Chapter 279 Star Odyssey

Pei Qian hurriedly opened the movie's promotion page to check it out.

Star Odyssey

Action, Sci-Fi, Fantasy, 3D, IMAX

USA, 134 minutes

Released: 2011-03-12

Synopsis:

On the eve of World War I, a traumatized former officer, Tim (John Stanton), accidentally travels to a mysterious planet and becomes embroiled in the conflicts of the planet's various factions. Although these forces see him as the key to ending the conflict, and he even wins the heart of the beautiful Princess Lynn (Dejah Morton), can he truly leave his past behind and change the destiny of this planet?

After reading this synopsis, Pei Qian's joyful mood was instantly doused with cold water.

This story didn't seem very appealing!

But then he thought about it... it seemed that movies made in the US all followed this pattern. Avatar, which had taken the world by storm, was also about traveling to another planet and getting hot and heavy with the local native girl, wasn't it?

Yeah, pretty much the same.

The key was the director and the investment!

As long as the director was reliable and the investment was high enough, this movie could easily crush A Beautiful Tomorrow!

Pei Qian hurriedly checked for more information about the movie.

After reading it, Pei Qian breathed a sigh of relief.

It was a sure thing!

Director Darryl had directed his first animated short film as early as 1988. Since then, he had directed many films and had been nominated for an Oscar many times. In 2005, his animated film grossed $600 million worldwide and won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature Film. In 2008, his next sci-fi animated film won the award again.

And Star Odyssey was based on a classic science fiction novel published in the United States in 1911. Now, it was exactly the 100th anniversary of the original novel. The total investment in the film exceeded $170 million, and the cast was star-studded. The male lead, John Stanton, worked hard to complete a very strict physical training during filming. While enduring the pain of filming, he lost a full 25 pounds, a true role model of dedication.

In short, Pei Qian read the information about this film from beginning to end, and felt instantly relieved.

This was the standard American blockbuster template!

Look at this luxurious cast, look at this large investment, a famous director, famous actors, plus a good script, it should be no problem to casually broadcast it around the world and get a total box office of six or seven hundred million dollars, right?

If it did well domestically, getting five or six hundred million RMB would also be a piece of cake.

And even this, Pei Qian was underestimating it. Based on an investment of $170 million, a global box office of five or six hundred million dollars would only be considered breaking even.

If it was a huge hit, it would have to aim for a billion!

At that time, the major theaters would be forced to screen it, and squeezing A Beautiful Tomorrow out of the picture would be a piece of cake, wouldn't it?

Currently, the movie had been given 31.4% of the screenings on its opening day. If the trend continued well, then this screening percentage would definitely increase!

And the screening percentage of A Beautiful Tomorrow had fallen to less than 15%.

The only thing Pei Qian felt a little regretful about was that this movie was released more than half a month late. If it could have been released with A Beautiful Tomorrow, it would have been a sure thing!

But it wasn't too late to be released now, at least it would reduce a lot of Pei Qian's subsequent income!

Thinking of this, Pei Qian was simply encouraged.

...

...

March 12, Saturday.

Today was the weekend, no need to go to work, but for Pei Qian, every weekend from today onwards would be very busy!

While eating his Touching Fish takeaway, he checked the reservation situation for the Otto E1 phone.

Sure enough, the number of reservations hadn't reached 5,000 so far. This time, at least 4,000 units could be suppressed, which was about the same as Pei Qian's estimated number.

And on the internet, this number had also caused a lot of ridicule.

Because when the Otto E1 phone had just held its launch conference, it was very lively. The video of the launch conference made it onto the digital list of the Ellie Island website, and Chang You's tongue twister had also led everyone to imitate it.

On the day of the launch conference, 1,000 units were snapped up in an instant, creating the illusion of high popularity.

Many people had previously questioned whether this was artificial scarcity. Now that reservations with deposits had opened, the number of reservations was only less than 5,000, a whole order of magnitude different from other major mobile phone manufacturers who had tens of thousands of reservations.

As a result, the focus of everyone's criticism naturally shifted.

"Otto Technology, this is really a bad move. They should have continued with artificial scarcity, selling it bit by bit so that the phone's popularity could be maintained. Now it's all over, they've opened it up for sale, and everyone knows how much this phone weighs. Only five thousand people made reservations, aren't they ashamed?"

"Why not create some fake numbers? Add one more digit to the number of pre-orders, wouldn't that be less embarrassing!"

"Hehe, I think President Chang must have inflated. The fact that the first 3,000 phones were all sold out gave him the illusion that the phone was very popular. So he started pre-orders and was instantly exposed!"

"When there's no stock, you say it's artificial scarcity. When there's stock, you say the phone isn't popular enough. Haters are always in an invincible position..."

"Hehe, that's the reality. I don't ask for much, if this phone can sell a cumulative total of 30,000 units, then I'll reluctantly admit that it's popular, but can it? It's already sold 3,000 units and has 5,000 pre-orders, that's already the limit! Facts have proven that you can't go far with marketing and intelligence tax!"

Looking at these comments, Pei Qian felt much better, and even ate a few more mouthfuls of rice.

Especially the last one, which was righteous, sonorous, and completely asserted that the Otto phone was a failure, which made Pei Qian feel very comfortable.

The only pity was that this guy probably didn't know the market. In fact, selling only 3,000 units had already earned President Pei 12 million, and even if these profits were returned to other departments, he still earned more than a million.

