Divine Lucky Star
Chapter 676 - 675: A New Global Single-Day Box Office Record is Born!

Chapter 676: Chapter 675: A New Global Single-Day Box Office Record is Born!

Hong Tianjun was right.

In fact, for cinemas, while it was essential to guarantee schedules for newly-released films, there were no strict requirements for the timings. After all, no one wants to mess with money. With War Wolf being such a hit, buying one or two tickets to lock a screening wasn’t going to make anyone change their schedule, which would be quite unfair.

So, when Saturday night at eleven o’clock came around and the butler reported back to Bai Haochen with the cinema schedule, the scene looked something like this—

"Master," the perpetually stern British butler twitched his shoulders continuously, attempting to maintain a serious expression on his face yet struggling immensely, "the major cinemas have released tomorrow’s schedule. Currently, War Wolf’s scheduling ratio is at 66.9 percent, about ninety-five thousand screenings. Three Lives of Love is scheduled for twenty-five thousand screenings, which makes up 26.8 percent."

"Oh? That’s a pretty good schedule," Bai Haochen’s eyes lit up immediately upon hearing this number, "It seems we have a good chance of breaking the global single-day box office record tomorrow!"

As he said this, he suddenly looked at the butler with curiosity and asked, "The scheduling does seem terrific, but why do you look... hmm, has something funny happened?"

"That..." having completed his reporting duties, the butler, task finished, couldn’t hold himself back anymore, "Master, please take a look at the cinema schedules yourself, I’ll be returning to my room."

With that, he was off and running, emitting waves of laughter that could only be described as bizarre as he sprinted away!

What was going on?!

Bai Haochen, who was used to seeing grand spectacles, was utterly dumbfounded!

The old butler had worked for him for over a decade. What on earth could make him laugh like that?!

"All mysterious, telling me to check the schedule myself..." Bai Haochen, puzzled, opened his phone and randomly picked a nearby cinema to check—

Today’s schedule:

War Wolf, 52 screenings, 10:00, 10:20, 10:40, 11:00...22:40, 23:00.

Three Lives of Love, 18 screenings, 23:20, 23:20, 23:20...23:55...

Bai Haochen: "..."

The entire cinema’s schedule had allocated all the daytime and prime evening slots to War Wolf!

And poor Three Lives of Love was crammed into all the midnight slots!

"Hahahahahahaha!" A thunderous laugh erupted from the living room, and Bai Haochen couldn’t help but find the situation utterly hilarious! The fans of Three Lives of Love had caused such a ruckus to lock the sessions, but the cinemas were not pushovers either!

You want to lock the sessions! Well, lock this!

We’ve scheduled you for all midnight screenings; go ahead and lock those!

...

The following day, Sunday.

The retaliatory viewing spree began!

Starting from midnight, audiences began frantically booking daytime movie tickets!

Couples dragged their partners, single folks brought friends and family, and even the older men and women put a pause on their square dancing to head to the cinemas for a dose of 3D blockbuster awe...

But just half an hour in, War Wolf’s presales had already broken one hundred million!

In a world almost devoid of entertainment, the groundbreaking film War Wolf instantly ignited everyone’s passion!

Word of mouth spread, friends shared on social media, comments on microblogs...

That’s the era of self-media for you; when a work is good enough, just people spontaneously spreading the word can cause an explosion of popularity!

By ten o’clock in the morning, War Wolf’s presales officially broke two hundred million!

Every single screening was sold out! Even with such scheduling, good seats remained in high demand!

...

At Bai’s Film Industry, all the crew members sat in the large conference room, nervously watching the numbers displayed on the big screen.

Could War Wolf break the global single-day record of six hundred million today?

"Two hundred million! It’s at two hundred million now!" Zhao Zhenhao watched the box office stats intently; to be honest, he was very nervous.

After all, this was the first weekend since release, and if they didn’t break the record today, they’d never have another chance!

"We must, we must break it!" Fang Wenbin, usually a non-believer, clasped hands and closed his eyes in prayer, "Please let it break, Reicome Heavenly Venerate, Amen Jesus, all gods bless us!"

Everyone sat there, eyes glued to the screen without blinking.

The box office figures for War Wolf updated every five seconds, and with each jump, the numbers surged by hundreds of thousands!

But after eleven o’clock, something strange happened—the box office figures for War Wolf on the website stopped updating!

"What the hell?" Ren Xing’s eyeballs nearly popped out, "Why has the box office stopped moving?!"

"Yeah, why isn’t it changing?" Zhao Zhenhao immediately instructed the staff, "Is the computer frozen? Restart it!"

The employees hurriedly restarted the computer, but although everything else worked fine, the website just wouldn’t open!

"Could it be that their website has crashed?" The crowd murmured, "What’s going on?" "Why hasn’t it refreshed yet?" "How much is the box office now?" "I’m dying of suspense!"

