One of Embassy Pictures' original storage rooms has been renovated and converted into offices, which are slightly crowded due to the placement of more than 20 workstations and corresponding work computers.

This is the newly established Network Propaganda Department.

"In our market research, we include literary films with a very small audience. Ronan went into the office with David Villa and whispered, "Of all moviegoers, one-third are teenagers under twenty, more than one-third are young people in their twenties, and the other is less than one-third of viewers over thirty." ”

David Villa continued: "The audience for 'Death Is Coming' is under the age of thirty. ”

Ronan added: "As long as it can win the hearts of some audiences under the age of 30, "The Grim Reaper" can be successful. He glanced at the busy employees in front of the computer screens: "The Internet has become popular in North America, and the majority of users are young people, and we don't have an advantage in traditional media, but on the Internet, we are a little bit less different from the big companies." ”

"Actually, after the success of Blair the Witch. David Villa is confident: "Our internet outreach is already at the forefront of the industry. ”

Ronan smiled and said: ""The Grim Reaper is Coming" has been released, let our people pretend to be movie enthusiasts, go to various movie websites and popular forums to arouse the interest of more people." ”

As for people over thirty years old, Ronan has not made targeted deployments, these people are mature in their thinking, and they have relatively formed their own preferences in the choice of watching movies, not the type of movie they like, it is difficult to impress them.

It's also not realistic for teenagers to influence their parents and then watch horror movies together as a family.

The family went to watch a horror movie collectively, and it was terrifying to think about it.

Family movies and horror movies use completely different word-of-mouth marketing.

Following David Villa behind a young man, Ronan glanced at his computer screen, a post full of letters and a couple of "Death is Coming" web stills had just been posted.

The young man turned around and stood up: "Director, chairman......"

David Villa introduced Ronan: "Chairman, this is Bill Mertens of the Network Publicity Department. ”

Ronan looked at it for a moment, this person looked very ordinary, belonged to the most inconspicuous category thrown into the crowd, not too old, and should not be twenty-five years old.

"Hello. Ronan shook his hand.

David Villa said: "Bill joined the company during the promotion of Blair the Witch, he had a network studio before, and after working with us, he led the team to join Embassy Pictures, and the website and the initial promotion of Blair the Witch were all done by Bill and his team. ”

Ronan said with satisfaction: "Good job. ”

Bill Mertens doesn't seem to be very good at dealing with people, scratching his head and smiling.

"Respond to David in time when encountering difficulties. Ronan attaches great importance to this network propaganda department, and reminded: "Pay attention to legal issues. ”

Bill Mertens assured: "What we do is legal and compliant, free speech on the Internet. ”

Ronan shook his hand again: "You guys are busy, I won't bother." ”

In fact, this online propaganda department is now closer to the online water army in the previous life, like those regular Internet advertisements, they have to spend money to buy, and they will not be handed over to do it.

As Ronan leaves the office, Bill Mertens asks his men to pause what they are doing, sums up the current situation of "Here Comes Death" on the Internet, reassigns tasks, and gets busy again.

In just one morning, he and his subordinates changed accounts continuously, and quickly brushed the IMDB audience rating of "The Grim Reaper" from 7.2 to 7.8.

In this era, IMDB's scoring mechanism is not perfect, and there are too many places to do it.

In the comment column displayed directly on the page, it is even more praised.

"The plot of "Death is Coming" is very compact, the perspective of the film is also very unique, the theme is novel, the characters are full, the plot is impeccable, and the step by step is natural and appropriate. The biggest shock of the film is the two psychological hints, one is that every household item that you can see at your fingertips may put you to death, and the other is that if you have escaped a disaster, then you should be even more desperate, because you are the next one. ”

Not only IMDB, but also major forums are full of posts from the trolls.

Originally, fans and enthusiasts who had watched the film spread the news about "Death is Coming" everywhere, and the water army department promoted it on the Internet to further expand the spread of fans and enthusiasts.

And some movie fans and enthusiasts, who are really worthy of the name audiophile, have just watched the midnight show once, and have already analyzed the relatively hidden links in the film.

A movie blogger named Jerry commented on his blog that there are a lot of suggestive clips in the plot and footage of "The Grim Reaper".

