Chapter Eighty: Defying Heaven Once More
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Public opinion is in an uproar.
Sometimes public opinion is sharper than a knife and can kill without shedding blood.
Everyone gave YeeFeng Yang, this uniquely independent Chinese director, merciless criticism.
Of course, if Yi Fei Yang wasn't Chinese, if Yi Fei Yang wasn't so eye-catching, if...
No ifs!
In short, those jealous and discriminatory people against Chinese are all helping to fan the flames, hoping to magnify this matter, best to pour all the darkest and dirtiest dirty water onto Yi Fei Yang's body.
Yi Feiyang didn't care about this, but as Yi Feiyang's good friend, Pangzi Gaojiabao was almost suffocated.
If it weren't for Yi Feiyang holding him back, Fatso would have directly jumped out and cursed these guys' ancestors for three generations!
"Ayan, I think you've been having bad luck lately! Either go to Chinatown and invite Guan Yu to ward off the evil spirits; or find some pomelo leaves and wash them well to drive away the bad luck!" Finally, Fatso gave Yi Feiyang a suggestion.
Yi Feiyang doesn't believe in ghosts and gods. Although Hong Kong has the custom of worshiping gods when starting a business and thanking Guan Yu, for Yi Feiyang, believing in oneself is more important than believing in ghosts and gods.
As long as you stand upright and don't fall down, no one can knock you down!
Yes, no one can!
……
Facing the ban on his film "The Blair Witch Project", Yi Feiyang was deeply traumatized, being called a "dead director" and some even mocked him for not being able to make films but instead becoming a "director killer".
The happiest of all were Dennis and Eddyardo, two brothers.
Previously, the two men's authentic "Blair Witch 2" was suppressed by Joe Berlinger's "Paranormal Activity" in both word of mouth and box office. Although Lionsgate boss Gustavo didn't say anything to help them with the film, the two guys knew they owed him something.
Now it's good, God finally got angry, that damn China is getting what it deserved!
Yes, got what was coming!
Haha, the movie being filmed is actually scary enough to kill people, this Chinese guy is really out of luck this time!
Dennis and Eddie opened champagne, dated sexy babes, and bumped booties on the dance floor. Hot dancing.
What is schadenfreude?
That's it!
Compared with the shortsightedness of these two unlucky eggs, Mr. Gusta, as the head of Lion's Gate Films, has a different view on what happened to Yi Feiyang.
If such a thing were to happen in a conservative country, it would undoubtedly be like God's wrath, the sea raging and thunderbolts on a clear day... The parties involved will have to pay a heavy price for this.
But don't forget, this is America!
The country in the world that boasts of being the most democratic and the freest!
A country where miracles and legends can happen!
"Perhaps what China Easy has encountered this time is not a bad thing!" Gusta stroked his beautiful small beard, thinking to himself.
Unfortunately, there was no one around him to talk to. The original publishing manager, Mr. Mike, had been sent by him to the warehouse as a warehouse manager.
Gustave is indeed a filmmaker and will be the future master of Hollywood.
Just as he was pondering whether the "cinema death incident" was a "crisis" or an "opportunity" for that young Chinese man, Paramount's boss Mr. Raymond, who saw things more clearly than him, blew his top.
"There's no such thing as good or bad things in this world... So, since the government has issued a ban, then suspend all promotional and screening plans for the movie "Ghost Blowing Lamp"..."
In the spacious and bright conference room of Paramount, Chairman Raymond spoke.
"But the government ban did not say that movie discs cannot be issued, yes, it's discs! At the same time, there was no announcement to ban the other two films of Fantasia Film Studio, "Buried Alive" and "Terror Cruise"!"
"So..." Mr. Raymond scanned the high-level executives at the company meeting with a piercing gaze.
