Entertainment: I am the peak

Chapter 237 Small tricks

Some things, if they are not weighed, they are not even 100 grams, but if they are weighed, they are even more than 1,000 pounds.

That's the problem with piracy.

The audio-visual store opened by the Li family, on a larger scale, infringes on intellectual property rights, distributes pirated audio-visual products, and even spreads pornographic materials; on a smaller scale, who would have the luxury of doing something like this?

It is a bit naive to rely on this little bit to discredit Li Qiutang and "In Time".

It’s not that Li Qiutang likes conspiracy theories or has paranoia, thinking that someone is deliberately slandering him.

It was such a coincidence. "In Time" wanted to take advantage of the popularity of the Lunar New Year period, so it released some materials to promote it in advance. It posted on Weibo, and then accused Li Qiutang of spreading pirated copies.

Is there such a coincidence in the world?
Li Qiutang simply ignored such remarks. Piracy is a very troublesome problem and a very gray area. Although policies have been cracking down on piracy, the actual operations have not been very strong.

Now you want to use the banner of anti-piracy, why are you pretending to be a foreign guest? !

Unless there is a major copyright incident, this kind of topic will never be hyped up.

Firstly, people don’t really care about genuine or pirated products, and pirated discs are even the childhood memories of many people; secondly, the relevant parties don’t want to bring this issue to the table, so they just deal with it in a small way.

The publicity and promotion of "In Time" focuses on the two leading actors, Liu Ye and Liu Yifei, both of whom have many fans.

Another card says that "In Time" is "a sci-fi action blockbuster at the advanced level of Hollywood" and "a milestone in domestic sci-fi blockbusters."

There is some bragging involved, but as it is publicity, there is nothing wrong with bragging a little.

After returning to China, Li Qiutang personally reviewed the publicity and promotion plan with the publicity and promotion team.

Li Qiutang himself came up with many good ideas, and he even asked for more work.
The importance of "In Time" is self-evident. It is Li Qiutang's most expensive film and the first blockbuster produced by Qiu Tian Pictures since its establishment.

It means a lot to him personally and to the company.

Li Qiutang took the initiative to add 15 cities to the original plan of visiting 10 cities across the country, which does not include cinema activities and some promotional programs.

The publicity and promotion director was worried about whether Li Qiutang could make it, but Li Qiutang patted his chest and said there was no problem.

But the question now is, with the increased activities, are the actors of "In Time" willing to follow Li Qiutang?

People are busy too, and if you add an event at the last minute, they may not agree to it.

The publicity and promotion team can only try their best to negotiate.

"Big Laugh" and "The Orphan of Zhao" kicked off the battle of the Lunar New Year box office. "Big Laugh" successfully stole the show, raking in 6000 million in box office in the first three days, beating "The Orphan of Zhao"'s 4960 million and taking the championship throne of the first week of the Lunar New Year box office.

The successful theft of "Big Laugh in the Rivers and Lakes" quickly attracted the attention of the industry, and they all discussed how the distributor Bernardo did it.

A very important reason is the advantage of scheduling. Uncle Benshan is extremely popular in the north. In the Northeast region, the scheduling of "The Laughing Man" is much higher than that of "The Orphan of Zhao".

It is understood that on the first day of the release of "The Laughing Man", the box office of all cinemas in Fengtian with more than 6 halls exceeded 10 on that day.

Uncle Benshan’s appeal in Northeast China is really strong.

However, the quality of "Big Laughing Rivers and Lakes" is not as good as "The Orphan of Zhao" after all. After the first week, the growth rate of "Big Laughing Rivers and Lakes" fell by 18%, and was far behind "The Orphan of Zhao".

After entering December, the promotion of "In Time" has become more active.

On the premiere day of "The Laughing Man", the crew released the character posters of "In Time".

The first person to appear was not the male or female protagonist, but Jiang Wu.

Huang Yongqiang, played by Jiang Wu, stood on the podium with a righteous look on his face and gave an exciting speech.

Over the weekend, the crew of "In Time" released two character posters of Shao Bin on Weibo.

The character he played, Wan Zhiwei, was driving a luxury car and chasing something.

