Super Zoo

The comments on Douban cannot be taken seriously. The cinema still has to consider the overall situation when arranging films, but the comments at least explain some problems from a certain angle and provide a certain reference for the cinema to arrange the film.

After exiting Douban, Mr. Ling pondered for a few seconds, turned off the computer, left the office, and came to the small screening room next to it.

"Xiao Li, find the negative of Zootopia and let me watch it." Mr. Ling said to the projectionist.

The movie of more than 80 minutes was quickly finished. Perhaps it was a preconceived idea. Mr. Ling felt different from the previous viewing this time.

After leaving the screening room, he returned to the office and made a phone call to call the assistant.

"Mr. Ling, what do you want?" The assistant knocked on the door and walked in.

Mr. Ling asked: "Have the box office reports from various places been submitted today?"

The assistant was slightly stunned and subconsciously looked at the wall clock. It was only 4:30 in the afternoon. Usually, the daily box office statistics are conducted the next morning and reported in the afternoon. That is to say, the box office results of the day will not be available until noon the next day at the earliest.

"You mean, yesterday's box office..." The assistant asked uncertainly.

"Well, go check the box office results of the Zootopia show this morning. If the results are good, I will consider adding some screenings for it." Mr. Ling said.

"Okay, I'll do it right away." The assistant turned and went out. It is definitely not possible to count the box office for the whole day now. If you only check the box office of one movie, it is not difficult. What's more, the movie Zootopia only has one show at 9 o'clock in the morning today. The box office information of the theaters under the theater chain is connected to the headquarters. You can just go back and do a separate statistical work.

Not long after, the assistant knocked on the door and returned to Mr. Ling's office.

"Mr. Ling, I found it." The assistant said.

"How much?" Mr. Ling was busy with other things and asked without raising his head.

The assistant hesitated for a moment, as if he was not sure. He lowered his head and looked at the box office data printed in his arms again, and then said: "This morning, the box office of the theater chain was 112,000."

"Oh..."

Hearing this number, Mr. Ling put down his work, raised his head, and thought about it.

As expected, the box office of Zootopia is rising despite the extremely unfavorable scheduling, and the speed of the rise is very fast.

The box office of 112,000 is not the national box office, but the box office of Poly Cinema, which occupies about 10% of the national market. In other words, the national box office of Zootopia this morning is about one million.

According to the general experience of the industry, there are very few audiences in the morning and night shows, and the morning shows are even less than the night shows.

In this way, it can be expected that if the scheduling remains unchanged, the national box office of Zootopia today should be more than 2.5 million, and even more than 3 million, which is more than double yesterday.

On Douban, the reputation of the movie is very good; and the current market test shows that the movie has also achieved good results.

Thinking of this, Mr. Ling said decisively: "So, starting from tomorrow, we will increase the screening of Zootopia to 10%; in addition, we will extend the screening time for ten days."

"Mr. Ling, extending the screening time is easy, but it is very difficult to increase it to 10% all at once!" The assistant looked embarrassed and said: "The screenings are all full now. If Zootopia has an extra 7% of screenings, it means that other movies will have to be compressed."

"Yes." Mr. Ling said: "Which movies can be compressed now?"

It is not worthwhile for theaters to compress the screenings of popular movies such as Taoist Priest Goes Down the Mountain and Tiny Times to make room for Zootopia. Although Zootopia has shown a certain commercial value, it is only "valuable" and cannot be compared with blockbusters.

For the same movie, Tiny Times and Taoist Priest Goes Down the Mountain may have an attendance rate of 70%, while Zootopia may only have 50%. Considering the price difference of movie tickets, it is definitely not worthwhile to compress blockbusters to make room for niche movies.

Even Mr. Ling himself did not think that Zootopia could be compared with these two hot-selling blockbusters. If it was to be compressed, it could only be squeezed out from the schedule of other small films.

The schedule is like water in a sponge. If you squeeze it, there will always be some. The assistant racked his brains and finally squeezed out a small amount of schedule from several other ordinary box office films in the same period. The three films that were squeezed out were all small domestic bad films. The original schedule could not be lower. After being squeezed out, they were almost in a state of being taken off the screen. The most pitiful one, "Swimming Pool Night", was completely taken off the screen after only four screenings.

However, just like the cleavage of an A cup, no matter how much you squeeze, it is impossible to squeeze out too much because of its own conditions.

Only 3% can be squeezed out, raising the schedule rate of Zootopia from 3% to 6%, which is still a long way from the 10% set by Mr. Ling before.

"This is the limit of what we can do. We have contracts with all distributors. If we squeeze them too hard, it will be difficult to explain to the distributors of other films." The assistant was really helpless and said with embarrassment.

Mr. Ling could understand the assistant's difficulty. The film's schedule had already been agreed with the investors in advance. Unless there was a major change, it would not be easy for the theater to make major adjustments to the schedule.

"Let's do this, it's just 6%. In addition, change the screening time. I am passerby A. There is one show at 9:30 pm, right? Arrange a show at 9:30 pm for Zootopia, and play on both sides. Let's play in the ring for two days and see how it works," Mr. Ling said.

"You mean, if I am a passerby and the box office fails, let it make way for Zootopia?" The assistant took a breath. Mr. Ling's decision seems a bit too radical. Anyway, I am a passerby. They are all masterpieces directed by Er Dongsheng. Although the current box office is not as good as several other blockbusters, it is not bad. It should not be a problem to earn 40 to 50 million in the end.

Even if this horror animal city is impressive, it won't reach a total box office of 40 to 50 million, right?

Besides, I have a very good reputation as a passerby. If I really let it make way for the zoo, it might cause criticism.

Mr. Ling raised his eyes and glanced at the assistant who was still standing in the office, and said, "Xiao Wang, you have to understand that we are businessmen, not writers. Art and feelings are just tools for making money for us. , the greatest morality of a businessman is to make money. Just do what I say, if Zootopia can beat Passerby A, let Passerby A step aside and continue to be Passenger A; if it cannot, then Animal City will be Passerby A. It’s that simple. I don’t want to say it again.”

"Yeah, I understand." The assistant nodded quickly.