"So from this moment on, I demand that all of you put your energy into these two things. First, immediately start working on the DVD production of 'Ghost Shadow Record', I require at least 30 million copies to be made within three days! Second, increase the promotional efforts for 'Horror Cruise' and 'Buried Alive'. If my prediction is correct, these two films will explode in viewership following the 'Cinema Death Incident'..."
The sound suddenly stopped at the two words "burst".
At that moment, Mr. Raymond's eyes were piercing, like a fierce tiger seeing its prey, and his originally dull face was full of momentum!
Under Mr. Raymond's command, the entire Paramount company sprang into action.
Paramount and DreamWorks reached an agreement to jointly develop the film disc business. Immediately, Paramount's copy factory worked day and night, racing against time to produce "Paranormal Activity".
And before these discs were even manufactured, some North American distributors who got wind of the news came running over to place advance orders.
"I want 100,000!"
"I want 300,000!"
"I want 500,000!"
……
In less than a day, the 3 million discs for advance production were all pre-ordered. And this was just from North American local distributors.
As for those Japanese, Korean, British, French and even some more remote regions' CD publishers all rushed over in a flurry, tossing out one sentence, "We want to reserve!"
Only fools don't know it, "Ghost Blowing Lamp" will be so "welcome".
Sometimes, being scared to death is not a bad thing, especially when it comes to "horror movies".
Everyone's eyes turned red at Paramount!
What is called sales explosion?
What is called sales against the sky?
Look!
The CD hasn't even been released yet, but it's already sold out!
Faced with such a thrilling scene, Mr. Raymond waved his hand and said, "Increase production by 10 million sheets!"
No way, directly from 3 million to 10 million?!
This is the number of white gold discs!!!!!
In an instant, everyone in the copying factory went crazy.
What if there aren't enough people?
Borrowed from other factories!
What if there is insufficient equipment?
Sign a contract and produce together!
A million copies of "Ghost" on disc. Paramount people thought it was an impossible task. Layer by layer, it was assigned downwards.
Innumerable copy factories. Start the machine, rumble rumble!
……
While Paramount was busy copying the Ghost disc to sell to out-of-town distributors, the company also pulled its previously touted horror film The Blaire Witch Project and replaced it with two other DreamWorks films, The Buried Alive and Terror Cruise.
Many people can't help but wonder why Paramount would do this?
Even if it's a strong recommendation, it should be "Moonlight" without any scandals surrounding it.
But soon, some clever people understood...
Paramount billboard. Advertising and media news collectively launched a new round of momentum, coinciding with the "Dream Movie Scare to Death" event.
Attention!
It's "the horror movie scared people to death" incident!
Not "The Blair Witch Project" scare!
Paramount expanded the concept of event movies to make DreamWorks a media topic, and the films they shot also became "topics"!
Among them, of course, include "Buried" and "Cruise of Terror" which are being strongly promoted!
……
The United States is a country with extremely advanced information dissemination, whether it's newspapers and magazines or television broadcasting. Even including emerging computer network forums...
All movie enthusiasts know this. "The murder of Old John", "the old man who was scared to death with his eyes rolled back" and the promotional slogan "A horror film crafted by dreams, dare you watch it?"
Nowadays, young people's curiosity and competitiveness have been aroused, especially during the Halloween season. What to watch if not horror movies?
Since "Paranormal Activity" was banned, then watch the same company's "Buried" and "Cruise of Terror", after all, it is still supervised by the "death director".
Then people rioted, to catch a glimpse of the latest "death director" company's film, everyone flocked in groups to the cinema to watch "Buried Alive" and "Horror Cruise".
The situation is like a collective street parade, forcing the police in Los Angeles, New York and Philadelphia to be on high alert to prevent accidents.
"Oh God, it's been ages since I've seen a movie that draws in crowds like this!" said one harried policeman.
In short, under Paramount's manipulation and Yi Fei Yang's unparalleled popularity, the two plays that were not well-received at first have become a huge hit!
