On Monday, before Chen Chong walked into the conference room, he saw three people laughing happily through the glass door. Even Jiang Zhiqiang, who had always been serious, had a smile on his face.

"Why, is there a happy event?" Chen Chong pushed the door and asked with a smile: "Is it still an interesting thing?"

"There are happy events and interesting events." Luo Weiming bowed his hands with a cigarette in his arms, smiled and said, "Boss Shen, congratulations."

Luo Weiming is a veteran film writer and editor. After Chen Bosheng went to prepare for the Hong Kong International Film Festival, he took over as the editor-in-chief of "Movie Age" and came to report to Chen Chong every Monday. (Note 1)

"Where does the joy come from?"

"Boss Shen, you're pretentious." Luo Weiming pointed to the newspaper in Chen Chong's hand and said, "The box office of "Crazy Job" exceeded one million in a single day. What's this a happy event?"

Chen Chong beat him up and threw a few newspapers on the conference table.

The newspapers were scattered, revealing several extremely explosive titles - "The box office of one day exceeded one million, "Crazy Job" was crazy!", "The money was two million in two days - the highest box office record of Hong Kong movies is about to be born!", "The movie is scary, and the box office is even scary. "Crazy Job" won 1.07 million on Sunday!"...

Chen Chong learned from the newspaper this morning that the box office of "Crazy Jones" exceeded one million on Sunday. Yesterday, he was too tired and did not stay up late and wait for Jiang Zhiqiang to report the box office.

Although he is very familiar with Li Kaiyuan's family, his courtesy cannot be abolished. After the relationship between them became clear, Chen Chong could not pretend that nothing had happened. So yesterday he returned to Kwun Tong with a large bag of gifts and formally met with Li Kaiyuan's parents.

After the visit, the family went out to visit several major attractions in Hong Kong for a day. They were so tired that they felt sore and painful, so they had a rest early in the evening.

"Yesterday, the warning advertisement was published in the full page of the Oriental Daily, which was a masterpiece." Luo Weiming said: "It avoided legal risks and made the audience curiosity. The box office rose sharply against the trend, which was more than the first day. This advertisement made a great contribution. I wonder which master thought of it?"

"Hero Luo is too awarded." Chen Chong bowed his fists and said, "It's just me."

Luo Weiming smoked a cigarette, didn't say anything, but just gave a thumbs up.

"Mr. Chen, this is a detailed statistics on the box office for two days on the weekend." Jiang Zhiqiang stood up and handed a stack of reports to Chen Chong, saying: "The box office of a single museum, the building, and the hall are all counted separately."

Chen Chong took the report and looked carefully.

The weekend premiered for two days, with a box office of 2 million. According to the formula commonly used in later generations, the box office can reach about 10 million. However, the release period of those movies is basically about one month, while "Crazy Job" can only be released for two weeks. It is still unknown whether the final box office can break the record of "Half-Take" and exceed 10 million.

But even so, there is no suspense that "Crazy Joe" will become the annual box office champion.

In 1979, both the number of moviegoers and the total box office in Hong Kong increased a lot compared with 1978. However, just like the tranquility before the storm, the film market was calm throughout the year, and there was no movie with a particularly impressive box office.

The box office champion in 1979 in history was Jackie Chan's "The Strange Tactics of Laughing Box", which was more than 5 million yuan, only more than 700,000 yuan ahead of the second place, and received more than 2 million less than the box office champion "Selling Body Deed" in 1978.

"The Strange Tactics of Laughing Fist" was released in February and has been offline. Whether it is the "Correspondent Boss Fighting the Life", "Twelve Tan Legs", "Jiequan Eagle Claws", or the "Catching Jizi Fighting the Rampant", "Fighting the Fighting", and "Dare to Fight the Family" that are being released next week, they are all unknown people and have no capital to compete with "Crazy Job". (Note 2)

"There is a happy event." Chen Chong looked at the box office statistics and asked: "What is an interesting event?"

"I have to ask Rover about interesting things," said Rover. "Last night he encountered an interesting thing at Shaw Cinema."

