With the sensational effect of the midnight test screening on March 14.

For "The Legend of Double Dragons of the Tang Dynasty", the media reversed the one-sided condemnation of the previous few days, but more voices praised the movie positively.

Because TVB still didn't notice the turn of public opinion and continued to slander "Datang"!

An audience member who watched the midnight show angrily sent a letter to TVB: "If you haven't watched "Datang", shut up Lao Tzu and scold your sister!" Such classics are all called bad movies by you, and your conscience is eaten by dogs! There was a bullet in the letter, which scared the workers of TVB and TV stations, and they called the police, and they were cautious and did not dare to mention the news related to "Datang".

In addition, the entire major newspapers and media and film critics began to write film reviews related to "The Legend of Double Dragons of the Tang Dynasty". Some people analyze the innovation of action design, and some people enthusiastically comment on the special effects of the movie. Of course, there are countless discussion articles about the plot

According to statistics, after the midnight show, early the next morning alone, there were more than 100 more news and film reviews about "The Legend of Double Dragons of the Tang Dynasty" in the media!

It can be said that the film critics and reporters who watched the midnight show couldn't help but write film reviews and press releases that night.

The midnight show successfully hit the word of mouth, which made Golden Harvest Cinemas full of confidence in this movie. Golden Harvest Company not only arranged 23 cinemas to screen "The Legend of Double Dragons of the Tang Dynasty: Origin".

And Golden Harvest even postponed some of the films that his company is making or have already completed, in order to avoid playing against strong films like "Datang".

As the first of the three major cinema chains in Hong Kong and occupying half of the Hong Kong cinema market, such an arrangement is undoubtedly very conducive to the follow-up screening of "The Legend of Double Dragons of the Tang Dynasty".

The reason is to avoid competing with "The Legend of Double Dragons of the Tang Dynasty" for the box office. That's because Golden Harvest knows the impact of blockbuster movies on the market!

When "Modern Bodyguard" was screened last year, most of the movies screened in Hong Kong at the same time hit the street at the box office, especially "Salted Fish Turned Over", which also had a funny theme of ghosts, and the attendance rate suddenly dropped to one or two percent!

It can be seen that playing against a box office champion is often self-inflicted.

The next day, Zhang Shaojie came to Baolong Film Company.

In the whole company, Tsui Hark's nose and face are swollen, Gu Long walks a little asympathetic, and everyone else also looks a little abnormal.

"Hey, good morning, everyone!" Zhang Shaojie was a little embarrassed and said, "Who hasn't eaten breakfast, I ordered breakfast for 30 people from KFC!" ”

"You still dare to come?" Lin Qingxia was a little resentful.

"You unrighteous fellow, you lost us to those crazy fans and reporters yesterday! The next day, I didn't have a heart to come to the company! "Cheng Xiaodong's anger is full!

"TMD, I was stepped on at least 100 times on the soles of my feet yesterday, and it hurts to walk because of the swelling!" Ancient Dragon Road.

Wu Dairong, known as the most handsome guy in Singapore, turned pale: "I am even more miserable, surrounded by dozens of ugly women, kissed me with saliva and snot, and had nightmares all night!" ”

"Beat him!" Yuan Heping looked very violent, pointing at Zhang Shaojie and said.

"Don't" Zhang Shaojie screamed, turned around and ran away.

This group of violent maniacs rose up in groups, and after arresting Zhang Shaojie, they kneaded him for half an hour before they were willing to let him go.

"It's inhumane!" Zhang Shaojie, who had a blue nose and swollen face, was stunned and nagged, "You are making your relatives and enemies happy."

"Humph! It's to give you a taste of our pain yesterday! ”

"It's called sharing weal and giving!"

"Jianghu bastard, righteousness first! This is the end of unrighteousness! ”

This group of unconscionable men and women took turns preaching one by one.

Zhang Shaojie promised that he would keep the lesson in mind, and in the future, he would put righteousness first, and would not abandon his companions and run away first, even if he went to the battlefield, he would not be a deserter. Character guarantees that what he says counts, so cloudy, everyone let him go.

KFC brought a hearty breakfast.

After eating, everyone was in the company office, waiting for the news of the movie box office.

In mid-March 1981 in —————————— history, it was originally "Modern Bodyguard" that came to the film industry and swept the world.

However, because of Zhang Shaojie, "Modern Bodyguard" was released more than half a year ahead of schedule. Therefore, when "The Legend of Double Dragons of the Tang Dynasty" was released, the strongest competitor was gone.

However, it does not mean that the movies that are being shown on the market are all shrimp soldiers and crab generals, and they are vulnerable.

In fact, because there was no movie like "Modern Bodyguard" that swept the Hong Kong box office market, at the beginning of 1981, the entire box office market became a scene of hundreds of schools of thought contending and princes competing for hegemony.

At this time, the top three in the Hong Kong box office list - the first is Golden Harvest's "Ghost Fighting" with a box office of 4.27 million; the second is the 4.15 million box office of "Happy Fairy Nest" in New Art City; Shaw Brothers' "A Thousand Kings Fighting a Thousand Tyrants" received 4.06 million box office, ranking third.

The temporary box office champion "Ghost Fight" was prepared by Sammo Hung last year for more than half a year, with an investment of 3.2 million Hong Kong dollars. It has won the weekly box office championship for three consecutive weeks.

And "Happy Fairy Nest" is a comedy movie that Xinyicheng Company is good at.

In 1980, "Salted Fish Turned Over", which was invested by the predecessor of Xinyicheng "Struggle Film Company", was sniped by "Modern Bodyguard", and the box office was only a little more than one million, and there was no return.

Later, after the struggle company was reorganized into the new art city company, it quickly came up with a million-cost "Modern Funny Era", and grabbed more than 5 million Hong Kong dollars, which can be regarded as a real "salted fish turnover".

