Incongruity was an element that every responsible director paid great attention to and tried their best to avoid. The original version of Crazy Stone gave the feeling that the poor were poor and the rich were not rich. It was entirely because the crew was too tight on funds that they could not create the feeling that the rich were very rich. Ning Hao could not be blamed for this.
In his previous life, "Crazy Stone" was like a piece of raw jade that had been neglected, but no one had expected that the interior of its seemingly cheap fur was of the highest quality. Unfortunately, the team at that time could only make a rough carving on its foundation. In the end, it became a work of art with excellent quality, but the carving was relatively casual.
Now, with sufficient production funds, this excellent jade finally had a matching engraving. Therefore, when the movie was finally presented to the audience, the effect was much better than the original version.
The movie was about 100 minutes long, and there was no break during the whole process. The guests, audience, and even the reporters laughed their heads off. From the start of the movie to the end, the laughter basically never stopped.
In the movie, Huang Bo's performance was impeccable. Although it was difficult to distinguish the male lead from the other actors, his performance was worthy of being the male lead of the whole movie. His performance not only made the audience burst into laughter, but also surprised all the directors and actors.
When acting had become the biggest problem for Hua Xia's new generation of actors, Huang Bo put on a textbook performance in this movie. From beginning to end, there was almost no trace of acting.
Guo Tao, who played the role of the security captain, also had an impeccable performance. If one had to point out something that was not perfect, it might be that his imitation of the mountain city accent was not very good.
Lau Tianwang had created an impeccable image of the international thief. He was cool and handsome, and his acting skills were also excellent. Moreover, he had created a great contrast between the beginning and the end of the character. From the moment he appeared to the moment he failed to steal the jade, he maintained the same aura as 007, which was 100 points of awesomeness. After failing to steal the jade, he could perfectly create the state of the unlucky thief, which was 100 points of awesomeness.
In addition to these leading actors, Tang Wei played the role of the mafia boss's girlfriend. Although the acting skills of the original mafia boss's girlfriend were good, they did not meet the standards of most people in terms of aesthetics. However, when Tang Wei dyed her hair yellow and curled it, drew fake tattoos on her slender waist, and put on a sexy leopard print outfit and a small fur vest, it seemed that three words were directly written on her face: "Gangster."
Wang Xun himself was a well-prepared actor. Before this, he had already been on the small stage for many years. His acting skills were much better than most people who had graduated from a proper school. He had created a perfect urban nobody, a nobody who bullied the weak and feared the strong, a nobody who flattered his leaders and used his connections to intimidate others. Such characters were too common in real life, but they were rarely seen on the big screen. The reason was that most actors had limited ability to portray characters. They either failed to portray the tiger as a dog, or failed to portray the dog as a tiger.
Although Xu Zheng did not have many scenes, he had perfectly created his role as a real estate developer. Such actors were rare talents. As long as you needed them, they could play the role of a supporting character in a movie, or they could play the role of a supporting character. Just like the "hun" in mahjong, he could play any card.
When Huang Bo chewed on his bread and was chased by a chef on an electric scooter across the mountain city's viaduct, the movie came to an end.
The moment the cast list came out, the surrounding lights lit up, and everyone stood up and applauded in unison.
The audience cheered. The premiere was a complete success.
"Crazy Stone" did not have any educational meaning, nor was it critical. It was not related to abstraction, postmodern, neoclassical, or old-school styles. It did not satirize society, attack human nature, or expose the dark reality. It was a comedy, a 100% comedy through and through.
But the purer a movie was, the rarer it was.
Many directors think too much. They want to earn money and win big awards, and they keep stuffing their "personal goods" into their movies. They also want to be praised and praised by others for being awesome. The more they think about it, the harder it is to realize it. In the end, most of the movies they shoot are nondescript.
There were also some directors who liked to film the dark side of Huaxia society, and these kinds of films often won awards as soon as they went out of the country. Li Mu had been particularly puzzled for a period of time, wondering if some foreign film festivals liked to give awards to films that shot the dark side of Huaxia.
Although he didn't have any prejudice against this kind of director, he had seen this kind of thing too many times. He always felt that their ideas weren't as pure as they seemed.
Ning Hao's thinking was much simpler. He wanted to make a down-to-earth movie that could make the audience laugh out loud. Other than that, there was nothing else. He did not want to criticize society, nor did he want to criticize human nature. He did not want to meddle in politics. He only wanted to focus on making a pure movie.
Li Mu did not pursue fame and awards in the film industry, but he could not be as "pure" as Ning Hao. His motive for making "Flying Tigers" was to contain some of his own goods. On the one hand, he wanted to curb the spread of the Japanese samurai spirit, and on the other hand, he wanted the world to know the sacrifice of the people of Hua Xia during World War II, as well as the cruelty of the invaders. In short, he did not want to make a pure movie.
