Fans vs. theaters: A strange war
- By Zhang Rui
0 Comment(s)
Print
E-mail China.org.cn, August 7, 2017
|
|
| A still from film "Once Upon A Time" with two leading stars Liu Yifei and Yang Yang. [Photo/ China.org.cn] |
As Chinese military blockbuster "Wolf Warrior 2" continues to break box office records, another rival production "Once Upon A Time" has been involved in a strange war. Fans of its leading actors scrambled to pre-lock the show times to avoid its cancellation.
Wu Jing's "Wolf Warrior 2" within days is set to inherit the crown of the highest grossing Chinese film ever. Without "Wolf Warrior 2," "Once Upon A Time" would have dominated the box office last weekend.
The Alibaba Pictures production is based on the best-selling fantasy novel "Three Lives Three Worlds, Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms" and is co-directed by award-winning cinematographer-turned-director Zhao Xiaoding and Anthony LaMolinara, who received an Oscar for the special effects in "Spider-Man 2."
The film is set in a wonderland of celestial beings and humans, and centers on the love of a fox and a dragon, both living in human form. The movie stars hugely popular actress Liu Yifei and actor Yang Yang.
"Once Upon A Time" opened strongly against "Wolf Warrior 2" on Aug 4, raking in 166 million yuan (US$24.69 million) on a weekday. However, this was not enough to dethrone "Wolf Warrior 2," which grossed 220 million yuan (US$32.72 million) on its eighth day in theaters.
"Wolf Warrior 2" is dominating the movie slots in theaters with the show times allocated by theater managers for "Wolf Warrior 2" being kept above 40 percent of available slots, sometimes even as high as 60 percent. In contrast, "Once Upon A Time" received a many negative reviews and has been afforded cinema slots and consequently lower box office revenues since day two of its release. Fans of Liu Yifei and Yang Yang are very upset and attempted to find a way to save the film from flopping.
The measures the fans invented was to pre-lock thousands of show times by quickly buying one or two advanced tickets for the next few days of each of the show times for "Once Upon A Time" to avoid its cancellation. Since theater managers would cut or switch certain show times which didn't yet have any bookings in order to put on more show times for consistently sold-out movies such as "Wolf Warrior 2." This is more profitable than screening "Once Upon A Time" which had a declining and relatively small audience.
The "fans lock" caused many theaters nationwide to lose lots of money as they cannot change the show time if several tickets have already been pre-sold. However some theaters struck back using excuses like "equipment malfunction" to forcibly cancel shows and refund fans -- so that they could quickly arrange more screen time for "Wolf Warrior 2."
Other theater managers also cut the show times for "Once Upon A Time" in the immediate next few days to avoid a fan lock out, while others even bought tickets using their own money to pre-lock the show time before fans could.
Sa Zhilei, producer of "Once Upon A Time," said at a press conference in Beijing on Sunday that he had heard about the strange war, "I think fans buying tickets are showing their love for their idols and their idols' film."
"As for the reactions, refunds and cancellations by theaters, I think this is not a big scale movement," Sa added, "some theaters have their own consideration for profits and arrangements. There's no need for conspiracy theories. We can understand all of the controversies which have spawned from the film."
"Once Upon A Time" has grossed more than 422 million yuan (US$62.77 million) in four days since its release. Despite the efforts of its fans however, it was still hugely dwarfed by the phenomenal "Wolf Warrior 2" which has grossed a stunning 3.1 billion yuan in its first 11 days (US$461.13 million).
Go to Forum >>0 Comment(s)