……
The third week of the North American Halloween box office rankings, "Scream 2" still maintained its championship position, without the threat of "Paranormal Activity", allowing "Scream" to win the top spot for the third consecutive week with $14 million.
Lionsgate's "Blair Witch 2" rose to third place, becoming the bronze medalist of this period, as it was banned along with "Paranormal Activity".
However, don't think that the ban on "Paranormal Activity" means DreamWorks will be quiet; on the contrary, with Paramount's strong push, DreamWorks' other two films "Buried" and "Cruise of Terror" both broke into the top ten, respectively earning $3.5 million and $3.3 million, ranking fifth and sixth at the box office.
This is not all, with the continuous increase in the number of viewers, by the fourth week, these two films have risen to third and fourth place respectively, and the total box office revenue of the two films has also exceeded 150 million!
The originally proud "Witch 2" was once again trampled underfoot by these two plays, it's extremely tragic.
Lion's Gate has learned from the strengths of DreamWorks, witnessed the power of Yi Feiyang, and also seen the energy of old-school Paramount, understanding how to utilize timing and create publicity.
……
November 28, 1998.
As Halloween is over, the biggest winner of this period is undoubtedly "Scream 2", which has been the box office champion for four consecutive weeks and is unbeatable in this period. However, everyone knows that if "Paranormal Activity" hadn't been banned from being shown in North America, the big winner of this period might have been different.
But no matter what, for Paramount who provided the film and Blumhouse Productions who produced "Paranormal Activity", neither of them lost out in this one-month period.
"Buried" and "Open Water" these two films with an investment of only $190,000, total box office revenue has reached a staggering $38 million, the ratio of investment to income reached a staggering 200 times!
But what's even more surprising is that the movie "Paranormal Activity" was banned in North America, but people are just so weird, the more you don't let them do something, the more they want to do it.
The more the American censorship authorities banned this play, the more curious those Americans became. What was the extent of its horror? How did it scare people to death? Especially young people, who tried every means to see this play.
To satisfy their wishes, DreamWorks Pictures and Paramount jointly released the DVD of this film... The ban clearly states that it is prohibited to publicly screen in North America, prohibit posters and advertisements from being published, but does not say that making DVDs for sale is prohibited.
In addition to the 10 million copies already pre-sold, the DVD of "Paranormal Activity" sold out its entire 2 million copy run in just one day in Los Angeles alone.
Such a stunning scene directly shocked Paramount's old brand people.
Having made movies for so long, I've never seen such a "perverse" sales scene.
You know, this is just one area in Los Angeles. If you add up the top 10 cities in the US, wouldn't that be 200 million?!
Originally thought booking was already hot enough, didn't expect retail to be even more outrageous!
No choice, continue to work overtime, rush to make new CDs. Poor copying workers, these days are exhausted, as worker Andrei said, "Oh buddy, look at me, originally I weighed over 200 pounds, but now...I've lost so much weight that I can go act like a monkey!"
At the same time, good news also came from Asian and European markets, where CD sales also soared with the rumor of "Ghost Blowing Lamp" scaring people to death.
Many people can't watch this movie in the cinema, so they have no choice but to buy a DVD and watch it themselves.
So these publishers are no longer satisfied with just pre-ordering CD sales, but have changed to buying the right to copy CDs!
Paramount can't be in charge of this, after all the copyright of this play is in the hands of DreamWorks, and even they themselves have bought it from them.
After communicating with the high-level executives of Paramount Pictures... mainly handled by Bao, this "miser" and "stingy" person would not let Paramount and those damned distributors take advantage of him. In Bao's meticulous negotiations, he drove his opponents crazy, but for the sake of making a fortune, these guys had to endure it.
After the negotiations, DreamWorks got the most benefit. The three major optical disc manufacturers in Asia and Europe alone paid a heavy price of $7.5 million, averaging $2.5 million per company.
Idiot!
Good luck!
For Gao Jiaobao, the fat boy.
It's these fishy bastards!
