In the conference room of Summit Entertainment, Zhang Ran and the senior management of Summit Entertainment, as well as the publicity team of "Angel of Justice" are having a meeting to discuss the issue of the movie "Angel of Justice". Zhang Ran sat in the middle of the top of the conference table, looking at the detailed publicity strategy and public relations plan of "Angel of Justice" in his hand.

The publicity strategy of "Angel of Justice" is different from that of commercial blockbusters like "Future Apocalypse", the movie itself is artistic, and the movie is particularly long, more than three and a half hours, and most Americans are not interested in this theme, commercial theaters are reluctant to show this movie. Therefore, "Angel of Justice" adopts the promotion and distribution strategy of Austrian films, and intends to release it on a small scale from two theaters in New York and one theater in Los Angeles, and then gradually roll it out, opening to 2,000 theaters a week before the Oscars.

The whole process adopts the method of phased construction, slow simmering, and gradually heating up the market. In principle, from small to large, first stabilize the art theater chain and then gradually expand to the mass theater line. From the core to the periphery, it first captures the middle-class urban audience, and then gradually spreads from the city to the general audience and rural areas.

Zhang Ran felt that the whole publicity strategy was very mature and operable, so he closed the document, put it on the conference table, looked at the publicity director Prem Gill and asked: "The plan is very good, how is the situation of our opponent?"

Prem Gill flipped through the documents in his hand and said slowly: "We originally thought that Ang Lee's "Billy Lynn's Halftime Fight" would be a strong competitor, but "Billy Lynn" should have withdrawn from the competition. So far, there are two films that have really shown their strength and can compete with us for the Best Picture award, the first is "La La Land", which received rave reviews after its premiere at the Venice Film Festival and won the Audience Choice Award at the Toronto Film Festival, with an MTC score of 92 and a Rotten Tomatoes freshness score of 96. The other is "Moonlight Boy", which received rave reviews after its release at the Telluride Film Festival, with an MTC score of 99 and a Rotten Tomatoes freshness score of 100. It is a low-budget black film that examines the three issues of homosexuality, African American identity and masculinity through the coming-of-age story of a black boy. For now, Moonlight Boy may be a greater threat to us. ”

Zhang Ran nodded slightly, in recent years, due to *** coming to power, Hollywood has praised blacks more strongly, and it has become a kind of political correctness, there are always blacks in movies, and the awards season also tends to be awarded to black-related movies, such as "Twelve Years a Slave" defeated "Gravity" by political correctness.

In the Oscar competition at the beginning of this year, 20 nominees for 4 acting awards were all white actors, and no black people were shortlisted, which caused a major earthquake in Hollywood. In the face of this "unfair" status quo, black American director Spike Lee, movie star Will Smith and others have expressed their boycott of the Oscars and will not participate in the red carpet and award ceremonies, and famous leftists such as George Clooney, Michael Moore, and Oscar-winning Rishi Witherspoon and others have also expressed solidarity with the "African brothers" and called on the Oscars to increase the diversity of candidates.

In this case, the Oscar judges will certainly compensate the blacks, and "Moonlight" will be able to get a lot of support votes from the judges just by relying on political correctness. Just like "12 Years a Slave" defeated "Gravity", "Moonlight Boy" is likely to eventually win the Oscar for Best Picture because of the political correctness of "black film".

Zhang Ran looked at Prem Gil and said, "You go on!"

Prem Gill said with a solemn expression: "The MTC rating of "Angel of Justice" is only 69, and the freshness of Rotten Tomatoes is only 78. Next, this score will definitely drop, and the final MTC score is about 60 points, and the Rotten Tomatoes freshness score is about 70. That's not to say we don't have a chance, because the media and critics have very little Oscar voting power, and their opinion of the film doesn't determine where the award goes. In the history of the Oscars, the media and film critics did not rate it highly, but there are many films that finally won the best picture. For example, the movie "Crash" has a freshness score of 78 on Rotten Tomatoes and an MTC score of 69, while "Gladiator" has a freshness score of only 64 and an MTC score of 78. However, we are facing greater difficulties than these films, not only do we have strong competitors like "Moonlight Boy", but also the right-wing and the Eastern Ying forces in the American film and television industry will try their best to block it.

Everyone has seen the bad reviews given by several media such as "Village Voice" and "Hollywood Reporter", which is to deduct the political hat of "Angel of Justice" and say that the movie is a political propaganda film. They're definitely going to continue to make a fuss around this for some time to come. If "Angel of Justice" really gives the impression of a political propaganda film, then the possibility of hitting the Oscars is almost non-existent. We cannot allow this view to spread, and their attempts must be crushed. ”

Zhang Ran heard Prem Gill say this, and knew that he should have a specific countermeasure: "Then what should we do?"

Prem Gill laughed and showed a smug expression: "Actually, their opinion is not tenable at all, take "Village Voice" film critic Tim Gleeson, who recently gave the movie "Hacksaw Ridge" a high score of 95. Is there a good guy in this movie? No, the Dongying soldiers in it are completely a group of orcs who are determined, combative, and absolutely obedient to orders. We can sort out the comments of these film critics, make a summary of the war films they evaluated, and select the movies in the movie "Hacksaw Ridge" in which the Japanese army or the German army have no good people, and see how many points they give these movies, and see if they criticize these movies for demonizing the Japanese army or the German army, if they don't, and give these movies high marks, then the audience will know that they are deliberately smearing "Angel of Justice" at a glance!"

