Director Zhang, since he dared to say such words, wasn't afraid they would be broadcasted.

Even, it was possible that in his mind, such a statement was a planned part of his strategy.

After all, as a big shot in the film industry, openly criticizing a film was quite risky.

But because of this, audiences would naturally have a bad impression of "Wandering Planet" after seeing his comments.

It was easy to guess the thoughts of the audience: Even such a big director publicly expressed that the movie wouldn't be good, so most likely it would not be good, right?

And even if there were audiences who still wanted to see it, they might change from watching the premiere as soon as possible, to first checking the online reviews, then deciding whether to watch it or not.

As long as the initial momentum of "Wandering Planet" was suppressed, giving Director Zhang's own movie more time, he was confident that the level of his directing would absolutely crush "Wandering Planet."

At worst...

Hire more paid posters to smear "Wandering Planet," and give it low ratings to damage its reputation, further reducing the potential audience.

Now the Xu brothers were being continuously pushed back by Chenlu Film Company, to the point of affecting their status in the industry.

So, Director Zhang felt that he must fight a beautiful comeback battle.

To regain the reputation for the Xu brothers, and himself, within the industry...

Director Zhang's little schemes were not known by many people.

But as he had expected, because his influence was so vast, when his several reports and variety shows were published and broadcasted, they still profoundly influenced many people.

Especially since domestic films indeed had never had a strong gene for sci-fi movies, thus, this type of film was innately distrusted.

So, many viewers who had seen Director Zhang's interview started talking about "Wandering Planet" in their circles,

"Did you see Director Zhang's interview? Aside from promoting his own movie, he also talked about Lu Man's new movie, called 'Wandering Planet.'"

"Yeah, I saw it. What can I say? Sci-fi movies. Our domestic sci-fi movies are just like ghost movies, a disguise only. They say it's sci-fi, but actually, it's a romance. Like ghost movies, they always end with mental illness."

"Ghost movies can't help it, due to regulations. The problem with sci-fi movies is the imagination of our national film practitioners."

"Yeah. Anyway, the most sci-fi movie I've seen is probably 'Balala the Little Magic Fairy.'"

Hearing this person's words, his companions all "hissed..." and then stepped back a few steps to maintain their distance.

"You're a guy and you watch 'Balala the Little Magic Fairy'?"

The person stuck out his neck, "So what? Can't guys watch 'Balala the Little Magic Fairy'? Or should I be like you all and watch 'Magic City Fortress'?!"

Hearing his words, his friends were at a loss for words.

It had to be said that "Magic City Fortress" was indeed a heavy blow to all audiences who were looking forward to domestic sci-fi films.

During the promotion, they continuously advertised it as the first domestic sci-fi blockbuster, but it turned out to be a classic case of false advertising.

Initially, all those who entered the cinema full of hope, wanting to witness an "Avatar," ended up seeing a bunch of Smurfs...

Although both were blue and similarly shaped... they were not the same at all!

And this had happened only half a year ago; most audiences had not forgotten to such an extent. Faced with yet another film advertised as a domestic sci-fi blockbuster, who would have the confidence to take another gamble?

The Xu brothers did this just to make a profit for themselves, not caring about the life or death of domestic films, draining the pond to get all the fish, and ruining the expectations of the audience.

Such conversations were ongoing among moviegoers across the country, both large and small.

Regardless of the warning from the precedent of "Magic City Fortress" or the recent cautionary words from Director Zhang, anyhow, many movie enthusiasts, for various reasons, did not include "Wandering Planet" in their New Year's watching list.

And among them, the biggest beneficiary was Director Zhang's new work, "The Ferryman."

During a long holiday when you need to watch a movie, but don't know whether a movie is good or bad, how do you choose a film?

Of course, you look at the director and the cast of the movie.

And "The Ferryman" was this year's New Year's, and even the whole year's, most luxurious production.

The director is one of the top three directors in the country.

The lead actors are three best actors and one best actress from Hong Kong and the Mainland.

The IP was adapted from a best-selling author's novel of the past few years.

Such a movie basically gathered all the elements of a blockbuster.

Plus, Director Zhang said that this movie was his blood, sweat, and tears of recent years and what he considered to be an unrepeatable classic; thus, audiences' expectations naturally skyrocketed.

So when the pre-sale of New Year's holiday movies began in mid to late December, "The Ferryman" pre-sale data soared.

In just three days, "The Ferryman's" pre-sale box office surpassed 200 million yuan.

In comparison, "Wandering Planet's" pre-sale box office was only 50 million yuan.

It's important to note that in terms of the proportion of screenings, both movies dominated other films, each occupying about 40% of the cinema screening lineup.

A week later, "The Ferryman's" pre-sale box office reached 300 million yuan.

And "Wandering Planet's" pre-sale box office had just passed 80 million yuan.

It should be noted that although "The Ferryman" had a strong lineup, because most of the costs were actor's fees and shooting expenses, the cost was not high. At most, it was only 120 million yuan.

The budget of a sci-fi blockbuster like "Wandering Planet" was outrageous because Chen Yan had used Xiao Ha's Instant Camera to capture the potential of this film and knew it would be a huge hit, so he really invested endless money into it.

To make the movie more realistic and grander, Chen Yan even had the director build a small-scale real-life base on Qin Island.

Adding post-production special effects costs, the total expense came to over 300 million yuan.

The cost was three times that of "The Ferryman," but the pre-sale box office was only one-third of "The Ferryman." Almost everyone who saw these results was ready to write off "Wandering Planet" as a failure.

