Chapter 938
, "All or Nothing," is now available.
September 1st, midnight.
The servers of Douyin's "Galaxy Theater" were under full load an hour before the broadcast started.
The technical team urgently added capacity three times before they could barely handle the surge in traffic.
Back-end data shows that the number of users who pre-registered for "All or Nothing" tripled in the last 24 hours, jumping from three million to nine million.
Zhou Qing stared at the steep growth curve, her palms sweating profusely.
She had been in the publishing industry for eight years and had never seen anything like this before—no big stars, no roadshows, no overwhelming bombardment of materials, just the true stories of seventeen survivors and a divine song written by AI.
Nine million reservations—what does that mean?
This means that at least nine million people had already decided to spend three yuan even before the movie was released.
It wasn't impulsive buying, nor was it being swayed by marketing; they genuinely wanted to see it.
Midnight.
The playback page for "All or Nothing" lit up on time in Douyin's "Galaxy Theater".
There are no intro ads, no member-only content, and no "five-minute preview".
It only costs three yuan; just click to watch.
The paid data in the backend surged upwards at a terrifying speed, like a lit fuse.
The first paying user appeared three seconds after midnight.
The first payment of 10,000 appeared at 12:47.
The first 100,000 paid subscriptions appeared eight minutes after midnight.
The first 500,000 paid subscriptions appeared 43 minutes past midnight.
Zhou Qing stared at the large real-time data screen, her lips dry.
She knew it would explode, but she didn't expect it to explode so quickly.
A payment of one million popped up at 1:12 AM.
When the number on the big screen stopped at "10,000,00", the conference room was quiet for a few seconds, and then applause and cheers erupted.
Zhou Qing didn't cheer; she just stared at the number, her eyes stinging with tears.
A payment of one million only amounts to three million, which is not much at all.
However, what excites them so much is the sheer scale of the paid subscriptions.
If it were a regular ticket price, that would be 60 million in box office revenue.
How long has it been?
This paid subscription amount represents consumers' support for the film and their trust in Galaxy Entertainment, which is the most important thing.
And this number is still rising.
By daybreak, "All for the Winner" had surpassed 1.5 million paid subscribers and grossed nearly 5 million at the box office.
Zhou Qing stayed up all night, her eyes were bloodshot, but she was as excited as if she had drunk eight cups of coffee.
She sent Guo Xing a message: "Mr. Guo, we've broken the record."
Guo Xing replied instantly: "I know, keep an eye on it."
Zhou Qing stared at the short reply on the screen and suddenly smiled.
She recalled how, just a month ago, she had doubted whether this path was even viable, but now she knew—it was viable, and she was progressing faster than anyone had imagined.
In the comments section, those who watched the movie in the early hours of the morning left behind messages that were still warm with emotion, as if they had just been pulled out of the water.
"After watching it, I sat on the bed in my rented room, staring at the ceiling for a long time. The young man who was tricked into going to the park was from the same county as me, and we even had the same accent. His family is still looking for him, and his mother is almost blind from crying. I don't know if he's still alive, but I know that this movie will definitely help reduce the number of people who fall for it."
“I forwarded the link to the family group. This is what parents should see. It was worth the three yuan.”
"As an anti-fraud professional, I've seen far too many cases like this. Some people have been scammed out of hundreds of thousands of yuan, which is their life savings. Others have been lured abroad and returned as completely different people. It's really a good thing that there's a movie like this!"
"Lin Xiaoyu's story made me cry non-stop. She said, 'The suffering I've endured can become a light to illuminate others.' She did it, and I want to do something too, even if it's just forwarding this comment so that more people can see it."
"Three yuan, the price of a breakfast. But these three yuan were worth more than any breakfast, because it wasn't just about buying a movie ticket; it made me feel like I was a part of it."
"Before watching it, I thought it was a melodrama, but after watching it, I realized it was a battle film. It's not about fighting against con artists, but about fighting against the part of yourself that thinks, 'This kind of thing will never happen to me.'"
"When the theme song started playing, I was trembling all over. Jingwei filling the sea wasn't filling the sea, but filling the lives that had been stolen away. Each of us can be Jingwei, even if we can only pick up a single pebble."
At 9:00 AM, the number of paying users exceeded two million.
At noon, the number of paying users exceeded three million.
At 6 PM, the number of paying users exceeded four million.
In one day, nearly five million people spent three yuan to watch a movie that had no big stars, no roadshows, and no theatrical screenings.
This number is like a meteorite crashing into the domestic film industry.
The cinemas were the first to get restless.
Old Sun, the head of the southwest region of a certain company, lashed out in the industry group, his tone barely concealing his anger: "This is taking away the livelihood of cinemas. Who will go to the cinema in the future? Just watch it on your phone for three yuan, cheaper than a bus fare. Cinemas have invested billions in building theaters, and they're just going to be brought down by a mobile phone?"
