Chapter 212: Publicity Storm
Chapter 212: Publicity Storm
While everyone was still discussing the launch of "Galaxy Cinematic Universe", it was mid-July when a sci-fi blockbuster produced by Hollywood, like a freight truck with the accelerator pressed to the bottom, violently slammed open the door to the Chinese film market.
Yes, the science fiction movie "Transformers", which tells the story of American soldiers and alien robots working together to save the world, has been released in China.
Just like the appearance of "Jurassic Park", which taught its Hong Kong counterparts a good lesson with its lifelike special effects technology.
The unique modern industrial special effects display of "Transformers" is also enough to launch a dimensionality reduction attack on China's current film industry.
The box office in the first week was 9700 million, approaching million!
This is the answer given by "Transformers" in the 2007 summer season.
And after that, its thunderous force became unstoppable.
In movie theaters, the theaters showing "Transformers" were often packed, and the box office of the movie soared rapidly, with an unstoppable momentum, raking in 2.687 million yuan in the Chinese film market, surpassing the previous 3 million yuan of "Spider-Man 1.45" and ranking first in the mainland movie box office rankings in 07.
Its momentum far exceeds that of previous films of the same scale such as "Titanic", "Hero", "The Promise" and "Curse of the Golden Flower", and there are almost no negative reviews.
Even "The Founding of an Army", the first film in the "Tribute to the Motherland" series, which was released on August 8 and produced by China Film Group and co-starred by many young stars, failed to shake "Transformers"' position at the top of the box office rankings and ended with a box office of 1 million yuan.
Under such circumstances, "Source Code", China's first commercial science fiction film focusing on special effects, seems to be the only hope to surpass "Transformers".
Although many people are not optimistic about this, compared to outsiders who break in forcefully and have no rivals, "Source Code" is at least one of our own.
Therefore, under the influence of "Transformers", both people inside and outside the industry and the general public of movie fans have more expectations for the release of "Source Code".
Some fans even left messages on the official blogs of Wang Hao and Galaxy Pictures to cheer them on.
Shortly after the release of "Transformers", Wang Hao took his company's employees, especially those in the special effects department, to the cinema to watch the movie.
It has to be said that Michael Bay is indeed a commercial film director who understands his audience very well. His own film aesthetics is indeed worthy of praise. It is far from being just about explosions as others say.
For example, the scene where the robots land on Earth at the beginning of "Transformers" was handled perfectly by the other party.
Amid the majestic music, in the cosmic perspective, above the vast blue horizon and in the deep space under the sun, four fireballs are rushing towards the vast land from near to far in the trembling lens.
The scene then switches to the observatory, where the hero and heroine watch the fireball flying across the sky in shock, quietly clasping their hands. The film cleverly uses the reactions of a couple to show from the side the shock brought about by the arrival of alien objects, and uses the image of the observatory to show the insignificance of human beings in front of the universe.
In addition to the aesthetics of the shots, the special effects scenes of "Transformers" also amazed Wang Hao and the employees of the special effects department of Galaxy Pictures.
Especially the transformation scene when Zhuzi Ge first appeared, which was shot like a Victoria's Secret show.
The dark alley and the bright lights were like a supermodel's catwalk. A large truck with sexy spray-painted paint drove up from the smoke and stopped in front of the hero and heroine.
The camera gives a close-up from behind the male and female protagonists, and then starts to deform from a close-up. The tens of thousands of tiny parts operate in an orderly manner. It seems that all the parts have been designed with the unfolded state in mind. None of them are created out of thin air during deformation. The whole process is full of mechanical beauty.
Just for this deformation effect, the special effects department of Galaxy Pictures will have to develop for at least another one or two years before it can be produced.
But Hollywood's special effects industry is more than just the transformation of one or two minutes. The action scenes in "Transformers" are also amazing.
After all, one of the main attractions of this movie is the group fights between giant robots. Although the budget for Transformers 1 was limited and special effects shots only accounted for %, the action design and shot language were full of ingenuity.
Even the robots created with special effects have smooth fighting movements and each punch hits the real person. With every strike, either parts fall to pieces or houses collapse. The movements are a combination of fast and slow, and static and dynamic movements that complement each other, giving them a strong sense of impact and rhythm.
After watching the movie, the original pride in his own special effects technology was completely silenced. As for other people in the special effects department, they also realized the gap between themselves and the top special effects team in Hollywood, just like him.