"The film has a hint at all the subsequent plots at the beginning of the film. ”

"The image of a wing-like airplane reflected in the window, which seems to be swaying in the rain, foreshadows the subsequent airplane accident, the shadow of a hanging doll on the ground like a hanged man, the death of Todd, the picture in the magazine showing the guillotine of the French Revolution, the death of Billy, the picture in the magazine showing a woman lying in a pool of blood and the man with a knife in the chest, foreshadowing the death of Mr. Lyudun; The cover shows a figure with a large sign on the back of a man indicating Carter's death, and Alex's mom tears off the label from the box as she packs her belongings, signaling the turn on the cataclysmic switch......"

"Here Comes the Grim Reaper" seems to have made an unusually strong impression on the avid cinephile, not only in the opening credits, but also in the analysis of various shots before each person's death, and wrote a long page about the implications.

This article was quickly discovered, and then frantically forwarded to major movie forums, attracting the attention of many fans.

Then, Bill Mertens's Internet trolls also paid attention to this article, which fueled the situation and became the hottest movie post this weekend.

Jerry's blog replies alone are in the thousands.

"I've seen this film, the plot is terrifying, interlocking!"

"We can die at any time, but we don't know why, when, where, or how we die – the success of the film lies in the fact that it convinces us of this through strong psychological cues. ”

"I'll watch 'Death Come' at night. ”

"Is there a Boston one? together, I like to watch horror movies, but I'm a little timid......"

The quality of the film is guaranteed, the publicity and marketing are in place, and the appropriate innovation on the basis of the traditional popular horror films, "The Grim Reaper is Coming" surpassed all the films in theaters on the opening day, and snatched the title of single-day box office champion from "Toy Story 2", which was released on Thanksgiving, with a single-day box office harvest of $9.3 million.

The latter, who received $6.5 million on the same day, could only rank second.

On Saturday, Cinema Score released its latest statistics, "The Grim Reaper" has a "B" theater audience rating, and the North American box office is expected to drop no less than $60 million.

In addition, after the first day of painting, the IMDB audience score of "The Grim Reaper" was 7.5 points, and the overall media score was 64 points.

For an R-rated horror film, this is a very good reputation.

But there was one thing that Ronan didn't expect, and even surprised all the management of Shahai Entertainment and Embassy Pictures.

The Rotten Tomatoes website, which collects film reviews from film critics as the basis for scoring, has also lifted the ban on Rotten Tomatoes after collecting 50 film reviews from all over the United States.

Of these 50 film reviews, 15 are fresh and 35 are rotten, with a freshness of only 30 percent, and a comprehensive score of 4.7 by film critics.

Ronan was very surprised that the film critics were so unwelcome to see "The Grim Reaper"?

Think about it this summer, Rotten Tomatoes was 90 percent fresh after the premiere of "Blair the Witch," while "Here Comes the Dead" was only 30 percent.

The difference is like the quality of the two films.

The difference is reversed.

If you find 100 people to watch "Blair the Witch" and "The Grim Reaper" in succession, at least 80 people think that the quality of the latter is much higher than the former, and even 99 people may hold the same opinion.

However, "Blair the Witch", a film that is bad to a certain level from the perspective of film quality, has been recognized by film critics, while "The Grim Reaper", which is obviously much better in quality, has been given low scores by film critics......

If you explain it from the perspective of film art, it doesn't make sense at all.

It can only be said that this is a group that cannot be guessed by common sense.

Perhaps, their tastes are really different.

Ronan will not ignore another reason, it is the awards season, it is the moment when film critics scold Fang Xuan, "Death is Coming", a horror film with a strong commercial atmosphere, appears in this schedule, and it is estimated that they will not be very welcome.

This did not affect the publicity and promotion of the embassy film industry too much.

With the Internet and traditional media industry as the core, the publicity and marketing of "The Grim Reaper" has always been maintained on an increased scale.

As of the premiere date, Embassy Pictures has invested nearly $10 million in the promotion and distribution of the film.

The effect is also obvious.

By Saturday, the single-day box office of "The Grim Reaper" was not affected much by Rotten Tomatoes and negative reviews from critics, and the box office rose again from Friday, earning $12.95 million in a single day.

continued to beat "Toy Story 2", which earned $12.7 million on the same day, and sat at the top of the single-day box office list.

In just two days, the North American box office of "The Grim Reaper" exceeded $20 million!

By Sunday, "The Grim Reaper Is Coming" was unabated, and the screening rate had risen to the first place among all films screened in the same period.

This is a rarity for the North American film market in December, when "Scream" was released a few years ago.