自买自销 票房有假？

Every film company wants to make hits, but not every one of them is ready to engage in marketing and sales maneuvers so outlandish many deem them barely legal.

Fighting is a boxing movie set in the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression (1937-45). It stars a pair of newly beefed-up young male actors, which is said to have special appeal to female fans, especially when they take off their shirts and reveal their washboard abs.

However, what raised eyebrows is not the hunky torsos, but the way this movie has been filling seats and winning media attention. Before it opened on March 21, its production company Daohe Group predicted it would sell 1.3 billion yuan ($210 million) of tickets, making it the No 1 Chinese movie in box-office receipts. It was based on the presale of 4.5 million tickets, which, at an average price of 35 yuan, would amount to 150 million yuan already.

The media soon found out that the sold-out shows were all due to institutional buyers. There were people buying up large blocks of tickets, yet according to some media reports the actual attendance rate was quite low. This was manifested in a sampling of seat charts of movie theaters that show most seats were sold and accompanying photographs of the exact same venues right before the room went dark, showing only a few seats being occupied.

Similar situations arose when government entities bought tickets to certain government-endorsed or government-invested movies and gave them to employees as perks. But such practices are becoming less and less common as they come under fire for misusing taxpayer money. Instead, businesses may purchase memberships or prepaid cards, but employees can choose which movies they would like to see. This is one reason year-end releases attract crowds, because many of these cards and memberships expire by the end of December and holders have to use them up.

If Daohe, the production company, was driving up sales to give the false impression of the movie's popularity, it might not be illegal, said a regulator, because it did not use a pyramid scheme. However, an executive of Inlook Vision, the distribution company, was reportedly "taken away for questioning by authorities" who wanted to probe into the matter more deeply.

It is known across the world that some businesses temporarily become their own consumers so their products make the top-selling charts, which, in turn, arouses wider interest and generates real sales down the road.

It was not the first time a Chinese film company has been suspected of using sales as marketing. Daohe was extreme only in the amount spent. But it was soon discovered that the figure for presales was exaggerated. The real number was around 1 million tickets, not 4.5 million, but still a substantial amount if translated into a marketing budget.

Most unorthodox was the way the company distributed the tickets it bought. First, it reminded its employees to treat their account contacts, family members and friends to the movie, saying this was a means to boost corporate culture.

In corporate memos obtained by the media, there were detailed instructions about the cameo appearances of its executives and how employees should artfully praise the movie－but not too much lest they sound conceited. Funny thing, the movie is a period piece with no ostensible link to the company or its products. On a certain level it seems it was being used as a corporate video to build customer relations and employee cohesion.

Then came the really dubious part. Daohe made the movie under a subsidiary and the parent company is reported to be engaged in selling so-called ecological products in a multilevel marketing arrangement.

Members are required to spend tens of thousands of yuan to be admitted into various levels of membership and sell the products further downstream. For example, someone who buys 55,000 yuan worth of its "ecological bedding" can qualify for 300 tickets to Fighting.

Mind you, they get the movie tickets for free, which theoretically they should give as a fringe benefit to those who buy the bedding from them. The lowest membership costs 32,000 yuan, but if you can enroll 12 people to join, you'll become a diamond member. And you'll get 10,000 yuan on top of that when you recruit three more members. So, the complimentary tickets seem to figure in nicely with this complicated game plan even though the plot of the movie has little to do with the business.

One diamond member said he had seen the film many times but he is going to see it many more when he takes members he recruited to future screenings. "If I do well, I'll have a chance to be selected for appearing in future movies produced by the company," he disclosed in an elated voice.

Yu Junhao, director of Fighting, admitted that there were indeed block bookings by the production company, but the whole scandal was hatched by competitors who tried to "denigrate it as a pyramid-scheme film", he insisted.

Fighting yielded a box-office gross of 13.4 million yuan in its first day of release and 42 million yuan in its first four days. When the self-purchased part－around 35 million－is discounted, that left only a few ticket-buyers who paid out of their own pockets.

When I first started to research China's film industry a decade ago, I was told by insiders that showbiz attracted all kinds of money and shady deals. People do not pursue profits in the movie industry as they would with less glamorous ventures, they maintained. One-third of investors or producers were in it for money laundering, and a second third for "meeting beautiful chicks", said some, and that left only one-third for the purpose of making movies.

Of course that claim was impossible to corroborate on a mathematical basis, but it was evident that many got into making movies for purposes other than what they would admit. That is also true of Hollywood, which used to attract investors who were in the game mainly for tax reasons. In the classic comedy The Producers, a pair of Broadway producers designed a technique by which they could profit from a surefire flop.

When people in a for-profit business do not intend to make money, it usually wreaks havoc with the whole industry. The rational way is to turn out quality products and bring in a healthy profit.