And the terror of Chenlu Film Company's hits one after another, breaking records with each release, finally eased at this moment.

Many in the entertainment industry who did not like Chenlu Film took a sigh of relief.

Many film and television industry workers, while not daring to speak harshly, also showed a bit of schadenfreude in private discussions,

"Chenlu Film Company has been too strong these last two years. Their success rate is too high. This failure is actually normal. It is understandable."

"Yeah. They can't have all the good works, right? One 'Medicine God' and one 'Hua Qian Gu' a year is enough. It's not good to be too greedy."

"However, what I didn't expect was that it was their most expensive project that flopped. They must have lost quite a bit of money?"

"Not really. They made it back with 'Medicine God'."

"Well, that's true."

Besides those discussing Chenlu Film's development, many also discussed domestic sci-fi movies,

"It's true that our domestic film industry doesn't have the gene for sci-fi movies. The Xu brothers flopped, and now even Chenlu Film has flopped."

"Alas. Yes. Are we doomed to only watch Hollywood sci-fi movies?"

"There's no way around it. Our development really isn't up to it..."

A film with unsatisfactory pre-sale data, not favored by the audience or the industry workers, would normally be set to flop.

But when everyone was skeptical about "Wandering Planet," some observant people noticed a very strange thing.

The pre-sale performance of "Wandering Planet" was poor, but its screening schedule was not greatly adjusted.

Usually, cinemas are the most realistic.

Whether a film is good to watch, whether it attracts an audience, is directly related to their interests.

Being a brick-and-mortar industry, cinemas have many costs such as rent and labor.

If they give a bad movie many screenings, they have to bear a lot of losses every day.

Therefore, if they find out a movie is unpopular, they would keenly start adjusting the schedule to improve attendance rates.

This is a well-understood rule in the film industry.

But this time was different.

After the pre-sale data came out, "Wandering Planet's" schedule for the first couple of days had been reduced a bit, but strangely... starting from the third day, "Wandering Planet's" schedule was actually increased.

Such abnormal behavior was baffling.

Was it Tiandu Culture Distribution Company's PR at work?

Was it due to the connections of Lu Man, Yang Rou, Song Chuang, Mei Li, or even Chen Yan?

Or was it that the cinemas were optimistic about the movie?

The third reason was quickly dismissed by those in the know.

Because in recent years, there have been too many films that cinemas were optimistic about, yet they didn't sell tickets.

Cinemas don't gamble that much...

So what was it, the first reason or the second one?

While the observant were hesitating, Chenlu Film Company did not just watch as the situation steadily declined.

With a week left until New Year's, Lu Man openly stepped up on Weibo to endorse "Wandering Planet," then appealed to her fans and the audience to watch the movie.

On Weibo, Lu Man guaranteed with her integrity that this one would be a masterpiece, even one that wouldn't lose to "Medicine God."

Lu Man's guarantee took effect.

The pre-sale data for "Wandering Planet" did indeed grow a bit.

However, the Xu brothers soon started to manipulate the situation.

They shifted the blame for what they did half a year ago with "Magic City Fortress" onto Lu Man.

Many marketing accounts posted saying the reason Lu Man was shamelessly endorsing was because of the extremely high cost of "Wandering Planet," at more than 300 million yuan.

Lu Man, a significant shareholder of the company and an actress in the movie, was under tremendous pressure to make it profitable.

So, she thought that by stepping forward and promoting on Weibo, she could deceive one audience member at a time.

As long as enough people believed her, the film could break even.

As for whether this would ruin her reputation—what's more important, a reputation or several billion yuan?

These marketing accounts spoke as if they had logic on their side, causing many people who saw it for the first time to think Lu Man might genuinely have such intentions.

Together with Director Zhang lowering "Wandering Planet" on Weibo after receiving instructions from Xu Zhaorong, gradually, the pre-sales just started to improve before sinking once again.

This made Lu Man, who had just finished promoting and returned to Qin Island, almost die of anger!

When she got angry, Chen Yan was the one to suffer.

Over the weekend, Chen Yan was confined to the room by this little fairy and squeezed dry.

From the room, other than some crisp noises, there was only the voice of Lu Man acting fiercely cute, "I'll squeeze you dead! Squeeze you dead! Squeeze you dead!! I'm so mad!"

After taking out her anger on Chen Yan, Lu Man curled up in Chen Yan's embrace, pouting adorably and drawing circles with her finger, and asked, "Chen Yan... do you think I'm jinxed?"

Hearing Lu Man's words, Chen Yan was startled, "Why would you say that?"

Lu Man looked aggrieved, "Look. You just established the film and television division, gave me 15% of the shares, and the movie flopped."

"That's all because I gave you a good 'squeeze'."

Chen Yan patted her perky little behind, speaking earnestly, "That's not being jinxed."

Lu Man looked up and blinked at Chen Yan, "Are you saying I'm uneducated?"

Chen Yan: ???

Do women think this strangely?

Or is it just this goofball who thinks so strangely?

Before Chen Yan had time to figure it out, Lu Man flipped over, roared, and pounced on him again, "I'll squeeze you to death!"

And then, she came at him once more!

For some reason, at that moment, Chen Yan felt as if the word "fool" was written across Lu Man's forehead...

...

As the days passed,

The spat between Lu Man and Director Zhang continued.

The silent tussle between Chenlu Film and the Xu brothers also persisted.

And the debate over whether to watch "The Ferryman" or "Wandering Planet" this New Year's Day grew hotter and hotter online.

Very soon, New Year's Day arrived, and the day the two movies officially released...

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