Wang Hao was very satisfied with this effect.
As for whether his own "Source Code" can defeat this extremely powerful "Transformers", Wang Hao is also full of confidence.
After all, this is the first movie released by the Galaxy Cinematic Universe, so he made sufficient preparations in advance.
Just when the Chinese film industry was in turmoil due to the intrusion of "Transformers", the backup plan that Wang Hao had prepared in advance finally began to take effect, setting off a publicity storm that was enough to shock the entire Chinese film and television industry.
Surprisingly, this storm did not start in mainland China, but originated in North America.
On the day when Galaxy Pictures held the "Galaxy Cinematic Universe" press conference, at 18:00 North American time, Apple's first mobile phone, the iPhone, was officially launched in the United States. This was indeed a major earthquake that shocked the entire mobile phone market, and all users who bought this epoch-making phone were full of praise for it.
But this is just something that happened in the technology industry, and it seems to have nothing to do with Chinese films thousands of miles away.
Until a movie lover who bought an iPhone was watching a movie disc from China released by Columbia Pictures. He was surprised to find that the phone used by the protagonist of the movie was extremely similar to the iPhone to a certain extent.
Similar appearance, similar functions, even the appearance of the phone in the movie is more eye-catching than the iPhone.
At first the film lover thought the movie he was watching was made after the iPhone launch.
But when he checked the information, he found that this Chinese film called "Buried Alive" was actually shot in May 2005 by a young director named "Wang Hao".
Two years ago!
That movie came out two years before the iPhone!
In other words, long before the iPhone appeared, some film directors had predicted the emergence of smart touch-screen phones like the iPhone.
What is science fiction shining into reality?
That’s it!
The film lover excitedly told the story to his friend, who in turn posted the incident online along with iPhone photos and screenshots from the movie Buried.
At that time, North America was crazy about the emergence of the iPhone, so soon, this news related to the iPhone was discovered and reprinted by the media.
Especially because of the emergence of the iPhone, it has had an impact and impact on the majority of traditional mobile phone manufacturers. In order to attack Apple's iPhone, these traditional mobile phone manufacturers immediately fanned the flames of the news after discovering this good opportunity.
For a while, rumors that Apple's iPhone was actually copied from a prop in a Chinese movie began to spread widely on the North American Internet.
As evidence, several films directed by Wang Hao were dug out by the media, and then they found that smartphones could be seen everywhere in those films.
From the heroine in "The Shallows" taking selfies with the front camera of her mobile phone, to Ma Chenggong, played by Xu Zheng in "The Call", unlocking his phone with one hand by sliding it, Apple fans have discovered that those designs that amazed them were not the ingenuity of Jobs alone.
Apple initially shrugged off the negative news about the iPhone.
After all, it is simply wishful thinking for a Chinese film director to want to take advantage of a giant technology company like theirs.
So Apple only gave a brief official announcement stating that the research and development of its own mobile phone was started by CEO Steve Jobs in 2004 when he assembled more than 1000 internal employees.
This time was far earlier than 2005 when Wang Hao filmed "Buried".
The media's attitude has changed again, as if Wang Hao is the shameful plagiarist who stole Apple's trade secrets. Many North American "Apple fans" have even begun to abuse Wang Hao on the Internet.
Moreover, this wave of public opinion has spread to China through the news media.
Many public intellectuals in the mainland believed everything they heard and began to criticize Wang Hao without knowing the whole story. They said that he had ruined the reputation of Chinese people abroad and that he was a shameful plagiarist.
Then, just when this wave of public opinion reached its peak, even Wang Hao's grandfather began to call him to inquire about the situation.
Wang Hao filed a lawsuit against those public intellectuals who slandered him. At the same time, he also announced in major domestic and foreign media several technical patents he applied for in June 2005, including front camera, screen sliding to unlock, gesture magnification, home button, etc.
In particular, the screen sliding to unlock patent was submitted 6 months earlier than the time when Apple submitted the patent to the US Patent Office.
This means that Apple’s iPhone does infringe on Wang Hao’s patents on certain issues!
Although this patent has not yet been approved by the U.S. Patent Office, it has been certified in many countries outside of China and North America.
This will make it difficult for iPhone sales in China to continue unless they can obtain Wang Hao's patent authorization.
(End of this chapter)