"This year's May Day season competition is particularly intense, and we can't secure particularly good screening arrangements from the cinema chains," Liu Rulan said. "We missed the Spring Festival slot, and the May Day competition is fierce, so being sandwiched in between is actually a pretty good option. If the quality is good enough, we might even get an extended screening license and sip some of the May Day season's soup - wouldn't that be perfect?"
Director Ren's film genre ultimately leans toward the niche category. Even though cinema chains know Director Ren's films have good quality, when facing a major market choice like May Day, they still conservatively choose more commercially viable film genres rather than the rare domestic content and themes.
So Law of the Jungle definitely can't compete for screening slots during the May Day season.
The Qingming Festival slot is also quite good.
"Moreover, didn't the industry trends officially change recently? Director Ren chose to use the alternative ending version, so releasing during Festival means less pressure and fewer controversial topics."
"Actually, it makes quite a bit of sense. Law of the Jungle's content, to some extent, pairs well with Festival," Xiao He reflected emotionally.
Discussing topics like life and death, and people more terrifying than ghosts - it fits the holiday atmosphere quite well.
Liu Rulan choked on Xiao He's words.
"So we'll start preview screenings and promotions next month?"
This year's Spring Festival was in mid-February. By the time they returned from vacation, it was already late February, and this year's Qingming Festival falls on April 4th. If Law of the Jungle plans preview screenings, they'll probably happen in March.
Time is already very tight. By then, he'll need to join the No Bait production team first, and once he gets busy, time will fly even faster.
"Yes."
Liu Rulan nodded, "But currently we've only confirmed the Festival slot. As for the detailed preview screening times and locations, Director Ren and his team are still coordinating and discussing. We need to wait for notification, but they'll probably start online promotion and warm-up activities around next week."
Xiao He counted carefully on his fingers: "Alright, we're joining the No Bait crew on March 4th. We should film the Beijing scenes first. After finishing there, we'll likely be able to return here to participate in the preview screening ceremony."
"Good, I'll communicate with both Director Ren and Director Ning to coordinate the timing."
So Xiao He and Liu Rulan proceeded to discuss their March schedule arrangements.
However, neither of them expected that while Law of the Jungle originally intended to develop quietly, others had also set their sights on the Qingming Festival slot and were urgently trying to dominate the entire Qingming Festival screening schedule—
A silent, bloody storm was about to unfold online...
-
Just one day before Law of the Jungle was preparing to start promotions, Feng Zhengyang's Silent Search officially announced its release date ahead of schedule.
[Silent Search Official: Everyone has waited a long time! April 4th, the movie Silent Search, shattering desperate situations to seek a glimmer of hope!
Director: @Feng Zhengyang
Producer: Dong Zeng
Screenwriter: @Lu Qiu
Lead Cast: @Tong Junhui, ..., @Chen Yulin
Special Appearances: ...
Guest Appearances: ...]
On the day the release date was announced, Silent Search directly climbed to the Hot Search rankings.
The trailer was filled with grand scenes and exciting clips that stirred emotions, and this powerful cast lineup made people exclaim "wow" - it included numerous veteran acting stars from mainland China and Hong Kong, truly a gathering of elites. As the first domestic zombie film from a major director to hit theaters, everyone was filled with anticipation and desire for discussion, engaging in conversations and promotions in the relevant comment sections.
[Wow, indeed if you live long enough, you'll get to see our own zombie films in theaters. This is truly wonderful.]
[So excited! The last time I watched a zombie film was five or six years ago. Now with the first domestic zombie film, I'll definitely support it wholeheartedly.]
[Um, I'm a bit timid. Will this be very scary?]
[It's a zombie film, baby! It will definitely include some horror elements, and what we're watching is the blood and violence.]
[Director Feng filmed restricted violent films in Hong Kong during his early years - so extreme that you can't even find complete versions on regular platforms now. So his zombie films are definitely guaranteed quality.]
[Plus it's big investment, big production team. Even the minor roles are played by somewhat famous actors. Even if it's crap, I still want to taste how salty it is.]
[Uh, but hasn't it become common now to have all-star casts that produce huge piles of... movies?]
[But it's still the first domestic zombie film to hit theaters! Plus, with all the pirated Hong Kong films circulating in earlier years, I owe Director Feng a movie ticket. As long as it's not too terrible, I'm still willing to support it.]
[I won't express any biased opinions. I'll wait for the reviews first.]
[Same here, waiting for post-release evaluations.]
While Silent Search was promoting online, Xiao He received the news immediately.
Hearing this news, Xiao He was startled and somewhat worried that Silent Search's appearance would disrupt their film promotion rhythm and affect Law of the Jungle's subsequent marketing.
But when he opened the promotional cast list on Weibo, Xiao He really wanted to exclaim "wow" out loud.
For a moment, he actually thought this was a police arrest list! In a production team with so many people from top to bottom, it's impossible for everyone to have problems or for everyone to have done bad things. But being able to accurately pick out the "essence" from among these people for @mentions - isn't that a special kind of ability?
Xiao He really wanted to ask the person editing and operating this account whether they did it intentionally or unintentionally.
Oh right, he almost wronged Chen Yulin. Aside from having a cheap mouth, low behavior, tea-like personality, poor acting skills, feminine appearance, bad character, lacking morals... this guy actually has no problems at all.
But what does this have to do with Xiao He? He's perfectly happy to watch the show.
After the Kemingen substandard drugs incident fermented and caused a stir online for some time, it gradually quieted down without any new developments being exposed, as if deliberately forgotten. But this doesn't mean the matter has reached a perfect conclusion.
Actually, unbeknownst to many people, Xu Youyou had already paid astronomical fines and was successfully "released." In contrast, Chen Cong, because of his overly close relationship with Kemingen and inability to escape guilt, had already been detained by police.
What the general public paid even less attention to was that the central government website suddenly published a message on a subsequent day about cross-border crackdowns on China-related drug proliferation and related rectification work. It stated that the Ministry of Public Security had already cooperated with relevant local law enforcement to launch a series of cross-border deployment activities.
Meanwhile, the recently released Xu Youyou had found a way to meet with Silent Search's producer Dong Zeng.
Dong Zeng was acquainted with Chen Cong's father and had close business dealings with Chen Cong himself. Xu Youyou seeking Dong Zeng's protection naturally had her own leverage.
This was also why Xu Youyou could be bailed out by these people—