[The author has not added extra chapters in the past few days.]
"What in the world is this?" Mr. Huang, holding his chin, stared at the densely packed box office data with a look of bewilderment.
Normally, Mr. Huang was the one who left others bewildered. This was the first time he was left in such a state. Since he had no expectations for the "Misty Journey" movie series as a whole, Mr. Huang had only spent money on ordinary promotions and then resorted to this method of releasing all the films at once. He hadn't even paid much attention to the US film market. Instead, he was busy dealing with the company's backlog that had accumulated during his long stay in the US and handling the awarding of the Huanghe Prize.
The Huanghe Prize ceremony was held in late December, almost four months later than usual. This led many to believe that Mr. Huang was reluctant to spend money and no longer intended to host the Huanghe Prize.
This was not the case. The main reason was that Mr. Huang couldn't decide who deserved the awards, and it wasn't until late December that the final selections were completed. He presented the Huanghe Prize to six individuals he considered deserving heroes of New China's scientific research.
[PS: Due to the author's limited professional knowledge regarding the Huanghe Prize, apart from a few well-known individuals, I couldn't think of suitable recipients. I welcome everyone to recommend individuals you believe are qualified for the Huanghe Prize here. I will compile everyone's suggestions.]
After finishing these matters, Mr. Huang glanced at the situation in the US and was completely stunned.
According to the statistical data on this table, a total of 369 companies or individuals across the United States had collectively booked 2,132 cinemas to offer "Misty Journey" to citizens for free.
These companies and individuals who booked the cinemas spanned all federal states in the US. Among them, "Little Swift" booked the most cinemas, with 136. Steve Jobs followed with 100 cinemas. What surprised Mr. Huang the most was that even an old competitor like Motorola had spent $4 million to book 100 cinemas. This company had booked two cinemas in the capital of every US state. After all, Motorola was a nationwide enterprise. If such a large enterprise were to appear in a personal capacity, it would naturally not be able to offer benefits in just one state but had to consider the entire nation.
Moreover, Motorola had booked twice. The first time they booked for $2 million, but soon Samsung and Nokia also booked for $2 million. So, this morning, Motorola announced another $2 million booking, which deeply touched Mr. Huang.
In total, these companies had spent nearly $100 million on booking cinemas.
This $100 million would all be counted towards the box office revenue of "Misty Journey." In addition, 45% of it would be revenue for Jiangnan Group itself.
These actions further boosted the fame of "Misty Journey" in the US, attracting more people to cinemas to watch this film that had triggered nationwide corporate cinema bookings for public welfare.
It was now January 10, 2005. Ten days after the movie's release, "Misty Journey 3" had already surpassed $450 million in box office revenue. But that wasn't the most important thing. The crucial point was that "Misty Journey 2," boosted by the third installment, had also surpassed $650 million in box office revenue, while "Misty Journey 1" had exceeded $800 million in total box office, officially becoming the second-highest-grossing film on the North American box office charts, with a gap of $260 million to "Titanic."
Although surpassing "Titanic" was still unlikely, considering the box office growth period would be at least another month, it was not impossible to exceed $1 billion.
If this happened, "Misty Journey" would become the second film in North American history to exceed $1 billion at the box office, and the first film starring entirely foreign actors to surpass $1 billion in box office revenue. This would undoubtedly be an unimaginable legend in Hollywood.
Of course, some busybodies advocated for combining the box office revenues of "Misty Journey" Parts 1-3 for calculation, as they believed these three films were released all at once, and many audiences chose to watch all three parts consecutively in the cinema. Calculating them as a single film was perfectly reasonable in their view.
If this were the case, the North American box office revenue of "Misty Journey" would exceed $1.9 billion. If the box office revenue from other markets were included, breaking the world box office record of $2.2 billion set by "Titanic" would be a certainty, and Jiangnan Group would successfully claim this honor.
Of course, this was just a thought for those with too much time on their hands. Hollywood as a whole would absolutely not agree to such calculations. In fact, Hollywood was still trying to divert all the box office revenue generated by these cinema bookings, refusing to include it in the total box office and stubbornly trying to suppress the data for "Misty Journey."
Of course, at this time, no one cared about what Hollywood wanted to do. The entire crew had become the focus of global media attention. The lead actress, Leng Zhiwen, received interview invitations from over 350 domestic and international media outlets in a single day, forcing her to hold a single press conference to accept media interviews instead of granting exclusive interviews to any single outlet.