Because of the success of "Modern Funny Times", Xinyicheng Company has further strengthened its business style of producing funny and comedy movies.

"Happy Fairy Nest" is also a very pure ghost horse funny movie, with an investment cost of just over 1 million, but in the box office market, it is second only to "Ghost Fighting", which costs 3.2 million Hong Kong dollars.

As for Shaw Brothers' "A Thousand Kings Fighting a Thousand Tyrants", the screenwriter and director are Wang Jing.

Wang Jing is a controversial and prolific director, he never picks about the scale of investment in scripts and films, as long as there is a movie to make, he will make it, although Wang Jing has also made some classic movies, but he has also made more bad movies!

"A Thousand Kings Fighting a Thousand Tyrants" is Wang Jing's first time as a director and directs a movie. The success of this movie also made Wang Jing the banner man of gambling films later.

The top three box office lists at the beginning of the year all exceeded 4 million Hong Kong dollars at this time, and they were all trying to hit the 5 million mark.

And these three movies represent the box office duel of the three major production companies of Golden Harvest, New Arts City, and Shaw Brothers, and also represent the strength duel of the three cinema lines of Golden Harvest, Golden Princess, and Shaw Brothers, and also represent the showdown of three themes: Fantasy Flow, Ghost Horse Flow, and Gambling Films!

However, Baolong Film's martial arts blockbuster, "The Legend of Double Dragons of the Tang Dynasty" was born, which brought certain variables to the triumph pattern of the Hong Kong film industry at the beginning of the year

—————————— movie box office data, in addition to the data given by theater companies.

Production companies often send people to major movie theaters to evaluate the box office, which is also to avoid being fooled by theater operators.

After the release of "The Legend of Double Dragons of the Tang Dynasty", Baolong Film sent 6 employees to disguise themselves as ordinary movie audiences, and sampled and investigated the actual box office data in different movie theater chains.

Tsim Sha Tsui, Marine Cinema. This is a theater located on the ground floor of the Ocean Terminal and can accommodate 1,000 spectators. It belongs to the relatively large theater in the Golden Harvest Cinema Line.

9 o'clock in the morning.

Xiao Ke, an employee sent by Baolong Film Company, pretended to be an ordinary audience, bought a movie theater for 8 Hong Kong dollars, and entered the theater.

After entering, Xiao Ke took a pen and paper to record, and kept counting the number of spectators in this theater: "There are 30 full seats in row A, and the actual number is 1, 2, 3, 49, 10, 1126, 27, 28, 29"

"Row B was full of 32 people, and there were actually 28 spectators"

"T row is full of 18 people, but it is actually full of 18 people!"

Counting all the way from row A to row T, Xiao Ke used a calculator to add up the actual number of 986 people.

The full capacity of the Marine Cinema is 1,145 people, which means that it has exceeded 9% full!

By the time the movie was showing, the lights were dark.

Xiao Ke left the cinema under the pretext of an excuse, but in fact he went to a public phone booth, made a call, and reported: "Tsim Sha Tsui, Maritime Cinema, the actual number of audiences is 986, 9 percent full!" ”

The news was reported to the company.

Zhang Shaojie's face was calm, but in fact, he trembled: "Good data!" ”

9 a.m. is the off-season for the box office market for a full day. The time period when the real audience watches movies is often from late afternoon to evening.

And now, in the morning, it was 90% full, which is obviously a good start!

Next, there is a constant flow of data reporting to the company.

Gateway Cinema City, 4 small cinemas, with a total of 1,500 audiences, 95% attendance!

Tsing Yi Cinema City, 5 small cinemas, 1,600 audiences, 86% attendance

In the morning, the data summarized one after another showed that at about 9 o'clock in the morning, the audience who bought tickets to watch "The Legend of Double Dragons of the Tang Dynasty" has reached 22,000 people.

This is also because the screening of "The Legend of Double Dragons of the Tang Dynasty" is mainly for small and medium-sized theaters, with 22,000 audiences, which means that "The Legend of the Double Dragons of the Tang Dynasty" has exceeded the attendance rate of more than ninety percent in the Golden Harvest Cinema Line!

In other words, it is just a few hours after its release that it has already generated a box office of more than 160,000 Hong Kong dollars!

"Well, it's okay!" Zhang Shaojie said, "If Golden Harvest screens all the cinema resources of "Datang", it can accommodate at least 60,000 audiences at the same time. The main ones arranged for us are small theaters that can accommodate hundreds of people! Some large cinemas with a capacity of 1,000 spectators are worth the number of seats in two or three small cinemas! ”

"Then it's up to us to perform! If "The Legend of Double Dragons of the Tang Dynasty" has been strong, Golden Harvest will arrange more theater shows! Gu Long said.

"Kouhu, I'm going against the sky!" Zhang Shaojie had no choice but to complain, "Other movies screened at the same time collectively hit the streets." Then Golden Harvest will consider that all theaters will screen "Datang"! ”

"Hey, don't be so selfish, you can't make money for yourself, regardless of the life or death of your peers, right? Unless you want to be the public enemy of the industry! Gu Long strongly despised Zhang Shaojie's selfishness.

Zhang Shaojie touched his nose, obviously a little embarrassed: "Gaffe, gaffe!" ”

At this time, most of the movies released in Hong Kong at the same time were small costs of hundreds of thousands of yuan or more than one million yuan.

However, those small-budget movies can't afford to hurt!

After all, most low-level filmmakers rely on a large number of small-budget movies to make ends meet.

Although blockbusters are the highest strength of films that mark a region, even if it is Hollywood, which has deep pockets, does not produce more than 30 blockbusters with a cost of more than $30 million a year, and the vast majority of movies are mostly at a small cost of several million dollars.

(To be continued)