In the second poster, he is standing in the sea of fire, calm and composed. Jiang Wu and Shao Bin's posters were released first to match the upcoming release of Let the Bullets Fly.

The idea of "In Time" came from a bowl of noodles between Li Qiutang and Jiang Wen. "In Time" also borrowed two actors from the crew of "Let the Bullets Fly". Jiang Wen had no difficulty at all. During the filming, Jiang Wen even drove a cart of watermelons to Hengdian to visit Li Qiutang.

It can be said that there are close ties between the two directors and the two crews, and they are friendly relations.

Before the release of Let the Bullets Fly, In Time released stills of Jiang Wu and Shao Bin's characters, which was obviously a favor to Let the Bullets Fly and the two actors.

But some people don't see it that way.

They used this to attack In Time for stealing talent from Let the Bullets Fly, and released stills of the two leading actors on the eve of Let the Bullets Fly's release. Doesn't this mean that the two actors are overlapping in screen time?
After all, this was not the first time that Li Qiutang had done such a thing. Everyone still remembered how she had poached the heroine of Nanjing! Nanjing!

To use the term from later fan circles, is this called pouring oil?

The crew of "In Time" poured fuel on the crew of "Let the Bullets Fly".

This incident caused quite a stir. After all, "Let the Bullets Fly" has a luxurious cast and attracted a lot of attention.

However, neither crew commented on this. Whether they were unaware or were slow to react, we have no way of knowing.

However, on the 9th, Li Qiutang "for the first time" attended the Shanghai premiere of "Let the Bullets Fly"!

This is Li Qiutang's first public appearance in nearly two months, and the timing is perfect.

No movie was played at the event, and it seemed that Li Qiutang came out specifically to respond to the doubts raised during this period.

However, he still fulfilled his duties as a guest and praised "Let the Bullets Fly" as the movie he most looked forward to seeing this year.

"With such actors, such a director, and such a behind-the-scenes team, I think it will definitely be very good."

The event day happened to be Liu Jialin's birthday, so a birthday party was held for Liu Jialin on the spot, and Li Qiutang also went on stage to have a glass of champagne.

After the event, Li Qiutang was surrounded by reporters as expected.

"Director Li, has the release date for In Time been decided?"

"Director Li, does your family really run a pirated video store? What do you think about the distribution of pirated products?"

"Director Li, are Jiang Wu and Shao Bin overlapping in their scenes?"

Li Qiutang listened patiently and then said, "Today is the event for Let the Bullets Fly, let's talk about Let the Bullets Fly first.

"Let me ask a question first. Didn't three movie kings perform together in Let the Bullets Fly? Why didn't Chow Yun Fat come?"

Li Qiutang did it on purpose.

The reporters were a little embarrassed, not knowing what to say. Should they tell the truth that Chow Yun Fat never participated in the crew's publicity? Wouldn't that be a slap in the face?

Finally, he said: "Fat Brother doesn't seem to like participating in this kind of activities. He only likes acting."

"Oh, so that's it." Li Qiutang played dumb.

After a round of confusion, the reporters still threw out the questions they were about to ask.

"Come one by one." Li Qiutang came to answer questions today. "Let's talk about the one related to Let the Bullets Fly first. If it was really a temporary poaching, how dare I come to the premiere today? This question is self-defeating." Li Qiutang was not obligated to explain to the reporters how he approached Jiang Wen to borrow actors.

Then, in response to the piracy issue, Li Qiutang would not be fooled by the reporter. Piracy is naturally untenable, so he said from another perspective: "I think we should thank piracy. It is pirated resources that allow Chinese audiences to watch many movies in the world for free or at very low prices. I dare say that there is no other country in the world where audiences have such diverse aesthetics as our Chinese audiences."

"We can't condemn piracy in one fell swoop. Our ticket prices are not cheap. The highest ones are 70, 80, or 100 yuan, and the cheapest ones are 20 or 30 yuan. Many of us can't afford this price, but they still want to watch movies. There are free resources online, or you can buy a disc for three or five yuan in a video store. This is very affordable. I think it's good."

When asked about the release date of "In Time", Li Qiutang chose not to answer.

(End of this chapter)