Since a breakthrough couldn't be achieved through Leng Zhiwen, the supporting actors of the film became the primary focus of reporters. However, the actors who received the most interviews were not the supporting characters with significant screen time, such as Fu Shan, Hua Meiniang, Zhao Hao, Hou Pijing, Mo Huaiyuan, and Gu Mei'er, but rather the actors playing Nashan and Pabben.
These two characters were the subordinates Li Qiang took in after falling into Black Prison and later became his disciples. In the late Black Prison storyline of "Misty Journey 1," they had a considerable amount of screen time. Although they still appeared in the second and third parts, their roles were significantly reduced, essentially becoming extras who made brief appearances.
Logically, this shouldn't have made them the focus of media attention. However, the problem was that for the needs of the Hollywood market, Nashan was depicted as Black, and Pabben was depicted as White, both played by Hollywood actors.
In addition, there were some Hollywood actors in the second and third parts. These characters were originally Chinese, but due to market demands, they were changed to Black and White. This was also one of the scenes and content later reshot by Peter Jackson.
Then, these actors were all surprised to discover that they had become famous overnight.
After all, before "Misty Journey" was released, it was a film with no fame whatsoever, and the characters were not important supporting roles, but merely fringe extras.
No actor with even a modicum of fame in Hollywood would accept such a role. Therefore, those who accepted these roles were either newcomers just entering the industry or experienced actors with acting skills but no luck. They participated in the filming of this movie just to make a living.
Unexpectedly, they had become popular and gained the attention of the entire US media.
It couldn't be helped. Although "Misty Journey" was indeed popular, the US media had their pride. While the lead actress Leng Zhiwen was understandable, they would certainly disdain reporting on other Chinese supporting actors. If they were to report, they would only report on their own actors.
They had to highlight the importance of Hollywood actors to the film, claiming that without the excellent acting of these Hollywood actors, the film would not have been this successful. Driven by these ideas, these previously unknown Hollywood actors enjoyed a significant surge in popularity, with constant interviews and a flood of job offers overnight, allowing them to fully experience the dramatic turns of life.
However, most of these Hollywood actors had signed long-term artist contracts with US Jiangnan Fashion Entertainment Management Company when they took on these roles. Therefore, no matter how popular they became, they were still under Mr. Huang's control.
While Hollywood media might not want to flatter the Chinese, the Chinese media were different.
When "Misty Journey" Part 1 achieved $400 million in box office revenue in the North American market, some media with keen senses began interviewing these main actors. Various reports then emerged, extensively hyping "Misty Journey" as China's best film!
Overnight, over 100 media outlets published related reports, and major satellite TV platforms continuously broadcast news, informing the entire nation of the excellent achievements of this Chinese film, which had gained recognition from Hollywood, even though Hollywood was still choosing to ignore the existence of this film at the time. xxs
This fanfare led many people in the Chinese film and television industry to make sour remarks, such as "undeserved reputation," "explosion of promotional expenses," and "it wasn't even hyped like Farewell My Concubine."
Mr. Huang did not refute this point, but the fact was that Mr. Huang had not spent a single penny on this domestic media promotion; these media outlets were acting entirely spontaneously and voluntarily.
Furthermore, "Misty Journey" was indeed inferior to "Farewell My Concubine" in artistic merit, but it was because in 2005, the media still held the view that "the moon abroad is round and bright."
Anything foreigners liked was considered good. Any achievement made by foreigners was to be doubly praised domestically. Anything that foreigners doubted was necessarily problematic.
In short, the domestic media at the time completely took pride in the preferences of foreign media and foreigners. Any achievement made abroad would be infinitely amplified domestically.
The legend of someone who couldn't even score 300 on the college entrance examination domestically becoming a legendary "sea turtle elite" after returning from a dubious foreign university was common in China. This was also why people at that time were so enthusiastic about sending their children abroad for studies.
It was simply because their children were too mediocre domestically, so they could only get a "gold plating" abroad before returning, otherwise, they wouldn't be marketable!
Even when "Misty Journey" Part 1 only achieved $400 million in box office revenue, it received such high praise from domestic media. Now that the first part's box office had become the second-highest-grossing film on the North American box office charts, one could imagine the treatment all the actors in the entire "Misty Journey" crew had received.
Frankly speaking, Tangren Film and Television suddenly gained more than a dozen top-tier domestic stars overnight. After all, "Misty Journey" mainly used its own contracted actors, but the combined traffic boost these actors received was not as much as that received by Leng Zhiwen!