Just as everyone was getting anxious, someone shouted, "There’s an update on social media, I’ll read it to you!"

The room quieted down, and the person read out, "Hello everyone, this is Zhang Jianshu, president of the box office reporting. I’m sorry to inform you that due to the overload of visitors, our server has crashed. We are currently unable to calculate the exact box office figures."

Zhao Zhenhao: "..."

Fang Wenbin: "..."

Other watermelon-eating crew members: "..."

Motherfucker! The box office site is so busy it’s inaccessible! Could this be any more dreamlike?!

"Switch! Quickly, switch to another one!" Zhao Zhenhao roared, "If Maoyan’s down, switch to another site. We must keep an eye on this continuously!"

"Right away, Mr. Zhao!" With sweat pouring down their brows, the staff closed the Maoyan box office site and opened another one, "We can check here too. The current box office for ’War Wolf’ is..." The staffer glanced at the numbers and was utterly stunned, "It’s already 350 million!"

million!

The box office had reached 350 million by noon!

Such an exaggerated figure dropped everyone’s jaws!

"Oh my God!" Zhao Zhenhao took a deep breath, feeling like his heart was about to leap out, "It’s only noon and we’ve hit 350 million! With the past six days added, that’s 2.4 billion for the week till now!"

"It’s a miracle! This is downright a miracle!" Fang Wenbin sharply inhaled, "Old Zhao, if I recall correctly... we, uh... we all hold shares, right?"

"We struck gold! Struck gold!" Even for a Zhao family heir whose family fortune exceeded a hundred billion, Zhao Zhenhao found it all surreal!

A film shot in less than four months had earned 2.4 billion in box office revenue in one week, and it wasn’t over yet. If everything went as expected, by midnight the revenue for the week would...

"Look! It’s stuck again!"

Someone exclaimed, "The site must be jammed again, right?!"

As everyone tensed up, the website crashed again! Damn it, switch again!

Switching to the third site, everyone watched anxiously.

Especially the other crew members, who wouldn’t blink an eye.

It was too exhilarating, too thrilling, like watching money rise non-stop!

Jumping hundreds of thousands every five seconds! Hundreds of thousands! Do you understand what that means? Many people work for years to earn that much!

"400 million! It’s 400 million now!" By two in the afternoon, the single-day box office for ’War Wolf’ officially broke 400 million, and the momentum hadn’t stopped!

The whole Heavenly People’s Republic went totally insane!

From the ten o’clock morning showing to the two o’clock in the afternoon, the box office officially surpassed the 400 million threshold!

Everyone lost it!

Inside the box office forums, countless people were eyeing ’War Wolf’s’ revenue, continuously live-posting—

"420 million, it’s 420 million now!"

"Holy shit, this speed is unbeatable! Incredible! It’s heading straight for breaking records!"

"Guys, let’s push harder. If you can, go watch it one more time!"

"I’ve already booked my afternoon ticket. As a ’spiritual shareholder’, how can I not support Brother Hao? Third watch, here I come, hoping Brother Hao brings us even better works!"

"Right, right, right. The public’s eyes are sharp. As long as Brother Hao delivers good works, we’ll fully support him!"

On Weibo, topics discussing ’War Wolf’ occupied the top three trending spots, with almost everyone knowing about a young man who made a film that had taken the whole country by storm.

"Is this not the dominance of Brother Hao?!"

"Absolutely crushing it, damn impressive!"

The entire internet was buzzing with discussion on the topic, and just at that moment, Wang Hao, having nothing else to do and not waking up until noon, leisurely strolled into Bai’s Film Industry’s conference room...

"What are all of you doing?" Wang Hao asked curiously, "Why is it so quiet?"

"You’re asking why it’s so quiet!" Fang Wenbin burst out, grabbing Wang Hao’s throat fiercely, "Why are you only just arriving? Today is the last day we have a chance to break the global box office record. Don’t you care at all?"

"Cough, cough, cough, ease up, will you? Ease up!" Wang Hao’s face turned red from the choking, "Isn’t the answer obvious? Of course we’re going to break it. You underestimate the power of your Brother Hao, huh!"

That’s a hundred out of a hundred for bluster!

Twenty-five billion in a week, whatever you say goes!

"Brother Hao," Zhao Zhenhao tentatively asked, "what do you think today’s box office will be?"

"What do I think..." Wang Hao stroked his chin thoughtfully, then said, "Judging by my sense for the data, I think today’s box office should be around 700 million. That’s probably about right."

Everybody glanced around at one another... 700 million? Really 700 million?!

That would be a whole billion renminbi more than the current global number one! Oh my God! Could such a miracle really happen?!

Everyone’s heart was lifted by Wang Hao’s words.

But then, when eleven at night rolled around, everyone looked at the number displayed on the big screen and in unison, took a sharp breath!

’War Wolf’ daily box office: 735.26 million!

million!

A new global single-day box office record was born!