Generally speaking, the release date of a film often needs to be set one year or even two years in advance, especially for commercial films aimed at the box office market, on the one hand, in order to draw up a release schedule and provide reference for the crew's filming progress, on the other hand, in order to understand the surrounding competitors in advance, the film companies communicate with each other, as if enclosing the land, announcing the ownership of the schedule early.

In addition, there is also a way to carry out pre-publicity in a planned and step-by-step manner according to the schedule.

Movie promotion in the online age has become more and more diverse, from posters to trailers, from viral videos to street events, from Super Bowl commercials to YouTube video ads...... And so on, the whole publicity has become three-dimensional and vivid, and the distribution department must make a corresponding plan, and then release more information according to the filming work of the crew, so as to attract the attention of the audience.

In this era of information ocean, the role of propaganda is becoming more and more important, and correspondingly, the cost of propaganda is also rising

Is there a film work that relies on word-of-mouth to complete a counterattack in the absence of publicity? Of course, there is such a dark horse miracle almost every year, with the help of social networks, those unknown low-cost works have also won the opportunity to stand out; but in the final analysis, there are still a minority, and the power of publicity is crucial, especially for commercial blockbusters in the summer file.

The lack of publicity is often a precursor to a movie's box office collapse.

If the schedule is determined a year or more in advance, the publicity and distribution department will be able to start the publicity from the pre-preparation and casting stage according to the schedule schedule, and then carry out the second phase of publicity according to the filming progress of the crew, and then carry out the third stage and follow-up publicity before the official release according to the post-production schedule.

This is a huge and scientific project, and the detailed process is more professional and cumbersome than imagined.

According to the plan, "Interstellar" will be officially released on this year's Thanksgiving schedule, and Warner Bros. has also carried out preliminary publicity and promotion in an orderly manner, but a series of accidents have disrupted the plan, after the Oscar ceremony, Warner Bros. After careful consideration, Warner Bros. officially decided to raise the "Interstellar" file, from November 7 to June 6, to join the competition for the summer file.

There is no doubt that this is the most sensational and important news before "Captain America 2" is about to kick off the summer file, and Warner Bros.'s move to raise the file instantly disrupted the entire summer file.

It is true that there were still six weeks before the release of "Captain America 2", and there were still three and a half months before the schedule after "Interstellar" was raised, and there was still room and room for adjustment of all plans, but for the summer of 2014, this is still a blockbuster news that cannot be ignored, and it is very likely that all major projects will be reshuffled.

The uncertainties suddenly exploded, even for the "Interstellar" crew themselves.

From November 7 to June 6, it is five months ahead of schedule, which also means that the publicity time has been shortened by five months, so is the communication effect sufficient? Is the expected effect enough? Is the feedback effect enough? More importantly, is there enough time to revise the publicity plan and market positioning?

Previously, it has always been around the theme of "going home" for publicity, and all aspects are aimed at the Thanksgiving schedule, but now it must enter the summer file battle, and the theme of "going home" is too warm, and the focus of publicity must be adjusted to "hard science fiction", and strive to tap the summer science fiction market.

Now there is only three and a half months to complete the foreshadowing and brewing, is it really too hasty and too urgent, is it too late?

Of course, "Interstellar" still has advantages that other movies can't match:

The first is Christopher Nolan's strong appeal in the field of science fiction films, after the "Batman" series and "Inception" continuous foreshadowing, his name has become a hard sign, which has been constantly emphasized in the early publicity, laying enough ferocious momentum for the film.

Considering the far-reaching influence of the Sundance Film Festival, from the word-of-mouth explosion of "Burst Drummer" to the popularity of the live broadcast of the symposium, "Interstellar" has an innate advantage early, and its popularity and popularity have accumulated to a certain height in the first two months of 2014.

Once again, it is the return of the core theme of "going home", even in the summer file, this theme is in line with market expectations, and may be able to unexpectedly attract family audiences other than science fiction fans, "PG-13" The grading positioning is standard in Thanksgiving, but it is an unexpected advantage in the summer file.

It's just that how to superimpose and release all these advantages in three and a half months, and further evolve into a driving force to attract audiences to the cinema, this is a serious issue.