…
After the premiere, "Crazy Stone" was officially released in cinemas nationwide.
That night, by midnight, "Crazy Stone" had earned a total of 13 million yuan in the box office.
The screening rate was 60%, and the occupancy rate was over 80%.
The explosion in the box office began on the second day.
That night, Li Mu's interview was broadcast through major TV stations.
As the "opinion leader" of the world's largest group of young people, the degree to which young people blindly followed Li Mu was far greater than the young girls who chased after female celebrities to buy facial masks.
Li Mu personally introduced the movie. That alone was enough to make the young people scramble for it. What was more, the SARS outbreak had just passed. Deep down in the hearts of the people, the demand for public places had involuntarily increased explosively.
Without SARS, some people would not be able to go to the mall even once a year. However, because of the stressful experience of avoiding public places during SARS, these people began to take the initiative to go to various public places to find a way to release their stress after the SARS epidemic ended.
This kind of feeling was very similar to the feeling of high school students after the high pressure and boring third year of high school. After the college entrance examination, they wanted to live in an internet cafe every day.
Just at this time, a comedy film recommended by Li Mu, starring Liu Dehua, and very well reviewed by the media was released in cinemas. For a time, going to the cinema to watch this movie became the best choice for these people to release their stress.
Because there were no strong competitors in the schedule, "Crazy Stone" received 70% screening rate on the second day, and the occupancy rate was over 95%! In most cities, in most of the theaters, it was hard to get a ticket for "Crazy Stone"!
In first-tier cities like Beijing and Shanghai, "Crazy Stone" maintained a 100% occupancy rate, because there were still a large number of audiences who wanted to watch it but could not get a ticket.
As a result, scalpers began to appear in the major cinemas. Tickets ranging from RMB 20 to RMB 30 were basically sold at double the price. Tickets with better timings and seats could even be sold for RMB 100. It was quite similar to when "Avatar" was launched, where it was hard to get a ticket.
When "Avatar" was released, the 3D tickets were sold at three times the price by the scalpers, and they were all snapped up by the enthusiastic audience. There were only a few IMAX tickets, and they were sold at sky-high prices by the scalpers.
Under the support of such high enthusiasm, on the first day after its release, "Crazy Stone" earned 84 million in the box office nationwide!
This single day's box office set a record for the highest box office of a Hua Xia film in a single day, and it also set a record for the total box office of Hua Xia's film industry in a single day.
On this day, all the limited cinemas in the country were working around the clock. For every cinema, from the day of opening until yesterday, there had never been a day that was busier than today.
As the number of people watching the movie continued to increase, "Crazy Stone" created an excellent reputation on the internet. Every netizen who watched this movie said that this movie was the best domestic comedy they had ever seen. Not only was the movie good, but in the cinema, laughing with the entire audience for 100 minutes, this kind of experience was indeed very wonderful, and it left an endless aftertaste.
A large number of netizens flooded into "Crazy Stone" Tieba, posting praises and discussions. This newly established Tieba Tieba became the most active Tieba Tieba of the day. A large number of audiences praised it, and there were almost no negative comments. This was the first time in the industry that such a good reputation had happened.
YY specially released a push window to recommend "Crazy Stone" to the netizens all over the country. After users clicked on the pop-up window, they would directly open a report on YY. This report not only gave a simple introduction to the movie, but also included Li Mu's evaluation of the movie, as well as screenshots of the netizens' comments on the Tieba.
With this, "Crazy Stone" became the hottest topic on the internet.
All the cinemas in the country were caught off guard by "Crazy Stone." They immediately began to readjust the screenings. First, they squeezed the screenings of other movies as much as possible. Secondly, the cinemas themselves began to semi-force the users to refund the tickets or change the venue.
For example, for other films that were released at the same time, only 20 tickets were sold in a theater with a capacity of 100 people. The cinemas directly changed the theater and that time slot to "Crazy Stone", and then locked the seats corresponding to the 20 tickets. When the audience who had originally bought the other movie arrived at the venue, the staff of the cinemas directly arranged for the users to choose the original price plus a subsidy ranging from 5 to 10 yuan for a refund, or they could directly use the original ticket to watch "Crazy Stone".
As a result, on the second day of screening, which was Sunday, the actual screenings of "Crazy Stone" in the country reached an astonishing 92%!
Basically, all the cinemas, all the theaters, and all the time slots were playing "Crazy Stone" non-stop. Passing through the corridors of the cinemas, one could hear the loud laughter of all the cinemas.
On the second day, the box office of "Crazy Stone" reached an astonishing 110 million!
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