Super Zoo

Hooligans aren't scary, neither are cultured people who can reason, but what's truly frightening is when you merge the two and hooligans start pretending to be intellectuals. There they were, holding zoo tickets, arguing that they paid full price at purchase, yet only part of the zoo was open. What kind of trick is this?

This is consumer deception, this is a scam, this is a blatant, outright commercial fraud!

Zoo staff tried to mediate, saying we were filming a movie, please be understanding. The hooligan retorted, "I'm not your dad, why should I understand? I'll understand if you compensate tenfold or let us see what kind of movie you're filming, whether it's the not-suitable-for-children kind or not?"

Ten times the ticket price for a dozen troublemakers would cost thousands in compensation; not a lot of money, but if we pay today, they'll surely come back tomorrow, and then every day after. Might as well raise this gang of 'dads' at the zoo. And besides, if we compensate them, what would others say?

The staff who came to intervene reached out to the security office; Dong led a group of security guards rushing over. Before Dong could speak, the two lead hooligans started acting shamelessly, lying on the ground, with an attitude as if a dead pig doesn't fear boiling water, shouting that the zoo was just a black.. market bully, harboring a bunch of thuggish enforcers to push people around. This was an old zoo trick. "Go ahead, hit us if you like, we won't hit back. Right or wrong, public opinion will judge."

Dong was beside himself with rage; a bunch of hoodlums had come to the zoo to make trouble, pointing fingers and accusing his security guards of being 'black soc..iety'. This was like the pot calling the kettle black.

After making a phone call to Suming, Suming understood most of the situation upon hearing Dong's retelling of the other party's words; it was clear this was a pretext for the car smashing incident a few days prior.

Let them watch, it's just filming, after all.

We opened a gap in the filming area, and a dozen excited troublemakers burst in, ready to stir up some trouble and mess with the film crew. But as soon as they arrived on set, the troublemakers were dumbfounded.

There were over a hundred burly men, each armed with iron rods and steel whips, bare-chested, revealing muscles as sturdy as hard iron, their expressions grave and faces emotionless, staring at them... Not far off, an officer in a paramilitary uniform was squatting behind a camera, checking the lens.

When scholars encounter soldiers, reason falls on deaf ears; but if hooligans encounter soldiers...?

"Very good, very good, what a great movie; carry on, you're busy..." the leading troublemaker mumbled, grinning apologetically before turning to leave. Once out of the filming area, he and his gang took off at a trot, never looking back, never showing up at the zoo again.

Besides that little incident, the filming went smoothly. Guo Zijian worked his way up from the very bottom of the crew, taking on almost every job there was. His understanding of the production process was very high, so there was no need for Suming to worry at all.

Suming's main focus was on the future distribution of the movie.

Whether a movie makes money in the end depends on the quality of the movie itself as well as pre-release promotions.

Not to discuss the quality of the movie, but in terms of promotions, limited by the total investment, Suming didn't plan to put much into this 'trial run', only using simple promotions like Weibo and live streaming platforms. The box office in Yangchuan City shouldn't be too bad, because this movie had been deeply branded with the 'Yangchuan City' label, and local audiences would support it.

But if you wanted to promote it on a large scale nationwide, the costs would be astronomical. Generally, for a movie with a hundred-million investment, if you want effective national promotions, the promotional costs could account for one third to half the budget.

Apart from the quality of the movie and promotions, what truly determines the box office outcome are the theater chains' screenings.

No matter how good the movie or how on-point the promotions, if the movie theaters won't schedule your screenings, what can you do? If there are a hundred screenings in one theater in a day and they only schedule two for you, and both at two thirty in the morning, you're out of luck. Even the best movies won't have a box office to speak of in such a case.

Many blockbuster flops have achieved astonishing box office results, while some decent movies have suffered pitifully low ticket sales, and this has a lot to do with the cinema circuits. Suming had encountered this situation before, where some films would show over ten times a day, continuously for a month or two, while others would only be on the big screen for a total of three to five days. By the time people knew they were out and went to buy tickets, they'd find the films had already been taken down, hence the huge gap in box office earnings.

It could be said that the cinema circuit determined the life and death of a movie.

Twenty or thirty years ago, when the Xiangjiang Film Market was at its most bustling, big players like Shao, Jiahe, Princess Jin, along with Da Bao and Xin Bao, were vying for control – it was truly a saga of epic proportions. Long Wu, who came up through that era, couldn't have been clearer about the crucial importance of cinema circuits.

Of course, when it comes to cinema circuits showing movies, aside from under-the-table dealings and suppressing competitors, the most important factor was whether the cinema circuit operators were optimistic about a film. Cinemas also want to make money, if they think a movie might be profitable, they'll schedule more screenings; otherwise, less.

As for Suming's film... it had no famous director, no name actors, no big investments, and just an average fan base. The only things moderately worth mentioning were that Long Wu was the producer and Zhang Jiahui was the supervising producer.

As for this fellow Zhang Jiahui, from beginning to end, Suming had never even met the man.

On the cinema circuit side, Suming had no connections whatsoever. He had called several cinema circuits, and they simply didn't care. A few smaller circuits, considering the halo Suming had on his head, gave him a 5% showing rate with three days of screening time.

That was utterly useless!

However, a few mid-sized cinemas, upon hearing the news of a zoo shot film, initially showed interest in collaborating. But as soon as they heard it was a horror film, with no romantic elements, no star power, their attitude immediately cooled to freezing point.

Not only did Suming have no connections, but this time even Zhao Yun was at a loss, rarely finding a legitimate industry he didn't have a hand in.

The problem was that the backers of those who could run a cinema were frighteningly powerful. The film industry was a big pie, with box office earnings, lucrative spin-off industries, and all sorts of astonishing financial benefits. Those who were qualified to venture into this industry and establish cinema circuits were all domestic titans.

Take Wanda, for example, they had absolutely no need to give face to Suming, a People's Congress representative. Even if the Russian Airborne Troops were formidable, could they send troops to occupy Wanda Plaza?

Suming could only hope for Long Wu's help.
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"Brother Ten, as the producer, this is the time when you must speak up," said Suming cheerfully on the phone.

"I knew you were calling about the screening schedule. I told you to make some commercial films ages ago, but you wouldn't listen. You insisted on taking the artistic route..." In Long Wu's heart, Suming had been categorized as an 'artistic young man with ideals', and he thought that Suming's filmmaking was about fulfilling a dream.

"Why bring up these useless things, Brother Ten? Are you going to help me or not?" Suming asked.

"Wow, the younger generation is really aggressive, threatening me, huh," laughed Long Wu on the phone. "Alright then, you've got ambition, I'll try to help you out. But let me be upfront, nobody thinks highly of your movie. I can't promise how much I can do, but I'll do my best."

"Okay, thank you, Brother Ten."