Well, C-ent is calling this strike 2 for C-actress Yang Mi, and going so far as to say that if her upcoming big budget xianxia C-drama Fox Spirit Matchmaker: Red Moon Pact is a flop then she will officially be stricken from the top four drama flowers perch. Strike 1 was the mediocre ratings and acting criticism last month in the spy period drama In the Name of the Brother, and now she’s facing an even bigger flop on a bigger stage. May 1 is a big holiday in China being their Labor Day with many people off and going out and to the movies. So a lot of movies was released on or around May 1 and the comedy mystery movie Nothing Can’t be Undone by a Hotpot starring Yang Mi was released then. It’s gotten such low box office sales that on May 5th the production officially announced that it was pulling the movie from theaters, claiming external circumstances that were not optimal led to the poor showing and would re-release the movie at a later time. In 5 days it’s made USD $7M which is woefully, and compared to the number 1 movie in theaters in China right now Formed Police Unit which has made $51M USD in the same amount of days.
Am not yang mi fan by any means but I find it ridiculous how fans feels an actor should be removed from the top position just because they have had a few failed projects.Not every actor can create hit after hit but it doesn’t mean they will never have a hit project going forward, we leave that to time.
Same. Is there an actor in the c-entertainment business who has been around this long who hasn’t had some commercial failures after reaching popularity? (and of course, if there are no failures, people will attribute that to the actors/actresses’ PR machine)
Even in the korean entertainment business, Kim Soo-hyun is probably the only one, though he did have that one weird movie.
Where are her fans,why don’t they go to the theater?surely if each of her followers on weibo watch her movie it won’t have such abysmal ticket sales
Because most of these people don’t have nearly as many fans as they would like you to think. Take Cheng Yi. He buys over twenty million likes for his endorsements on Weibo. So why does he have so few brands and why don’t they last? Because it is all water. It’s also why he doesn’t have serious drama or movie offers as an ML. It’s not real. Many many other examples like that.
But how do people (you) find out how many likes are bought? Like, for example, you named a specific 20,000,000 likes were bought. Where did you get this info? I’m seriously curious about this absolute accounting of fact that many people on this site could site. Is there a webpage I could go and see that these likes were bought?
@Gennita You can check it on weibo app itself. You click into the post, go to the likes and you can see the accounts that had liked the post from there. For the posts that had bought likes, you will see that the likes are from empty accounts and those empty accounts’ usernames are usually made up of gibberish numbers, have no profile pic or follow certain naming patterns like “cat0001”, “cat0002”, “cat0003” etc.
People also take reference from the celebrity’s usual number of likes on other posts, if the celebrity usually gets 50k likes for his/her everyday random posts, but suddenly gets 1m likes on his endorsement posts? That’s bound to be water.
@Lilith
Ah, robot accounts calculation. Thank you for explaining !
The so called fans are busy scolding the director, the screen writer and fans of other actress, pointing that the actress actually stop people from going to cinema or that actress direct the cinema to fix a small amount of screening for this movie. All those conspiracy theories.
And she has like the most followers on Weibo too.
I dont understand the production team thought process. They want to re release a movie that was already released for 5 days and already performed abysmally in the theatres amidst bad reviews? How is that going to make the ticket sales increase if re released later? I have never heard of this strategy before and I am genuine in wanting to know how serious they are about that statement.
They are waiting for her new hot drama to be released they may think if she becomes a hot topic, ppl will go and watch the movie, wishful thinking
Indeed wishful thinking… a hot drama won’t suddenly turn a turd movie into a gem. I am indifferent to Yang Mi but this situation makes me feel sorry for her. I understand how cut throat this business is, but this is embarrassing on many levels.
A few movies pulled out from competitive release dates this year. For New Years, The Movie Emperor, Viva La Vida and an animated film all pulled out for a later release date after around 5 days in theaters too. They were able to earn more money that way because theater showings are really competitive during the holiday season. And the general public usually want blockbusters for summers rather than movies like these.
OK, so that means that the Wang Yibo/Johnny Huang blackface film is a blockbuster. When I mentioned under that post that racism is prevalent in all societies, many of which don’t have unfortunately our sensitivity about it, a couple of you got your knickers in a twist calling me a Wang Yibo apologist or whatever (as if I couldn’t be a Jonny Huang apologist 😅😅). Stop getting blinded by obsession for or against whatever idol, open your eyes and do something about the real problem that is racism in ALL societies, be they (random countries mentioned) the US, China, Russia,Nigeria or Saudi Arabia. Whoever thinks that an actor, director or film producer is racist for using blackface but ignores that the target audience actually finds this ok is an idiot that can’t see beyond the “my fave is better than your fave” logic.
Well this comment is kind of idiotic because Formed Police Unit is a blockbuster because of the actors, how it’s promoted, and most importantly, budget. But for that kind of film, it needs to make a lot more money in order to break even or be considered a box office hit. If it ends up making less than 100 million, it might still be considered a box office bomb, regardless of whether or not the intended audience found the blackface scene problematic.
Indeed, but 51 million (assuming it is USD) still is a very strong opening (better than Fall Guy !🤣🤣🤣🤣).
I see it now that you mentioned it, so formed police unit is actually number 1? Despite being blatantly racist? Have the production, actors and whoever come out to apologize or explain why they thought blackface infusion would be a harmless inclusion to the story? The crusaders calling this strike 2 and being preoccupied with dethroning her, if that level of energy was directed into calling out the racism in formed police unit, wouldn’t the world be a better place? But no, classic example of misplaced priorities.