If 30,000 units were sold, wouldn't that kill President Pei?

Then, Pei Qian looked at the player reviews for BeQuiet.

So far, players were still arguing about the game's purchase threshold. The topic of the game itself was only a minority.

The game's sales were also increasing, but so far, it had only sold less than 10,000 copies in total.

Compared to previous games, it was simply a heavenly start!

Pei Qian was very happy. His carefully designed process to discourage players was obviously effective, and very effective!

Of course, he had also been scolded a lot.

The point of contention that players argued the most online was precisely this.

When BeQuiet was first released, players found that they couldn't buy it. They had to solve an ARG puzzle first. Many players were already holding back a stomach full of fire and had even thrown the game to the back of their minds.

After the ARG puzzle was solved for a whole week, many people were overjoyed and wanted to buy it, but found that there were still prerequisites!

And these prerequisites even took nearly an hour, and they also had to complete a terrifying little game. Some people who didn't have a camera at home even had to get one...

Although Lonely Desert Road and Game Producer were free, many people who hadn't played these two games simply didn't want to download them, and didn't want to play them.

In short, these few prerequisites discouraged a large number of players and caused great controversy, which had continued until now.

Some players said that Tenda was floating, letting itself go, and made a meaningless promotion, which in turn affected the game's sales, waiting for the game to flop;

Some players also said that the game screened out players in this way, so that those impatient novice players couldn't enter the game. This could purify the game environment and improve the game experience. It was part of the game's marketing strategy, and it seemed to be very successful.

Pei Qian found these arguments very interesting to watch.

Pei Qian wanted to tell everyone that you were all right!

I really wanted the game to flop, and I was indeed screening players. You were talking about the same thing!

In addition to these two groups of people who were arguing fiercely, there were also some posts that made Pei Qian marvel at the greatness of the wisdom of the people.

A player named "super normal" posted a detailed guide on how to pass the prerequisites, including how long to drive in Lonely Desert Road, how to choose each time in Game Producer, and how to operate on the TPDB website.

The most impressive thing was that this poster had also researched the ultimate trick to pass the final test: find a piece of paper, cut a hole in it, and cover it on the screen. In this way, the eyes only needed to stare at the small area of the screen behind the hole, and they would not be affected by the ghosts around the screen at all.

The ultimate test, which originally required more than half an hour of trying and a strong will to succeed, could be passed by many people in one try after using this trick...

Pei Qian only had two words for this post: admiration!

Of course, there was also a way to fix this loophole, which was to continue to adjust the gameplay of this game so that the player's eyes had to scan every corner of the screen throughout the process, instead of just staring at one place.

However, considering that the game's sales were not very good at the moment, the current challenge obviously had a very strong discouraging effect, so Pei Qian turned a blind eye to it.

After all, the people who could really get to this final step were already a minority of the player base.

Finally, Pei Qian opened the Dog Eye App to check the box office situation of Star Odyssey on its opening day.

It was only noon, and the box office of Star Odyssey had already broken 11 million. The box office on the opening day should be around 24 million.

Pei Qian couldn't help but frown slightly. It didn't seem as impressive as he had imagined?

But then he thought about it, today was only the first day of release. Tomorrow, Sunday, there would be another wave of moviegoers. Wouldn't it be easy to get 60 million in two days?

Famous director + famous actors + big investment + big scenes, it was impossible for it to flop no matter how you looked at it. If it didn't easily cut six or seven hundred million at the box office, how could you be embarrassed to greet others?

Pei Qian still remembered that the opening day box office of A Beautiful Tomorrow was less than 8 million in half a day, and the opening day was around 17 million. The estimated box office of the Dog Eye App had reached 210 million.

And after that, the data of A Beautiful Tomorrow was still rising, and now the estimated box office of the Dog Eye App had reached 230 million.

Pei Qian hurriedly opened the estimated box office of Star Odyssey.

"320 million RMB???"

"Such a good movie only has such a small estimated box office? I don't believe it!"

Pei Qian almost thought that the number was missing a 0.

But then he thought about it, the box office estimate of the Dog Eye App was only an estimate, and it was not necessarily accurate, especially in this situation where it was estimated based on only half a day's box office.

Didn't A Beautiful Tomorrow underestimate it?

Go, Star Odyssey, I'm rooting for you!

Tomorrow, be sure to use a high box office to slap the Dog Eye App in the face, and let it know what it means to be blind to talent, oh no, blind to good movies!

Pei Qian looked at the screenings for tomorrow again. The screenings for Star Odyssey had risen from 31.4% to 32.3%. Although it hadn't increased much, it would still have a good suppressive effect on A Beautiful Tomorrow.

Because A Beautiful Tomorrow had already been released for 19 days, and it would be taken off the screens in another ten days or so.

Moreover, it wasn't just Star Odyssey that was putting pressure on the screenings of A Beautiful Tomorrow. Other movies had also been released one after another during this time.

The box office of A Beautiful Tomorrow had now fallen to third place. The top two were Star Odyssey and The Chaser. The latter was also a new movie that had just been released a few days ago. Although the total box office would definitely not surpass A Beautiful Tomorrow, it was, after all, a new movie with high screenings, and its daily box office could still steadily suppress A Beautiful Tomorrow.

The daily box office of the three movies was at the 20 million, 8 million, and 4 million levels, respectively.

But under the continuous pressure of the first two movies, A Beautiful Tomorrow seemed to be a hero past its prime.