Some echoed, "It's not that we're against the new model, but there has to be some rules. If movies aren't shown in theaters, how will theaters make money? How will the millions of people working in the industry make money?"
Some people calmly analyzed: "The Douyin model is unsustainable. The reason why 'All In' became a hit was because of its special subject matter and the social sentiment it resonated with. Try making an ordinary commercial film instead? Can it break even with three yuan? Can it cover the production costs?"
But most people remain silent.
After all, this is a movie produced by Galaxy Entertainment Group, which is backed by Galaxy Technologies. They can't afford to offend them.
Now that Galaxy Entertainment has stopped working with them and opened its own new venue, which is thriving, they really don't have many good options. However, even so, dissenting voices are still emerging from within the industry.
First, several accounts claiming to be "film industry professionals" posted long articles on Weibo, each with a more sensational title than the last.
"A Three-Yuan Movie Ticket: A Devastating Blow to the Film Industry"
When Movies Become Subservient to Short Videos
Galaxy Entertainment is killing movies.
The core arguments of the articles are largely the same: film is an art form and should be viewed in theaters on the big screen. Movies on mobile screens aren't films; they're long-form videos. Galaxy Entertainment's pricing of three yuan has driven the value of film to rock bottom, mortgaging the future of the entire industry. If audiences get used to paying three yuan to see a movie, who will be willing to pay thirty yuan to go to the cinema? Once this model becomes mainstream, the artistic value of film will be completely destroyed, turning it into a fast-moving consumer good on streaming platforms.
Zhou Qing read through these articles one by one, her brows furrowing deeper and deeper.
She knew these rhetoric tactics—they weren't based on artistic merit, but on self-interest.
Their concern is not that "the artistic merit of the film will be undermined," but that "profits will be undermined."
In the traditional film industry chain, each link—cinemas, distributors, producers, and investors—has a fixed profit-sharing model.
If a movie makes money, everyone shares it proportionally.
Now Galaxy Entertainment skips all the intermediaries and delivers the movie directly to the audience, donating all three dollars.
This model excludes cinemas, distributors, and those who make a living through intermediaries, so of course they will oppose it.
It's not that I'm against the three yuan, it's that I'm against being bypassed.
More intense opposition came from the financial sector.
A statement made privately by Lao Zheng, a partner at a well-known film investment firm, has been leaked: "Galaxy Entertainment is going to flip the table. A movie costs three yuan, and they donate the whole amount. What do you call that? This is using the logic of charity to do business, and using public welfare pricing to dominate the market. How can others play this game? If you follow suit, you'll lose money. If you don't, the audience will vote with their feet. This isn't innovation; it's dumping, it's public welfare dumping."
The words were harsh, but they struck a nerve with many people.
No one knows the exact cost of "All or Nothing," but industry estimates put it at around 100 million.
With a budget of 100 million, it would need at least 300 million in box office revenue to break even if it were released in theaters.
Now Galaxy Entertainment Group is not operating through cinemas. Tickets are priced at three yuan each, and all of them are donated, which is equivalent to directly investing 100 million yuan in charity.
This amount of money is nothing to Galaxy Technology. Changqing Liquid has hundreds of billions of yuan in profits every year, the lithography factory has orders booked for three years in advance, and the production capacity of Xuanwu Battery is still expanding wildly.
One hundred million is just a number to Wang Donglai, but for other film companies, one hundred million represents the entire fortune of a mid-budget film.
Galaxy Entertainment may not care about money, but they can't afford not to.
At 8 p.m., another piece of news completely shocked the industry.
Douyin officially announced that "Galaxy Theater" will be operated regularly, with at least one exclusive piece of content launched every month, covering multiple categories such as movies, documentaries, and short dramas. The pricing strategy will continue the model of "All or Nothing" - low-price payment, with most of the revenue going to charity or being distributed to creators.
This means that "All or Nothing" is not a one-off attempt, but a long-term strategy.
Douyin aims to build its own paid content ecosystem, with Galaxy Entertainment as its core content provider, while traditional cinemas and distributors are not part of this ecosystem.
After the news broke, cinema stocks collectively fell.
The stock price of a well-known cinema chain fell by a few points that day, and another one also fell by a few points.
The capital markets' reaction was more honest than any industry statement—they are not optimistic about the future of cinemas.
On Zhihu, a question titled "How do you view Galaxy Entertainment skipping theatrical releases and launching 'All In' on Douyin to great success?" topped the trending list, with over 5,000 answers in just a few hours.
