(Dan Tri) – With the low occupancy rate `hitting bottom`, Mai Thu Huyen’s film is predicted by experts to soon leave theaters and leave huge losses for investors and producers.
Mai Thu Huyen’s movie `has the worst ticket sales in history`?
Recently, the film Fragile Flower by director and producer Mai Thu Huyen suffered a slump, was not well received by the audience, and is likely to suffer heavy losses.
After 11 days of release, the film only achieved revenue of 394 million VND.
A scene from the movie (Photo: Screenshot).
Fragile Flower is currently the Vietnamese film with the lowest revenue at the box office in 2024. Many viewers also called Mai Thu Huyen’s film `the movie with the biggest losses and the worst ticket sales in Vietnamese box office history`.
However, as noted by Dan Tri reporter, before Fragile Flower, many Vietnamese films had poor revenue, such as Hysterical Virus (more than 157 million VND), The Legend of King Dinh (more than 42 million VND)..
Talking to reporters, Mr. Nguyen Khanh Duong – founder of Box Office Vietnam (an independent box office data statistics site) – said that the criteria for `most unprofitable in history` needs to be determined based on many factors.
`The concept of `best selling tickets` is difficult to talk about, because there are no standards to screen against. For example, in 2023, the movie Sleeping City only reached more than 200 million VND in revenue. In 2022, the movie Hey old man, love
If we talk about the film losing heavily, it should be based on revenue figures/production costs.
However, we need to note that this film is shown in many markets.
Mai Thu Huyen and actress Maya and Trizzie Phuong Trinh at the red carpet of the closing ceremony of the Ho Chi Minh City International Film Festival (Photo: Organizing Committee).
Mr. Nguyen Khanh Duong also announced to Dan Tri reporter that, according to statistics from Box Office Vietnam, as of April 22, the movie Fragile Flower had 4,322 tickets sold out of a total of 3,222 screenings.
`Even if there is only 1 ticket sold, the theater still has to activate screenings. Many theaters are not excited about movies that only sell 1.2 tickets/showing, because operating costs exceed revenue. At this speed
`Mai Thu Huyen… threw money out the window`
On social networks, many viewers commented that Mai Thu Huyen’s film’s loss in the Vietnamese market was not surprising.
Although the female director blamed being `suppressed`, the few screenings, and the bad time frame, the audience still believed that the film failed because the content was unattractive and the topic was far from the audience’s taste.
Up to now, the chance for the movie to make a comeback is almost impossible.
Mai Thu Huyen actively promoted the film but did not receive much attention from Vietnamese audiences (Photo: Character Facebook).
Critic Nguyen Phong Viet affirmed that Fragile Flower will leave huge losses for investors and producers.
`This could absolutely be one of the worst-grossing films in Vietnamese box office history. Because Mai Thu Huyen did not announce it, we do not know exactly how much money was invested in the film. But according to my prediction
For example, if a movie earns 100 million VND in revenue, minus the share with the theater about 60 million VND, the remaining 40 million VND must be spent on many expenses, not to mention post-release promotion costs.
Mai Thu Huyen received many comments about her filmmaking thinking (Photo: Character Facebook).
The expert also frankly commented that Mai Thu Huyen `doesn’t have filmmaking qualities`, so it’s `natural` that this film will fail.
`Looking at how theaters arrange screenings and time frames for Fragile Flower, we can see how theaters evaluate this movie. Theaters already have a lot of experience in measuring tastes.
Personally, I don’t understand why people still invest money in making such movies until now.
We can support Mai Thu Huyen from an audience perspective, but she must know that her abilities are not suitable for the position of filmmaker.