In the final analysis, the time is still too short and too short, "Interstellar" can almost be said to be airborne summer file, all the preparations are seriously insufficient, compared to other competitors who have been promoting in the early stage for half a year and a year, Warner Bros. has almost forced "Interstellar" to the edge of the cliff.

Industry insiders don't even know whether to say that Kevin has taken a bold venture or lost his mind, but what is certain is that the general opinion in the industry is now that the expectations for the box office data of the premiere of "Interstellar" are depressed

Perhaps the follow-up box office can rely on the word-of-mouth advantage and the appeal of Lan Li and Christopher to complete the counterattack, just like the long explosive force of "gravity", but without the pull of publicity, the explosiveness of the premiere box office will inevitably be directly and positively affected, which is an objective situation that cannot be ignored.

In addition, judging from the word-of-mouth feedback from the internal test screening in early March, the overall evaluation still maintains a positive trend, and the praise for Christopher and Lan Li still has the absolute upper hand, but the professionals who participated in the test screening generally said that this is a hard science fiction involving advanced theoretical knowledge, and the importance of theoretical knowledge is more than "Inception", which also means that the audience's acceptance needs to be higher.

As the saying goes, the popcorn index in the summer season is not high enough, and it is impossible to clearly predict how the market will respond.

The feedback from the word-of-mouth of the test screening has also further increased uncertainty to the box office prospects of "Interstellar", and the summer box office of "Inception" is clear at a glance

It premiered on July 16, 2010, grossing 62 million in its opening weekend, and eventually grossed 290 million in North America and 828 million worldwide. On the whole, the premiere box office data is still low, and the follow-up relies on word-of-mouth to explode, and the North American box office unfortunately failed to cross the 300 million threshold, but relied on the overseas box office to break through the feat of 800 million, but the problem is that the filming location of "Inception" involves overseas cities such as London and Paris, and these advantages no longer exist in "Interstellar".

As mentioned before when "Edge of Tomorrow" and "Gravity" were released, the box office trend of science fiction movies has begun to become unstable in recent years, and many uncertain factors may become a negative force restricting the box office.

This will also be the "hope" of Fisher and Diesel

If the final box office of "Interstellar" really unexpectedly suffered Waterloo, after all, the summer file is a mass grave, with risks and opportunities coexisting, and it may soar into the sky or be shattered, then this will also become the first flaw of the "undefeated halo" of Lan Li's career, and it will also be the first gap for Diesel to win a respite.

For the current Lan Li, the fiasco of a work is not enough to shake his position in the industry, but it is undeniable that the negative impact still exists more or less objectively, and it should be noted that the particularity of "Interstellar" gathers the grievances and grievances between Kevin Yuan, Thomas Toole and Lan Li Hall, and its box office failure will inevitably involve more power struggles.

Most importantly, it also allows studios such as Universal Pictures, Sony Pictures, and Disney to gain more breathing space for Diesel when they weigh the confrontation between Lan Li and Diesel, which is small but precious.

After a series of blows, Diesel was already in a desperate situation, and any respite had to be firmly grasped, otherwise he might be really crushed.

Therefore, Diesel began to sincerely pray now: "Interstellar" must fail miserably, preferably a complete collapse, and at the same time look forward to the full-scale outbreak of other works in the summer file, it is best to exert layers of pressure on "Interstellar", squeeze the box office market little by little, and any work that can pose a threat to "Interstellar" will now become Diesel's ally.

Sincerely, Diesel needs to gather the essence of the sun and moon in Hollywood, and then gather the strength to destroy the "undefeated halo" of Lan Li, if he can, he is willing to go to church every week to express his sincerity.

Although Fisher thought that Diesel was a bit ridiculous and that instead of expecting his opponent's defeat and focusing on himself, Diesel was a little stunned......; If "Interstellar" really failed miserably, Fisher would also like to hear about it, so he didn't stop Diesel.

Of course, is everything negative?

Apparently not!

Warner Bros. is not a fool, and the risk of raising the file is naturally clear, but they still chose to raise the file, which is also a signal to all audiences and industry peers: We are full of confidence!

This is an important statement for the entire film industry.