Zhang Ran's eyes lit up when he heard this, and he couldn't help but slap it the table, and said loudly: "This is a good idea!" "Angel of Justice" itself is about Dongying people's attempt to cover up and distort the truth of the Nanjing Massacre, in the movie, Zhang Chunru's "Nanjing Massacre" was attacked by Dongying's right-wing and Dongying's American forces, as long as we throw this comparative analysis out, the audience will naturally think that those who attack "Angel of Justice" The film critics are supporters of Dongying's right-wing, and they give bad reviews in order to cover up the truth about the Nanjing Massacre! Once the matter gets bigger, anyone who gives a bad review of "Angel of Justice" will be considered a supporter of Dongying's right-wing, and then not many people dare to give "Angel of Justice" a bad review easily!"

Prem Gill laughs, "Yes, that's what we wanted. But to get the most out of it, you have to stand up and fight back against the critics and throw out the analysis report. But doing so will have a very serious consequence, you will offend a large number of film critics, they will become your black fans, and they will go crazy to hack every one of your movies. ”

Zhang Ran smiled indifferently: "It doesn't matter if you offend, if you offend, you will be offended." They are not afraid to offend me, so how can I be afraid of offending them. Besides, after the release of "Angel of Justice", I will go back to school as a teacher. I won't be making a movie for a long time. They just want to hack my movies, and there are no movies to hack. And he said, "Is there anything else?"

Prem Gill: "For our film, publicity is very important, not only in the United States, but also in England and France. There are many important media and film critics in the UK and France, especially "Sight and Sound" and "The Film Handbook", which have a huge influence in the industry, and their comments will have an impact on American film critics. ”

Zhang Ran felt that it was not a big problem to get the praise of "Seeing and Hearing", the editor-in-chief of "Seeing and Listening" has always claimed to be a fan of Zhang Ran, and "Angel of Justice" itself is good enough. But it is difficult to say that "The Film Handbook" has never been interested in this kind of movie, and "Angel of Justice" does not have a strong personal style like Zhang Ran's previous films, and the evaluation given by "The Film Handbook" may not be too high. Of course, "Angel of Justice" is not without the possibility of winning the favor of "Movie Handbook", after all, the movie really explores how to face the problem of history.

Prem Gill continued: "Of course, these are all hype builds, and they will not have a decisive impact on the attribution of the best picture. It is the votes of the 6,944 Oscar judges that really decide the ownership of the best picture. To win the Oscar for Best Picture, you have to get more than 50% of the votes, which means almost 3,500 votes to win.

At this point, "Angel of Justice" is at a disadvantage in competition with "Moonlight"! "Moonlight" is a black movie, and it also talks about homosexuality, and the vast majority of people in these two groups will definitely vote for "Moonlight Boy". Now Oscar 6944 has more than 400 black people on the judges, plus gays, and black supporters among whites, "Moonlight" has at least a thousand votes.

"Angel of Justice" suffers more, the Chinese in the Oscar jury, and the Korean should vote for "Angel of Justice", but this part of the people together is less than 100, but there are many potential supporters, among which women should be our biggest supporters, the protagonist of "Angel of Justice" is Zhang Chunru, and Zhang Chunru is a feminist herself, and is deeply influenced by Betty Friedan. As a woman, Zhang Chunru unveiled the forgotten Nanjing Massacre to the Western world, which is remarkable. and Weitling, who saved tens of thousands of women and children in Nanjing, and was undoubtedly a respectable woman. ”

Speaking of this, Prem Gill looked at Zhang Ran and smiled, "Of course, there are you." The women in the film industry respect you very much, because you brought down Harvey and uncovered the black curtain of Harvey's abuse of women, so that the METOO movement can be vigorously launched. I'm sure a lot of women will lean towards you when they vote. Even if their first choice is not Angel of Justice, a large percentage of them will leave the second place spot to Angel of Justice. ”

Zhang Ran nodded slightly, the second place in the Oscar vote is very important. Since 2010, the Oscars have adopted a priority voting system. In the Best Picture award, the judges selected 5 films from the nominees and sorted them from first to fifth according to their preferences, and the first vote count was the first place on the ballot papers. If a film gets more than 50% of the votes, then the film wins the Best Picture award. In the last life, "The King's Speech" received more than 50% of the votes in the first round and easily won the best picture.

However, in most cases, no film will receive 50% of the votes in the first round, in which case the film with the fewest votes will be eliminated, and the second place of the votes voted for this film will be counted among the other films to see if it exceeds 50%. If there is a movie that is more than 50%, then the winner is chosen. If not, then the last place is eliminated again, and the second place of those votes voted for this movie is counted among the other films. And so on until a movie gets more than 50% of the votes.

With this method of counting votes, the first place on the ballot paper is important, and the second place is also very important.