The top-rated answer came from a user verified as a "film industry professional," written calmly and incisively:
"To put it simply: this is a paradigm shift in film distribution history, no less significant than Netflix's transition from DVD rental to streaming. The difference is that Netflix revolutionized Blockbuster, while Galaxy Entertainment revolutionized the entire traditional distribution system."
"Why do I say that? Traditional film distribution is a multi-layered, high-cost, and inefficient system. From production to reaching the audience, a film goes through four levels: the production company, the distributor, the theater chain, and the theater. Each level takes a share of the revenue. What is the result? The result is that the audience spends thirty yuan on a ticket, but the production company may only receive ten yuan. This system has been running for the past few decades, not because it is efficient, but because there is no better alternative."
"Things have changed now. Douyin has a massive user base, precise distribution capabilities, and a mature payment system. Galaxy Entertainment has content production capabilities, a keen awareness of social issues, and the confidence to not care about short-term profits. The combination of the two delivers movies directly from the set to the audience's mobile phone. All the intermediate links are cut, and for three yuan, the production company takes the lion's share, while the audience benefits. The core competitiveness of this model is not 'cheap,' but 'efficient.' Cheapness is just a result of efficiency."
"Of course, this model cannot be applied to all movies. Visual blockbusters require IMAX, Dolby Atmos, and an immersive viewing experience, which mobile phone screens cannot provide. But the question is, out of the hundreds of movies released each year, how many truly need a big screen? Ten? Twenty? For the remaining dramas, art films, and documentaries, is there really such a big difference for most viewers between watching them on a mobile phone and on a big screen? When all these 'movies that don't need a big screen' move online, what will be left for theaters? Only ten or twenty blockbusters. And the number of blockbusters cannot support the current massive scale of theaters."
"So, what Galaxy Entertainment is doing isn't 'stealing business from theater chains,' but 'redefining what movies should be shown in theaters.' This power of definition used to be in the hands of theater chains, who used screening schedules to decide which movies could survive. Now, the power of definition has returned to the audience, who use payment to decide which movies are worth watching. This is what scares the industry the most. It's not because three yuan is too cheap, but because the power has shifted."
The post concluded: "The success of 'All or Nothing' is not accidental; it marks the beginning of a new era. Those who are still criticizing 'rule-breaking' should realize that when the old rules can no longer accommodate new content, the breaking of the rules is not the fault of the new content, but rather the need to update the old rules."
This answer accurately captured the essence of the matter and went viral.
By the next day, "All for the Winner" had surpassed seven million paid subscribers and grossed twenty-one million at the box office.
On Weibo, there's even a trending topic: "Movie ticket freedom".
This is a Weibo post from an ordinary user:
“In the past, when I wanted to watch a movie, I had to check the schedule first. The movies I wanted to see had fewer screenings, different times, and less desirable seats. The movies I didn't want to see were everywhere. I always thought this was normal. But yesterday, I spent three yuan to watch ‘All for the Winner’ on my phone, and suddenly I realized it shouldn't be like this. What I want to watch should be my own decision, not determined by the schedule. This is probably what ‘movie ticket freedom’ is—not about cheaper tickets, but about having the power of choice.”
This Weibo post was shared over 100,000 times, and countless people in the comments section resonated with it.
Someone posted the movie schedule of their city's cinemas, and most of the dozen or so movies were Hollywood sequels and domestic comedies. The art film he wanted to see was only shown once a day, and that was on a weekday morning.
One person wrote: "I used to think that paying three yuan to watch a movie was a 'downgrade in consumption,' but now I think it's an 'upgrade in experience.' No need to wait for screenings, no need to squeeze through crowds, no need to endure people in front of you looking at their phones or people behind you kicking your chair. You can quietly watch a good movie for three yuan, what's there to complain about!"
Someone shared the link to "All or Nothing" on their WeChat Moments with the caption: "I support this movie not just because it's good, but because I want more people to know that movies don't have to be made or shown the way they're made."
In the afternoon, the Firefly Foundation announced that all box office revenue from "All for One" would be donated to anti-fraud public welfare causes.
The first batch of projects was announced simultaneously: setting up anti-fraud publicity points in 20 cities across the country; providing legal aid to victims' families; establishing a special fund for the psychological rehabilitation of victims; supporting the re-employment of survivors who escaped from the park; and producing anti-fraud public service short films for Douyin.
The list ends with a line of small print: "Every penny comes from your support. Every penny will be used for those in need."
This announcement was widely shared, commented on, and liked by netizens.
One commenter wrote, "These are the three dollars I've spent that were the most worthwhile."
Someone posted a screenshot of their ticket purchase record with the caption: "A keepsake. Many years later, I will tell my children that their mother was involved in this."
Another person wrote: "The name 'Firefly Foundation' is wonderful. The light of a single firefly is faint, but many fireflies gathered together can illuminate a patch of darkness. We are all fireflies." (End of Chapter)