每个电影公司都想大获成功，一鸣惊人。但并不是每个电影公司都愿意采用许多人认为不合法的、荒诞的营销和销售策略。

《英雄之战》是一部以中国抗日战争（1937-45）为背景的拳击擂台赛电影。两位年轻男演员以新硬汉形象担任主角，据说特别吸引女粉丝，尤其是当他们脱下衬衫，显露强健腹肌的时候。

然而，令人侧目的不是演员健美的身材，而是这部电影票房得以大卖和赢得媒体关注的手段。在3月21日上映前，该影片制作公司道和集团预计其票房将达到13亿人民币（2.1亿美元），在中国电影票房收入中排位第一。该影片预售人次达450万，按照每张票35元的平均票价计算，影片上映前票房就已经达到约1.5亿元。

媒体马上就发现电影票销售一空是因为团体购票。尽管有人购买大量的票，但根据一些媒体报道，实际观影人数却很少。这结论来自于对电影院坐席表的一次抽样调查。该调查显示，大部分坐席都已售出。然而，对抽样中同一观影厅在影片开始播放后所拍的照片却显示，仅有一些坐席有人。

类似的情况也发生于政府单位中，他们购买某些由政府支持或投资影片的电影票，并将其送给员工作为额外津贴。但这样的行为越来越鲜见了，因为政府官员会因滥用纳税人的钱而受罚。相反，企业则会购买会员卡或是充值卡，但员工可以选择自己想看的电影。大多数充值卡或是会员卡的截止日期都在12月，持卡人不得不在到期前刷完卡内金额，这就是年末的电影吸引大批观影者的原因之一。

一位管理者说，该片制作公司道和集团推高票房，制造电影大卖的虚假宣传，可能并不违法。因为该公司并未使用非法传销手段。然而，据报道，该片发行方银润影业的副总已被有关部门带走问话，作进一步调查。

众所周知，一些企业暂时采用自产自销的模式，将其产品推向热销榜单。反过来，这也引起大众的广泛关注，带动了真正的销量。

中国的电影公司被怀疑利用销量作为市场推广手段的情形也不是第一次了。只是道和集团对此的投资尤为大手笔。但是媒体很快就发现片方夸大了预售票房，真正的预售票房是大约100万张，而不是450万张。但如果作为营销预算，这仍然是一笔庞大的资金数额。

最另类的是该公司分配其已购电影票的方式。首先，公司提醒其员工邀请熟人、家人和朋友去看电影，并称这是提升企业文化的一种方式。

在媒体获得的该公司备忘录中，记录了公司高管们友情客串的详细说明以及员工该如何巧妙地称赞这部电影—不能过分称赞以免听起来太自以为是。可笑的是，该部影片是一部与公司或公司产品没有显著联系的作品。但它却在某种程度上，被用作建立客户关系，增强员工凝聚力的企业宣传视频。

真正可疑的是，该电影由道和集团的子公司制作。据报道称，其总公司参与所谓“生态产品”的多层次销售工作。

人们需要花上万元才能成为不同等级的会员并且向产业下游销售产品。例如，某人买了其价值5000元的“生态养生包”，才有资格获得300张《英雄之战》的电影票。

需要提醒你的是，他们可以免费得到电影票。而理论上，该公司应该把电影票作为附带福利送给那些购买“生态养生包”的人。成为最低一级的会员需要花32000元，但是如果你能够招募12个会员，你就可以升级为钻石会员。如果你在此基础上又招募了3个会员，你就可以获得10000元。所以，虽然电影的情节和商业没有关系，但赠票的做法似乎很好地配合完成了这个复杂的商业计划。

一位钻石会员说，这部电影他已经看了很多遍，但是他还得继续看，因为他要带他招募的会员去看接下来放映的场次。他兴奋地说：“如果我干好了，我就有机会出现在公司以后制作的电影里。

《英雄之战》的导演虞军豪承认制作公司确实进行了团体购票。但他坚称整个丑闻是由同行竞争者一手策划的，他们称该影片是非法传销，试图诋毁该电影。

《英雄之战》在上映第一天就斩获了1340万元票房，上映头四天票房达到4200万元。扣除其自销部分的3500万票房后，只有很少购票者是自掏腰包购买电影票。

10年前，当我刚开始研究中国的电影行业时，圈内人就告诉我娱乐界吸引各种金钱和非法交易。他们认为，比起电影业，人们更愿意在那些相对没有那么耀眼、风险也更小的行业里追逐利润。有三分之一的投资者或制片人投身电影业是为了洗钱；一些人说，另外三分之一是为了“勾搭美女”；仅有三分之一是出于拍电影的目的而进入这一行。

当然不可能有确凿的证据来证实这一断言。但是很明显，许多人拍电影的目的并不是他们所承认的那样。好莱坞也是如此，好莱坞过去吸引的投资者主要是因为税收原因才进入这一行。在经典的喜剧片《金牌制片人》中，两个百老汇制片人想出了一个敛财办法，即通过排演一部拙劣至极的失败剧目而获得巨大收益。

当人们在盈利性行业内不想赚钱时，这通常会扰乱整个行业。一个合理的做法是生产出优质产品，并且带来健康的收益。