It’s number 1 for this May period till today but won’t be for any longer. Formed Police Unit played dirty by hogging up a large bulk of the screening timeslots, especially prime ones. So when someone wants to watch a movie in the afternoon, they will see that most other movies only have limited timeslots that may be inconvenient for them to watch while FPU is widely available. But the market speaks for itself, FPU’s screens are very very empty while other movies’ are decently filled up.
While I completely agree with you that racism is prevalent in all societies, I don’t think calling out racism when you see it has anything to fo with the “my fave is better that your fave” logic. In fact, calling out racism may actually bring some attention to this issue. Yes, racism is everywhere and yes, it’s not easy to make a country who doesn’t care actually pay attention, but no it doesn’t mean that you should keep silent when you see racism.
Hello Aya, my initial post was trying to explain that racism is everywhere and unfortunately some societies are not as sensible as they should be. If this was a US film, there would be a riot, now it is a Chinese people in movie theater basically laugh about it.
From this post, some users here deduced I am a Wang Yibo fan trying to absolve him. Them there were others bringing up how Xiao Zhan has allegedly made racist comments before. And then those people completely lost the whole meaning of that discussion and embarked on a “my fave is better than yours” logic – this is what I am saying here now. And I do find it very sad that people are ready to harshly condemn racism if it involves a star they love (or hate, as the case is here for Wang Yibo) but don’t give a sh# otherwise.
@Nene
Nah, you are just washing your racist fave Wang Yibo as you always do.
But, but all these other things is such a kindergarten way of trying to divert the attention from the actual issue.
The issue being that Wang Yibo is a proven racist for years and you are just going to have to cope that you stan a racist. It’s not going away now no matter how many times you cry about other people. And oh hey, you mentioned Xiao Zhan just like all Wang Yibo fans. Congratulations on the bingo card
Wang Yibo is a racist. And you are worse because you are trying to water it down.
@Nene
It was number one for two days because Bona film reserved many more theaters this blocking the competition.
As soon as they stopped, the movie fell sharp.
Pity for your fave racist and his awful movie. Not pity for the rest of us who despise the likes of you and him. Keep defending racists!
I am afraid you lack fundamental reading comprehension skills.
@Nena, let’s be honest! Are you a WYB fan or not? Whether you are, I didn’t see any favoritism of WYB in your comments per your arguments alone. You made legit points that many ppl should take heed of. Nonetheless, if you are a WYB fan, then I’d question your motive to make such statements, as everyone else wonders if you’re just making excuses for him by diverting attention.
The worst defensive trick always goes like this: Well, others also have the same issues or whatnot blah blah blah blah and therefor, we can cut slack on this particular one.
LOL.
Another WYB fan stupidly dragged Xiao Zhan into this type of defense in the other thread. Therefor, all her arguments lost credibility. I hope you’re not like that.
Regardless of what has happened elsewhere around the world, the level of ignorance (if not from malicious intention) in this blackface incident about WYB’s movie alone is something to disapprove of, no matter how you like WYB or not. If any other celebrities do similar stupid acts, they should also be called out and criticized.
@Somebody, to be honest with you I really don’t understand how anything I said could be interpreted as me being a Wang Yibo fan. My point was that racism is prevalent in all societies, and I used the blackface thing in this film as evidence of that. But I guess this guy has some real haters who are ready to hate all those that don’t run to get their pitchforks and stab him.
The only C-actor of which I could call myself a fan is Xiao Zhan. I have a soft spot for some others too, but Wang Yibo is not one of them – neither is Johnny Huang that everyone here overlooks!
@Nene
You, a Xiao Zhan fan? You who always denigrate his accomplishments? Ah I don’t think I have read anything as funny in years. Thank you for the laughs.
Good old Wang Yibo fans. Always the same. Claim to be XZ fans. Then defend WYB with all your might while you constantly work hard on attacking XZ.
And see, another classic WYB fan diversion. He has haters, poor woobie. Oh yes, pointing out his repeated blackface and racism is always hating to you.
Can her face not move anymore? Everyone is so expressive in the poster and she alone has a stiff expression. I noticed she’s not emoting much in ‘In the Name of the Brother’ either.
She’s not the only person involved in making this movie, so why is she the only one being called out for it being a flop?
If it’s a bad movie, it’s a bad movie. She would not have been able to save it even if she was some amazing actress.
You’re right, there’s so many factors in the success of a movie, director, writer, crew, word of mouth, support from the industry for release dates and number of screenings. However, actors tend to get credit if a movie is successful so they also get blamed if it flops. It’s because their fans make a big deal out of their favs being the draw for these movies. The movie’s marketing team probably thinks the same. They think that as long as so and so is in the movie, fans will pay to watch the movie and will earn them big money. When in reality, it’s been proven again and again that having a lot of fans does not guarantee a film’s box office. This also brings to light the topic of billing, all these actors/fans refuse to work on a project if they’re not first billing, but that also means they would have to bear the consequences when the project doesn’t perform well (this is more common in dramas than movies), but with the recent Article 20 drama, it seems like movies also have the similar issues.
It seems people are getting tired of seeing Yang Mi.
Simply put, she brings no life to her acting. At some point, which is now, people will notice and won’t have any interest to watch her. I can’t watch her tbh. She has that dead fish eyes staring at you while her mouth is moving. Totally weird and uncomfortable to watch.
I felt that while watching her for a long time although I was never a fan, she always had that look on her face but was overlooked. That’s why in Eternal Love, I didn’t like both of the leads, but Mark Chao was a pleasant surprise in there.