Luo Lin was so anxious that she was nearly frothing at the mouth, but Yan Huan did not seem pressured at all. She continued on with the roadshow along with the others. She talked a lot lesser but the basic qualities of an actress was still there in her behavior. She had also maintained a much lower profile than before.
Among all the movies that premiered during Chinese New Year, Aster was indeed a dark horse that came out of nowhere. Its box office was sky high everyday and it broke many records, and it was likely that it would soon surpass the number one film, White Fox. Many professional critic websites also predicted that Aster would soon reach the No.1 spot of domestic box office performance, hence replacing White Fox.
Almost everyone thought so too.
It could make at least two hundred million box office sales daily, and it had already accumulated a total of more than 1.6 billion in box office sales over a single week. There were still 20 plus days of showing, thus even if it made only a hundred million a day, it would eventually surpass the current record holder.
However, predictions were always optimistic. After the seventh day ended, on the eighth day of Chinese New Year, Aster’s performance in the box office started to drop. The earnings had been reduced to barely half of its initial volume, from two hundred million daily to one hundred million.
On the ninth day, it didn’t even reach a hundred million, and its box office sales decreased day by day after that.
Aster’s momentum simply fizzled out, therefore it did not get to surpass White Fox like how all of the critic websites had predicted. It would only earn around two billion at the end of its run in the theatres. But even so, it was already an astounding box office result. There were only a total of two films that had crossed the 2 billion mark in local theatres and one of them was a big budget foreign film that occupied the charts for a very long time. The foreign film was no.1 in the chart before it was beaten by White Fox, hence it occupied the second place and had stayed firmly since.
Aster’s box office earnings slowly declined, signifying its inevitable downward spiral in ticketing sales. Its box office prediction dropped from three billion to two billion while the actual number was still climbing its way at a snail’s pace to the 1.7 billion mark.
Its current daily box office sales was around ten million, but even that was slowly dropping to single-digit millions. Despite that, it was not exactly performing poorly. It could be said that overall, all the other films had started to slide down and Aster still remained the best of them. It had been occupying the top spot of the recent box office charts, but it lacked the power to push itself to the point of a breakthrough. Hence, it could not challenge the number one spot at all, and might not even reach the second.
Nevertheless, it was considered successful since its box office managed to reach 1.7 billion, and hopefully around 1.9 billion at the end. It had also been announced in the later stage that due to its great reviews, its theatre run was prolonged.
If Aster could steadily earn a certain amount of box office sales during the extended period, it might even climb its way to the 2 billion mark, making it one of the few films with over 2 billion box office sales.
Aster’s reign would end at that point. It was not as great as expected, so Luo Lin heaved a light breath of relief. Now, they were looking forward to seeing what would happen when their movie premieres on the lantern festival.
Would it be a hit, or will it flop? It was still up in the air.
Based on what Luo Lin saw, the chances of flopping would be higher, as their presales did not even reach 30 million. Aster made almost 150 million during presales, therefore their own number was merely one fifth of Aster’s.
It seemed like it would really flop.
On the day of the lantern festival, Before the Beginning premiered with 50 million presales, but those who bought tickets on site were showing up in great numbers.
Before the Beginning featured a truly star-studded cast which included Liang Chen, Qi Haoran, Yan Huan and Zhou Zizhe. All of them packed a decent level of charisma. They were all famous movie stars and had strong followings. Their fans were the earliest batch to flock to the theatres.
At the start of the movie, the familiar Linlang logo animation was shown and it was announced that this film was exclusively distributed by Linlang. There were not more than three sponsors, so if the film became a hit, then Linlang would certainly get the biggest share of the profit distribution. As such, they hoped the film could sell well.
The movie started with the monologues of the two main actresses. Yan Huan’s soldier look was very handsome and mature, and her headstrong temperament was refreshing to watch. Her eyes had a sharp and flinty look to them, which was accentuated when she sucked up to the higher ups and bullied her juniors.
As for the other main character, Yao Xiaoyu, she was the comic relief. Every action she made, every gaze, stare and squint were all performed naturally. That was why it was scary when Liang Chen’s acting reached such a high level, as expected of an award-winning actress that had been in the industry for over twenty years and an internationally renowned actress. Her acting does live up to her reputation.
The initial narration was dull and plain. It felt like a normal drama film, hence some viewers were disappointed. Then the scene took a sharp turn and revealed another world before the audience’s eyes, a beautiful, shining sci-fi world.
Many viewers were awed and visibly astounded, especially at the 3D scenes. The five billion budget was mostly invested into the CGI, as the actors and actresses did not get paid a lot. A big portion of the money was spent on post-production editing, so the scenes were gorgeous and grand.
All sorts of weird-looking plants appeared in the other world, which stimulated the audience’s imaginations and astonished them. Especially when certain animals performed some special moves, like spraying gas at the main characters or widening their mouths to show off a row of bleached teeth, the CGI was very convincing. The scenes that followed were nothing shy of grand, dinosaurs, savages, volcanoes, coupled with an interesting plot. Everyone was reluctant to leave. They were afraid that once they left their seat, they would miss out some beautiful scenes.
The strongest striking point of the film was actually its portrayal of the four seasons. Vigorous growth during spring, lush and lively tree leaves in summer, the falling leaves of autumn, and the pure white snow of winter.
One could practically feel the temperature change with the scenes. The film would give you a first person view of the four seasons, as if you were living in the samsara of seasons. Up in the sky, under the water, up in the snowy mountains and deep in the forests, the scenes kept changing. The visual experience of the film was truly astonishing.
However, it did not end on a happy note. It was not a comedy and had no signs of one. It left up to the audience’s imagination to decide if the main character lived or died.
When the credits rolled, no one walked out of the theatre for a while because they were overwhelmed. The moment they removed the 3D glasses, it felt like they had just woken up from a beautiful dream, and the scenes they experienced in the dream were still vivid in their minds.
The first show premiered around 6 in the evening on the first day, so they’ve only got 80 million box office for that day. Luo Lin really wanted to cry when she saw the number, as it was a mere 30 million raise. It’s a flop, right?
Although it premiered with a box office elixir in its cast, it seemed that Yan Huan’s title had deserted her in this situation. Even with the box office elixir blessing their movie, they could not possibly compete with a film that had been showing for half a month.
