My singer girlfriend is super fierce

Chapter 1566 The Plan Exposed (Part 1)

Time flies, and it's already the fifth day of the Lunar New Year.

Four days have passed, and the box office situation for the Spring Festival film season is gradually becoming clearer.

With 15.5 billion views, "The Imperial Guards of the Tang Dynasty" is undoubtedly number one and firmly holds the top spot.

"Ip Man" grossed 9.3 million yuan, firmly securing second place.

"The Bureau of Mystery" grossed 7.3 million, ranking third.

The fourth and fifth places went to the crime film "The Dead End" and the urban romance film "After the Rain," with 7.1 million and 6.9 million respectively, a small difference.

Currently, it seems that the first to fall behind is actually the third-ranked "Secret Affairs Bureau".

This film, touted as "another masterpiece of Chinese science fiction after The Wandering Earth," achieved nearly 3 million yuan in pre-sale box office revenue, demonstrating its immense popularity.

However, after four days of the Spring Festival holiday, the total box office was only slightly over 700 million yuan, with an average daily increase of 100 million yuan.

Normally, this daily box office would be considered quite good.

However, this is a failure when placed during the Spring Festival, the hottest time of the year with the highest number of moviegoers.

This is especially true for a blockbuster film with an investment of over 5 million yuan.

Don't be fooled by the fact that "The Secret Service" is still ranked third in total box office; that's because there's a lag in market response.

The film's reputation has now collapsed online, with 9 out of 10 posts being negative, and its attendance has plummeted.

Theaters aren't stupid; they've already started making significant adjustments to their film schedules.

As expected, "Mystery Bureau" will become the first film in this year's Spring Festival season to flop at the box office and fail to recoup its costs.

During the Spring Festival film season, time and screen time are money; no one will give you a second chance.

In contrast, Zeng Shaohong, the director of "After the Rain", has been in a good mood lately.

"After the Rain" has grossed 6.9 million yuan at the box office so far. With the Spring Festival season not over yet, it should have no problem breaking 10 billion yuan at the box office.

At the State Administration of Radio and Television's "Industry Promotion Association" meeting, she "accepted" the task of generating 10 billion yuan in box office revenue, even though she herself was not confident about it.

Especially after the release of "After the Rain", the promotion of buying trending searches backfired and attracted a lot of criticism online.

Under normal circumstances, such a "word-of-mouth disaster" could have a devastating impact on a film's box office performance.

Surprisingly, there were also quite a few people who liked the film "After the Rain," and then the two groups started arguing online.

What started as a simple verbal battle escalated into group conflict, affecting an increasingly wider range of people and even trending on social media several times.

Under these circumstances, the popularity of "Meet You After the Rain" has remained high, and its box office performance has maintained a good momentum.

You could say that being infamous is still fame, since it has made the person famous.

Even if a movie has extremely skewed values, with so many people in China, as long as it caters to the tastes of a certain group, its box office performance won't be too bad.

The atmosphere was lively at the fan meeting for the film "After the Rain" in Hangzhou.

Zeng Shaohong sported her signature short haircut, wore gold-rimmed glasses, and a camel-colored coat, which subtly concealed her slightly plump figure.

As the director, besides the lead actress, she is the person who receives the most media attention.

Facing the camera, Zeng Shaohong spoke confidently and eloquently, occasionally eliciting applause.

She was a college student in the 80s, so her education level was already quite high. Coupled with her status and seniority, almost everyone in the industry treated her with utmost respect.

However, during the interview, there was still one reporter who "didn't know his place".

The male reporter seemed to be new to the job, as he immediately asked very sharp and direct questions.

"Director Zeng, 'Meet You After the Rain' is very popular right now, but there are also many doubts online."

"In the movie, there is a scene where the female lead humiliates the male lead in front of his friends, throws away his bag, and shouts, 'You can only be mine.' Is this behavior 'deep affection' or 'emotional manipulation and PUA'?"

Could you please explain this?

As soon as he finished speaking, the atmosphere at the scene fell into a brief silence.

Many of her colleagues looked at the reporter with the eyes of a "naive young man." Those familiar with Zeng Shaohong know that this is her style of filmmaking, and it has been like this for twenty years.

Many memes and outrageous lines from director Zeng Shaohong's works are also circulating online, all of which are attributed to her.

"I'm so sorry to you three brothers..."

"Mom, I've finally found my father's killer... but I've fallen in love with him..."

"It's okay if you don't love me, I'll make you fall in love with me..."

Back then, these storylines brought tears to many viewers' eyes, and the ratings were quite high.

To put it bluntly, their works are aimed at audiences who like these types of content, and they earn money from these fans.

Zeng Shaohong remained calm in the face of the young reporter's question, and slowly picked up the microphone.

"I think this plot point is very reasonable. What we wanted to portray is a stage where a young man and woman deeply love each other, but don't yet know the right way to express their love..."

"Many guys 'pursue' girls like this, without knowing how to respond correctly. We need to understand the arc of a character's growth..."

The male reporter clearly did not agree with Zeng Shaohong's answer.

Isn't this just blatant victim blaming?

It's one thing for the male lead to be stupid and not know how to respond properly, but that's no excuse for the female lead to use psychological manipulation.

The male reporter, eager to speak his mind, blurted out, "You yourself said that this is an immature way of handling relationships."

"But in the drama, is there any suspicion that it packages emotional manipulation as romance?"

Upon hearing this, Zeng Shaohong frowned, her face darkening as she looked at the reporter.

Instead of answering the question, she asked, "Which media outlet are you from?"

The male reporter honestly replied, "Lotte Media."

Upon learning that it was an unknown, third-tier media outlet, Zeng Shaohong bluntly stated, "Regarding the question you just asked, I suggest you go back and watch the movie carefully; perhaps you can find the answer there."

"Also, you don't need to come to any of my film events in the future. We don't welcome unprofessional reporters."

After the event ended, Zeng Shaohong walked towards the backstage dressing room with a displeased expression.

Zeng Shaohong was in a bad mood when a reporter who didn't know his place came up at a perfectly good event, and she reprimanded several staff members.

In the film crew, as the director with the most power, she was like an empress; this was the norm.

The Empress Dowager is up to her old tricks again.

The female assistant inwardly groaned upon seeing the situation, but as a working person, she gritted her teeth and carried the tablet upstairs.

"Director Zeng... there's something here that I need your attention..."

“There’s a film critic with over 500 million followers online, called ‘Big Data Film Criticism,’ who published an article criticizing our film, and it got a lot of traffic.”

Zeng Shaohong frowned and asked, "Which media outlet is this? They're so incompetent, don't they have any public relations skills?"

After being glared at sternly by her, the female assistant felt a chill run down her spine and explained, "I don't work for a company; I'm just an ordinary, unknown influencer."

"We tried to influence the public and offered a relatively high price in the industry, but the other party did not agree."

Zeng Shaohong looked at the tablet computer, where the title of the article on the screen was particularly eye-catching.

[A worldview-shattering experience called "love" - ​​Reflections on "After the Rain"]