"Yesterday I went to "Southern Movie" to find my former colleagues to check the information, and have a party together in the evening and have some wine." Rover commented: "About 9 o'clock in the evening, when I came out of Shaw Brothers Cinema, I saw Uncle Six's villa in Qingshui Bay, and there was an ambulance..."

"Stop." Luo Weiming made a gesture, stopped Luo Fu, and said with a smile: "Boss Shen, guess what happened?"

"This is something to do with me?"

“Yes, it has a lot to do.”

"Since it's related to me." Chen Chong thought about it with interest and guessed: "Is it possible that a Shaw actress was shocked to death when she watched "Crazy Tribulation"?"

"It's because someone fainted, but it's not a female star, but an old man." Luo Weiming laughed and said, "Uncle Six's guest will definitely play the movie. I don't know why last night, so I played "Crazy Calamity", which scared Boss Wan, a famous real estate tycoon in Kowloon, to the point of having a heart attack."

"Take it seriously?" Chen Chong's eyes lit up and he asked hurriedly: "Are you okay?"

"It's okay," said Rover. "I asked for it. It's mild and only needs to be recuperated in the hospital for a few days."

"Who is this Boss Wan from?"

"He used to be a manager of Jardine Mahjong. During the Korean War, he made a fortune by smuggling supplies." Jiang Zhiqiang introduced: "Later, he bought a lot of shops in Kowloon, specializing in rent collection. He is known as the King of Kowloon Shop, and his net worth is estimated to be over 100 million."

"You know?"

"He has a property and rents it to someone to open a theater."

Jiang Zhiqiang's father is the president of the Hong Kong Theater Chamber of Commerce. He naturally knew him.

"Does anyone else know about this?" Chen Chong asked Rover: "I mean newspaper reporters."

"I probably don't know." Rover said uncertainly: "There is a lot of deserted place in Qingshui Bay except Shaw Cinema, and there are not many people at night."

"So that's it." Chen Chong tapped the table with his fingers, thought for a while, and said, "Manager Jiang, you will personally send Boss Wan a bouquet of flowers to express our apology in the name of the company."

"Boss, you're a little unkind." Luo Weiming said with a smile as if he was afraid that the world would be in chaos: "It's hard for those newspapers to give away this gift if you don't know."

"Will Uncle Six be unhappy to do this?" Jiang Zhiqiang was a little worried and said, "After all, it was something that happened in his villa."

"It's okay, Boss Six is ​​a businessman." Chen Chong made a move to twist money and said, "The more popular he is in "Crazy Job" is, the happier he is."

"Okay, I'll go now." Jiang Zhiqiang had a very strong execution ability and went as soon as he said he could.

"Uncle Six has picked up a treasure this time. He sits in the office every day, without doing anything, waiting to count the money." After Jiang Zhiqiang left, Luo Weiming sighed: "How come such a good opportunity hasn't fallen on me."

"If you have ten or eight theaters, your hands will get cramped if you count money." Chen Chong teased, then coughed lightly and said, "Let's talk about the serious business, what's going on in the last episode of "Movie Age"?"

"The sales volume in the last issue was 42,372 copies." Luo Weiming rubbed cigarettes, took out a stack of documents from his briefcase, and recited according to the book: "Sales increased by 8%, and the reader satisfaction score was 86 points. The highest sales area was Causeway Bay, followed by..."

Although the data is boring, Chen Chong listened very focusedly. With the increase in sales and expansion of influence of "Film Age", magazines and film companies have initially developed the ability to interact collaboratively and have the prototype of a three-dimensional media group.

"The above is the basic situation of the previous issue of the magazine." After Luo Weiming finished reporting, he closed the folders and said, "In short, the situation is very good."

"Thank you for your hard work, thank you for your hard work." Chen Chong praised a few words and said, "What about the plan for the next issue of the magazine?"

"You have already decided on the cover." Luo Weiming was also a big smoker and lit another cigarette, half envious and half emotion: "Since the magazine was founded, I have never used a director as a cover. It seems that Ann Hui is destined to be recorded in the history of Hong Kong films."

"We don't rely on celebrity faces to sell magazines." Chen Chong said: "We sell content."

