Global Film Emperor

Chapter 310

The second week of "Find You" has ended, and so far it has grossed over 630 million yuan at the box office, already recouping its costs. To be precise, this film, which cost 50 million yuan to produce, started making a profit last Wednesday.

This was not unexpected for anyone. After all, the number of moviegoers in China is still rising and the cultural industry still has a lot of room for improvement. In this day and age, as long as the film is not bad and can achieve a rating of 6.5 or higher, a small-budget film can basically make money.

The current state of the mainland Chinese film market is basically similar to that of Hong Kong in the 1980s and 90s. More and more investors are seeing that the risks have decreased and the profits have increased, and they are eager to try investing in films.

Leaving aside certain chaotic phenomena and focusing solely on the overall environment, the current film industry is undoubtedly in a virtuous cycle. The reason is quite simple: the most important thing for movies is funding. Once there is a large flow of funds, everything becomes easier to solve. Money makes the world go round.

Of course, many of these investors become stepping stones for the overall environment, just like Hong Kong back in the day, which produced thousands of films every year. Did everyone make money? No, most of them were buried in the vast ocean of films, and only a few achieved success. However, "Find You" is not one of them.

Therefore, if "Find You" had been released in 2016 or 2017, a heavy and depressing film at that time would definitely not have earned as much as it does now. It would probably have earned between tens of millions and two hundred million, not much more.

This demonstrates just how prosperous the domestic cultural market was between 2016 and 2021. This was mainly due to the continuous development of the domestic economy, but it was also closely related to the significant improvement in the audience's film appreciation skills.

As the economy develops, incomes naturally rise, but this also leads to a significant devaluation of the currency. Take pork, for example; it's now 14 or 15 yuan per kilogram.

A regular 2D feature film ticket costs only about twenty yuan, which is less than the cost of a white-collar worker's lunch. Naturally, more and more people are willing to spend the money for a meal to enjoy the spiritual pleasure brought by entertainment culture.

The improvement in viewing standards leads to increasingly demanding standards for film plots. While trashy people support trashy movies, these people are no longer considered trashy; rather, they are people with extremely high standards for movies. The movies produced by such audiences are naturally not bad, unless you want to starve yourself.

This is not friendly to the entertainment industry. The competition is constantly increasing, and under the survival of the fittest, those practitioners with low skills will not be able to make a living. They either need to continue their studies or quickly change careers.

Not to mention those professionals who have gone to work, even college students who are still studying in school no longer dare to be proud of their appearance and think that they can make a living based on their looks. They all hide in the library to study professional knowledge or hide in the rehearsal room to hone their professional skills.

Aside from the wealthy students, almost all the film school students looked like they were about to die from exhaustion, almost bald from overwork. They had been pushing themselves to the limit during their years of schooling because they knew that if they didn't work hard to learn professional skills now, they would be rejected as soon as they left the school.

As a result, people have to admit that students in art schools face greater pressure than those in regular universities. After all, directors often come to art schools to select students for film crews, while regular universities usually don't have companies selecting students who haven't graduated yet to work for them.

It can be said that freshmen art students face heavy academic pressure and competition with their classmates as soon as they enter university. This makes many high school students who want to study performing arts hesitate, leaving only those talented and hardworking individuals to apply to art colleges.

In this way, in the near future, not to mention ten or twenty years, but even in five years, a large number of outstanding new-generation film professionals will emerge in China and enter the battlefield of the film industry to compete. Only those who are even more outstanding than the good will be able to become the leaders of this industry.

Is it cruel? Yes, but for the average viewer, it's an upcoming visual feast.

While the industry continues to produce young, handsome idols, their skill level is now significantly higher than it was a few years ago. Unlike before, when simply being able to dance a decent dance and having a good appearance was enough to debut, the current requirements for debut include singing and acting skills.

In this way, even if the crossover fails, the audience can be understanding instead of criticizing them harshly. They can only say things like, "xxx is not suitable for acting (singing), so don't act (sing) anymore." This won't have a significant impact on the young idol's original strengths.

If you think about it carefully, the careers of young male celebrities have fluctuated over the years. When capital first entered the market, the entertainment industry still required you to have some ability, like the "Super Boy" and "Super Girl" back then. In fact, their abilities were quite good. Let's think of that period as a relatively stable period.

However, with the release of mindless Taiwanese dramas and copycat mainland productions, the appreciation level of viewers who could accept shows like "Super Girl" and "Happy Boy" was lowered again, and this stable line began to fall. It kept falling until anyone who had undergone cosmetic surgery and could jump around a bit could debut. Under the nationwide criticism, the entertainment industry made some changes, and some excellent period dramas emerged, making many young actors popular. This line began to slowly rise again.

Up until 2021, the young male idols launched so far have at least some ability in one area. Now this standard has risen to about the same level as the "Super Boy" and "Super Girl" competitions of yesteryear, and it continues to rise. The professional level requirements for these young male idols are still becoming more stringent.

Lu Ze predicts that the young male idols launched in the domestic market in the future will be similar to young actors in Hollywood, such as Leonardo DiCaprio when he first debuted, and Tom Holland who became popular a few years ago with "The Avengers". They will be traffic stars with good looks and high professional level. No, at that time they should be called excellent young actors. And the young male idols of this period will have no place to stand.

Ultimately, this is nothing more than growing pains brought about by the entry of capital into the market. Fresh meat celebrities are merely semi-finished products released during the market transformation period to maintain revenue.

Therefore, Lu Ze never looked down on these young idols who made a living based on their looks. On the contrary, he felt some pity for them. This was because, apart from those young idols who made money, all the popular artists and trainees who had not yet made it big were victims of capital. Even if they became famous, they would be despised by people in the near future.

Not only do you not make any money, but you also get criticized by everyone who mentions it. Isn't that a huge loss?

Having discussed so many macro-environmental issues, it can be summarized in two sentences: the market environment is getting better and better, and the quality of practitioners will be getting higher and higher.

Returning to the film "Find You" itself, "Find You" is carrying the number one spot on the annual list with a high score of 8.7 points, and will make a final push in the remaining two weeks, aiming for 700 million.

"Brother Lu! Catch the ball!"

He caught the basketball and threw it with perfect form. The basketball swished through the net with a beautiful arc, but only touched it. Seeing the camera pointed at him, Lu Ze pretended not to care and looked away.

"Okay, thank you for your hard work, Brother Lu. We'll take care of the rest ourselves. Soon, you'll be able to see yourself on TV."

After thanking the director of the film crew for his hard work, Lu Ze tugged at his jersey to let himself get some fresh air; the water from the spray bottle had sprayed too much, and now his clothes were sticking to his body.

A few days ago, he just landed a 15 million yuan two-year advertising contract with a well-established domestic beverage company. The one he just filmed was for that company. It doesn't matter if he didn't win the bid; someone will do the post-production storyboarding. He just needs to strike a pose and say "Icy Powerful."

After all, he hadn't played basketball for almost ten years. Now he could only be thankful that he still had some of the skills he had developed from practicing basketball when he wanted to become a sports student, and thankful that the production team didn't make him dribble a couple of times and then do an awkward dance, so that he could finish filming the commercial without feeling embarrassed.

"Zixuan, what time is it?"

"It's 1:20 PM, Brother Lu, do you want to eat? I've ordered takeout."

"Never mind, I'll eat in the car. Call Brother Liu and have him wait for me at the door. I'll take a shower first and then go straight back to the company."

After arranging the follow-up matters, Lu Ze went into the shower room on set. He still had to go to the company to work on the new movie and meet the other actors who were involved.

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(End of this chapter)