For most holiday films, the box office peaks on the release day and quickly drops off.
This Qixi Festival fell on a Tuesday, followed by a regular Wednesday workday, so many cinemas across Great Zhou had already prepared for a steep drop in ticket sales until the weekend, when office workers would have more free time.
But things don't always go as expected. Those assumptions only apply to average-quality movies. Truly moving films tend to defy their release window.
Thanks to 'The Girl Who Leapt Through Time' scoring 9.5 on Yindou Net the day it premiered—and the overwhelming flood of online discussion, praise for the story, and cursing at Jing Yu—the entire internet in Great Zhou now knew: Jing Yu the Old Bastard had produced yet another soul-crushing movie.
But so what?
One netizen posted a classic "regret-but-love-it" comment:
"I just can't stand the old bastard disguising a tearjerker as a pure romance. Since I know it's tragic, I'll go in with that mindset. Yesterday was Qixi, and I was too embarrassed to go with couples everywhere. Today's the day for us single dogs to rise!"
Two hours later:
"Brothers… I'm back. That old bastard isn't even human. This movie isn't a tearjerker—it's just emotionally devastating. I put emotional armor on before watching, but who knew he'd cast magic damage instead? Too sneaky."
Comments like that were everywhere—and they attracted even more people to buy tickets for a second watch.
As a result, the film broke 100 million again on its second day, landing at 102 million.
The first day had already recouped its production budget, and the second day meant it had turned a profit, already earning over 30 million in net revenue.
At BlueStar Media & Film, the entire production team behind 'The Girl Who Leapt Through Time' was ecstatic.
Especially the lead actor and actress.
To land those roles in Jing Yu's film, their agencies had worked hard behind the scenes.
Everyone knew Jing Yu was laid-back in the film industry—his life was filming, gaming, and slacking off. All other affairs were handled by his assistant, Cheng Lie.
Still, their agencies had helped Jing Yu's company greatly in the past. That goodwill finally landed their talents the leads in this film.
But of course, support has its limits. If this film flopped, their careers would likely go down with it.
Because if even Jing Yu's film couldn't make them stars, then everyone in the industry would blame them—not the script. They'd say these actors just didn't have audience appeal. And they would never get another shot.
For Jing Yu, 'The Girl Who Leapt Through Time' was just a passion project. He didn't expect to make much from it—he just didn't want to lose money.
But this film's performance ended up directly affecting the fate of hundreds of people involved in its production.
So when both leads came to his office early in the morning to thank him, Jing Yu didn't think much of it.
"You both did well. Keep it up—we might work together again next time," Jing Yu said politely.
That same morning, his company submitted a report:
Thanks to the excellent box office, the production team was preparing an early celebration banquet, and they asked if Jing Yu would attend.
He decided to make time—not because celebration was so important, but because these kinds of occasions were good for bonding with the company team.
Besides, even though he hadn't planned to make money off 'The Girl Who Leapt Through Time', judging by its performance in the first two days, total revenue could easily exceed 100–200 million yuan.
In Jing Yu's past life, this movie—originally an animated film—was critically acclaimed, well-known, and award-winning… but it only had modest box office success.
After all, Japan's domestic market is limited. With a population of only about 100 million, how big can their box office be? And the director wasn't Hayao Miyazaki or another globally renowned figure, nor did it have the release window luck of 'Your Name'.
So it was a classic "critically loved, commercially overlooked" case.
But in the Great Zhou, those limitations didn't exist. Jing Yu might not have the highest status in the film industry, but his name recognition was on par with any writer or actor in showbiz.
As long as the quality was good—and as long as he didn't oversaturate the market by pumping out five or six films a month—once his name was on a movie, it usually performed very differently from his past life.
Put simply: back then, when Jing Yu released a 90-point film, haters would insist it was only worth 60.
Now, when he releases a 90-point film, fans would auto-fill it to 95 in their minds. And the movie's performance naturally rose with that expectation.
Of course, this also meant fan expectations were rising ever higher.
So if one day he only produced a 65-point film—which is still above average—his fans wouldn't know how to handle it, and negative reviews would explode.
That's exactly why, in Jing Yu's past life, even though 'Weathering With You' was a perfectly decent movie, it still got slammed across the internet. Same with Jay Chou's new album—it was objectively great, but critics tore it apart.
Because fans no longer saw them as artists making "above average" work. They saw them as geniuses. Anything less than excellence was a betrayal.
In the following days, the film's daily box office dropped to around 40 million, a normal weekday dip.
But once the weekend hit again, the numbers shot back up to 80–90 million.
After the first week, the decline became more visible.
The final first-week box office came in at nearly 500 million.
It wasn't a crazy, record-breaking number. To make it into Great Zhou's all-time top 100, a film needed at least 630 million.
Which meant: give it another ten days or so, and this film might just make it into the top 100 domestic box office list—likely finishing at just over 700 million.
In the context of the Great Zhou's film industry, that's a level at which several films per year usually land.
But consider this: Jing Yu's previous two movies were:
'Love Letter' – 910 million box office, ranked #86
'Rurouni Kenshin: Trust & Betrayal' – 1.15 billion box office, ranked #71
If 'The Girl Who Leapt Through Time' also makes the list?
Then… that's just absurd.
A screenwriter-actor who's made only three films so far—all low-budget under 100 million each—and all three hit the top 100 in box office?
If it happened once or twice, you could call it luck.
But a third time?
The pressure Jing Yu and 'The Girl Who Leapt Through Time' were placing on the film industry became very real—even as the daily ticket numbers began to drop.
And no one in the industry had forgotten—Jing Yu still had two more films waiting in the wings:
'Castle in the Sky'
'Your Name'
As the staff of BlueStar Media put it:
"Jing Yu didn't even take this movie seriously. The investment was average. He didn't even act in it. And even then, it performed this well."
So what would happen… when the two films he actually took seriously hit theaters?