"Boss Shen, don't you feel confident enough to say this?" Luo Weiming is a relatively free and easy person, not as serious as Jiang Zhiqiang. "Since our magazine was founded, Zhang Aijia, Zhao Yazhi, Jackie Chan, Hu Yinmeng, Di Long, and this issue of Michelle Michelle, who is not a star?"

"Except for the first two episodes, you decide the rest yourself." Chen Chong laughed awkwardly, and then asked: "Besides, with the current momentum of "Crazy Tribulation", Sister An as the cover, and maybe she sells more than those stars."

"That's right." Luo Weiming exclaimed and said: "When Li Hanxiang's "Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai" was released in Taiwan, there were thousands of people everywhere. Lingbo went to Taipei, and 100,000 people welcomed him. Therefore, Taipei was called the "Madman City". If "Madman City" continues to be a big hit, I think Hong Kong will become a Madman City."

"Impossible." Chen Chong waved his hand and said, "Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai" is a traditional Chinese folk story after all, and is well-known for everyone, suitable for both young and old. It can be released for several months. "Crazy Job" is a suspense film. It can be taken in a different way and cannot last long, and the box office will fall soon."

After chatting for a while, Luo Weiming complained: "Boss Shen, the premiere rating column is good, but it's really hard to do. We don't want to do some on-site investigations on the few movies to be released this weekend."

"I have no choice." Chen Chong was helpless about this. He thought for a long time but couldn't find a solution. "I can only give up and not build a midnight rating system, but change to a movie rating system. Starting from the next magazine, print a movie rating questionnaire."

"That's all."

Generally, premiere is held on weekends. "The Movie Age" is released on Monday. If the premiere score system can be well done, those shoddy movies will only have two days to harm the audience on weekends. Unfortunately, in the era without the Internet, if you want to do questionnaire ratings, you must go to the scene. If the film crew does not cooperate, there is no way. Although the underworld has not invaded the film industry as crazy as in the early 1990s, if you block the door of the theater and forcefully conduct a questionnaire, there is still a high possibility of conflict.

When a movie rating system is used, the timeliness is much worse. By the time the magazine is released next week, the movie may have been offline.

This is the biggest setback that Chen Chong has encountered since time traveling through time, breaking his dream of perfection...

"Movie Age" has been operating very maturely. There are not many places that Shen Chong needs to intervene. After talking for more than half an hour, Luo Weiming said goodbye and left.

Then only Rover was left in the conference room.

Rover came to Hong Kong from Guangzhou in the early 1970s and was admitted to Shaw Brothers Film Company as a dubbing company. Later, he went to Shaw Brothers' official magazine "Southern Movie" as an assistant editor. When Chen Chong reorganized the "Movie Biweekly", he needed a lot of fresh blood and dug him over.

It was not outstanding at first, but it was not until it was completed by Run Run Shaw's exclusive interview that it made a big splash and attracted Chen Chong's attention.

Rover grew up in the mainland when he was a teenager, so his thinking style is similar to Shen Chong. He has a deep-rooted idea of ​​"great unification". He is accustomed to looking at problems from the perspective of the entire Chinese cultural circle and his vision is wider than that of Hong Kong locals. So after chatting a few times, Shen Chong felt like a confidant. He took advantage of his great contribution and promoted him to the deputy editor-in-chief of "First Movie Review".

Editor-in-chief Shu Ming went to Taiwan to make an appointment. As the deputy editor-in-chief, Luo Fu thought that Chen Chong asked him to come and talked about the work of the magazine, so he began to take the initiative to report: "Mr. Chen, the first movie review has completed 80% of the content..."

"Rover, I asked you to come today, not to discuss magazine matters." Chen Chong interrupted his topic and said, "I want you..."

It happened that Chen Chong interrupted Rover's words. Secretary Qiu Siyu knocked on the door of the conference room and interrupted him: "Mr. Chen, there is a call from Michael Orwitz in Los Angeles."

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Note 1: Luo Weiming is a famous Hong Kong film critic and was once the editor-in-chief of "Movie Biweekly".
Chapter completed!