Losing Money to Be a Tycoon

n on its first day and had made a total of 124 million yuan so far.
It was expected to generate a total revenue of 138 million yuan.

There was no need to read about the other movies because they could not compare to the first three.

After browsing those three films, Pei Qian relaxed slightly.

There was one movie with young, hot actors, one European film, and one domestically-produced action film based on a well-known novel.
They all shone in their respective genres and looked much more enjoyable than Tomorrow is Beautiful.

All of those movies had already been screening for some time, but they were still selling tickets.
That meant they would create quite an obstacle for Tomorrow is Beautiful.
Pei Qian could not help but feel satisfied.

Once again, Pei Qian accessed Tomorrow is Beautiful’s page, wanting to see what kind of materials had been prepared for publicity.

Tomorrow is Beautiful

There were both Mandarin and English titles.

Film / Sci-fi / Suspense / Drama / 2D

Lu Zhiyao / Zhang Zuting / Lin Ruyi / Zhu Xiaoce

Premiering on February 22, 2011 / 93 minutes There will be two post-credits scenes.

Description:

In a world set in the future, the advancement of technology has caused the ordinary person’s standard of living to deteriorate.
People live on fast food and snacks, have three hours to wander around outside, and are forced to watch omnipresent advertisements.
A couple in love (played by Lu Zhiyao and Lin Ruyi) become unhappy with this way of living.
They set their minds on fighting their unfair state and courageously pursue their own dreams.
However, they have no idea what kind of fate awaits them…

Underneath that were the cast list, the trailer, and some screenshots.

It was worth mentioning that Pei Qian had found his own name on the cast list.
He was listed as the film’s scriptwriter, but there was no picture.

Sponsored Content

“Hm… the description doesn’t match my expectations, but it’s about right.
Few people would read films’ descriptions anyway.”

At first, Pei Qian had considered using dishonest advertising to publicize the film.
For instance, he had thought about giving it high accolades like ‘a sci-fi and romance film’ or ‘a soothing movie’.
That way, once the movie premiered, and the audience found out that they had been lied to, they would definitely curse the film to no end.
The film’s reputation would then crumble.

However, Boss Pei could not possibly have gotten involved in such minor matters.
What’s more, he had been so busy that he had forgotten about his idea altogether.

Still, reading the current labels and description, Pei Qian guessed that the film would probably not attract too many people.
In any case, it was far too late for him to change anything now.

He had no choice but to leave things as they were.

Pei Qian scrolled down, wanting to read people’s comments.

“Lu Zhiyao stars in this film.
I expect it to get one star.”

“Zha Zhuti is very good at choosing films to star in.
I’m guessing this won’t be bad.
I can’t wait!”

“Sci-fi fans are remaining cautiously optimistic towards domestically-produced sci-fi films.”

“A second-tier director and the toxicity in the box office are forcing their way into the sci-fi genre.
I don’t think Zhang Zuting alone would be able to carry this film.
I think it’ll fail!”

“Local citizens filming a movie set overseas… even the voices would be in English and the subtitles would be in Mandarin? Excuse me? What kind of crazy piece of work is this?!”

“The cast is not bad.
I don’t think it will sell out, but I don’t think it will be that bad either.
It should be able to make a hundred million yuan.”

“I can’t tell what this movie would be like.
Its advertising strategy was so aggressive, but I wonder if the investors would lose all their money…”

Reading the comments gave Pei Qian mixed feelings of joy interspersed with melancholy.

The movie had not even premiered.
That was why the comments did not stand for anything yet.
Still, people could voice their opinions based on the trailer, posters, cast list, and other content.

Lu Zhiyao was still the most talked-about part of Tomorrow is Beautiful.

Zhang Zuting had been a movie king before, but he was considered an outdated actor by now.
In the eyes of the local audience, he was no big shot.
On the other hand, while Lu Zhiyao had been named the toxicity of the box office, he still had a solid place as one of the top few young men in the industry.

However, it was precisely Lu Zhiyao’s bad name that caused the audience to harbor little hope for this film.

Some people were even hoping that the investors would lose all their money.
This was comforting to Pei Qian.

Pre-screening comments did not count for much, but one could vaguely tell from those comments whether the audience would support the film or not.
So far, Pei Qian was happy with what he was reading.

Sponsored Content

“This is good.
As long as the film’s reputation crumbles, its tickets wouldn’t sell.

“I invested thirty million yuan into this film.
I would have to generate a hundred million in revenue before I can recover my capital.
That’s almost impossible.”

Pei Qian heaved a sigh of relief.

He was just about to exit the application when he remembered another important

thing.

He had to see the film schedule!

Few time slots, taken together with the comments at the moment, would assure Pei Qian that the film would fail.

Pei Qian quickly clicked on the ‘real-time box office’ section to see the film’s row piece rate for the next day.

Once the page loaded, he became dumbfounded.

Tomorrow is Beautiful’s row piece rate was 37.7%!

He checked the next few films.
Party for Love’s row piece rate was 24.6%; Dangerous Partner’s was 19.7%; Legends of the Night was 9.2%.
The others were zero percent.

Pei Qian refreshed the page to confirm Tomorrow is Beautiful’s row piece rate of 37.7%.
He had thought that something was wrong with his eyes, so that he had seen the decimal point in the wrong place.

What the f*ck?!

Pei Qian was shocked and confused as if he had just understood the situation.

Why were there 37 thousand people waiting to see Tomorrow is Beautiful?

It hadn’t made sense at first.
Huang Sibo and Zhu Xiaoce, and the rest of Fei Huang Workspace should not have had the resources to advertise the movie to such an extent.

They could have found other companies to advertise the movie, but they would have made various harsh demands.
Huang Sibo and the others would not have left Boss Pei out of the picture.

Now, looking at the row piece rate, Pei Qian finally understood that neither Huang Sibo nor Zhu Xiaoce had been responsible for the movie’s advertising.
Neither of them could have asked for such a high row piece rate!

Something was very wrong.
There must have been a mole in the works!

[1] A film’s row piece rate shows the rate of screening of the film within a specified period.