received any salary for it. Therefore, they were not wrong to say that Su Yang was the biggest player there.
In fact, they were not wrong about this. Not only did Wu Feng not ask for any payment for his guest appearance, he even brought his own investment into the movie…
Other than the internet, people within the entertainment and film industry shook their heads when they saw the official announcement of “Wandering Planet”. This was because they felt that it was unrealistic.
‘Can we produce sci-fi movies domestically now?
‘On top of that, it’s with such huge standards on special effects?
‘Isn’t this something that only Hollywood is capable of?
‘A domestic film company? Furthermore, it’s a film company that has never produced a big-screen movie before? What a joke.’
As soon as Li Zijun’s publicity was released, the feedback received was, whether it was in the industry or on the Internet, everyone generally did not approve of “Wandering Planet”. For a moment, even Li Zijun herself was a little stunned as she did not expect to receive such adverse feedback.
However, since she had already invested the money, she could not change her proposal. Furthermore, Su Yang had personally made the decision. Therefore, she could only suppress the uneasiness in her heart and continue with her proposal.
While the internet and industry were looking down on Su Yang, he however, was not worried at all. After all, with Little Hus around, he knew what the final outcome was going to be.
Meanwhile, he was busy with something else… The movie’s screening.
Movie screening was the most important thing for a movie. After all, only by screening could the producers allow the audience to watch. Otherwise, no matter how good the movie, could the audience watch it on the road?
Hence, it became Su Yang’s top priority to get a screening schedule.
At that time, the benefits of having National Films have a share in “Wandering Planet” became apparent.
As the big shots had watched “Wandering Planet” before, National Films directly called a few people from major cinemas to their office.
After that, they did not do anything else, not even opening their mouths. Instead, they brought the people in charge to the theater and watched a screening of “Wandering Planet”.
As several of the movie planners were called over by National Films, they were confused at first and did not know what they were going to be asked to do. ‘Could they have found out that we’ve been stealing from the box office?
‘Or, could it be that the news of us working together with other movie producers to boost the box office earnings has been exposed?’
However, very soon, when they arrived at National Films, they came to a realization. ‘National Films is recommending a movie to us.’
Actually, if it was just a normal movie, couldn’t National Films just inform them about it directly? Did they have to be so mysterious about it?
‘Could this movie be a little special?’
With that thought in mind, the people in charge calmed down and started to watch the movie after putting on their 3D glasses.
When they first started to watch it, they did not seem to mind as they thought it was just another sci-fi movie.
However, there were many sci-fi movies in China. After all, the country did not ask for the existence of supernatural beings to be in the world, so all supernatural beings became aliens…
Aliens were science fiction, weren’t they?
Therefore, these people in charge guessed that this was also a movie that was overselling as well.
However, as the plot progressed, when the protagonist arrived on Earth, the people in charge could not help but sit up straight. They exclaimed softly with a “Hmm?”. ‘This seems interesting.’
Then it was the scene where the protagonist stole the car and started to run into the snow mountains. The whole picture of the declining Earth slowly appeared before everyone.
In the end, when Su Yang explained the planetary thrusters to his sister, and the space station as well, the long mirror image that followed the planetary thrusters all the way into space gave everyone goosebumps.
The people in charge now had their eyes widened, and their bodies stiffened. They were so excited that they started to tremble.
One of them even jumped up and said excitedly, “Wha… What?”
In fact, it was the people from the National Films who quickly signaled for him to sit down. Then, he remembered that he was watching a movie at National Films. Hence, he quickly collected his emotions and sat down to continue watching.
Actually, no one at the scene blamed him, because when they first saw a domestically-produced movie producing such quality scenes, they were excited as well!
Following that, as the plot developed step by step, the entire “Wandering Planet” project was presented to everyone. The majestic atmosphere of wandering with the Earth, the collective heroism unique to China with tens of thousands of teams collectively saving the Earth, deeply shocked everyone present.
At that moment, they even felt like they were living in a “parallel world” that brought the Earth away. Every one of them was a hero, and they were fighting for the survival of the Earth.
Very soon, as Wu Feng sacrificed himself to save Earth, the movie slowly came to an end. However… The movie’s scenes kept replaying in the minds of the people present.
After a while, the screening room was filled with the sound of applause. It felt like a perfunctory applause, but only those who had watched this movie would know that these people were so shocked that they had forgotten to clap after first watching the movie.
Therefore, as more and more people came back to their senses, the applause became more and more intense. In the end, it all came together, and everyone was clapping excitedly with their faces filled with excitement! Some of the people in charge even had tears on their faces as they were all moved by the movie…
After these people finished watching the movie, they understood why National Films did not directly ask them to increase the number of screenings. They knew that this movie was going to be different from other mainstream movies, so they did not need to pressure them. The quality of this movie was absolutely worth the extra screenings from the various cinema chains.
Therefore, after watching the movie, the people in charge of all the schedules promised to give the highest number of screenings for “Wandering Planet” without any hesitation.
At the beginning, because it was the Spring Festival slots, they might not be able to give much, but they could still give more than 30%. However, with the word-of-mouth fermentation now, it would not be a problem for these people to increase it to 50%, even 70%!
Everyone was not running a movie theater for charity. Such a movie that was obviously going to be a hit would definitely make a lot of money. Thus, why would they not screen it?
Furthermore, this was a mainstream movie, and there was a national mission to begin with, so they were even more willing to screen it. Even if other movies came, they could just say that this was a mission from the country.
However, the people from National Films did not call them over just for the screening.
After the people from National Films had completed the issue with the screening schedules, they took the initiative to remind them, “Actually, it’s not as if this country doesn’t know what you guys do to certain movies.
“Anyone can understand that we are all in it for the movie.
“But, you have to consider the consequences.
“I don’t care about what happened before, but for this movie, both the reviewers and our chairman are paying their full attention to this movie.
“So, if we find out anyone has placed their hands on this movie and affected its box office record, don’t blame us for being ruthless.
“You won’t just be spitting out whatever you’ve taken thus far.
“For a landmark movie like this, if any one of you dares to reach out to touch this movie, consider your hands forfeited.”
All the people in charge knew that National Films was giving them a hard time, so they did not dare retort. They just nodded silently. They thought to themselves. ‘Looks like I need to exercise restraint and not provoke them now.
After watching the movie and training, these people in charge left the office building of National Films.
However, as soon as they left, the reviewers called them over and gave them the same advice. This made their hearts pound. ‘D*mn, are so many big shots actually placing their focus on this?’
Therefore, after they left the reviewer’s place, the people in charge were no longer in the mood to chat. They looked at each other and saw the seriousness in each other’s eyes.
‘Looks like this movie is really no joke. Not only is it a huge matter, the person behind this movie is no simple person either. Otherwise, this movie would not have attracted the attention of two high-level departments.’
Soon, they went back and checked the production company, investors, and producers of the movie. When they saw the names Su Yang and Jiadian Group, they knew what was going on.
Even though the business circle was far from the circle of big shots, there were still some things that people would hear about. Everyone knew that Su Yang seemed to have a powerful background and was not to be trifled with.
Therefore, at that moment, these cinema operators knew what to do.
Time passed day by day, and the promotions for “Wandering Planet” were progressing step by step.
After a few days of being suspected of being a lousy movie and being Su Yang’s plaything, “Wandering Planet” released its first promotional trailer…