Rene Liu accused of rigging ticket sales for her first self-directed movie
The Chinese romance film, titled ‘Us and Them’, saw a positive response on the first day of its release
Text messages revealing the number of tickets refunded
Text messages revealing the number of tickets refunded
Taiwanese singer-actress Rene Liu’s directorial debut movie, Us and Them, was released three days ago (Apr 28) and garnered ticket sales amounting to NT$1.3 billion (approximately S$58.2 million) within the first day.
The film gained attention as it features Golden Horse Award Best Actress winner Chinese actress Zhou Dongyu, alongside Chinese actor Boran Jing, and was said to have sold NT$570 million (approximately S$25.5 million) during advance ticketing sales alone.
However, rumours soon broke out on the internet claiming that the singer and Maoyan Movies, the company that produced the movie, manipulated ticket sales by purchasing the tickets in bulk during pre-sales, with the intention of getting them refunded after the movie is released in cinemas.
Maoyan Movies refuted the rumours in a statement over Weibo on April 29. They shared that approximately 380,000 tickets were refunded after purchase, totalling an amount of NT$61 million (approximately S$2.7 million), or 4.6% of total sales revenue.
However, they were not behind this intentional act of manipulation, and has provided the information they found to relevant authorities so they can take further action. The refund system has also been closed down for the time being while investigations take place, and Maoyan Movies plan to take legal action towards the parties responsible for spreading false information about their company over the internet.
In related news, Rene turned up at Mayday’s concert two days ago (Apr 29), and performed her song Afterwards with the band’s lead singer, Ashin. At that time, Ashin joked that the movie could have a sequel, but Rene denied the possibility, expressing that the movie will “definitely not have a second part”.
Photo: PBE Media
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