Huayu: I'm reborn, but you still force me to be a scumbag?

Chapter 324 Do you believe it?
Will Statham hung up the phone.

I only spoke to the person on the other end of the phone for one minute and the conversation ended on a bad note.

He knew that if he was rational, he should never make this call.

Why would you want to offend the leading actor of your own movie?
One of the most popular youth idols in North America today?

Is it also the cash cow of Summit Entertainment?

His predecessor would never do this.

But he is different.

The straightforward temperament of Texans is different from those sarcastic softies in California.

Even if it cannot cause any substantial impact on people.

If he didn't make a few sarcastic remarks, he would feel uncomfortable.

The release was originally scheduled for December 12, but he had to make complete changes just because of a phone call from the other party.

The various human and material costs resulting from this are not a small amount that can be ignored.

Thinking about it now,
How should he explain to the directors at the board meeting at the end of the year?
"Chen said that?"

SHIT, if he really said that at that time, he would be embarrassing the Texas cowboys.

and……

"He's just the leading actor in the movie. He's neither God nor your father. As a CEO, why should you listen to him?"

If someone asked him this, he would not be able to step down, let alone explain why he did it like a possessed person.

Therefore,
By then, he will be the only one to bear the blame.

How could he understand this?
So I had to call and laugh at him so that I could feel better.

after all,

Will Statham looked at the latest box office performance report on the table.

The Twilight Saga 2, titled New Moon, has been released for three weeks and its current global box office has surpassed the previous film's 6.35 million and reached 8.01 million US dollars.

Before Twilight, no one had ever seen a teen movie that grossed more than $6 million, and this time, it even beat itself.

In fact, on November 2009, 11, in its first weekend of release in 20 theaters in North America, "The Twilight Saga: New Moon" completely surpassed the expectations of box office experts.

Even before the release, all box office experts had unprecedentedly high expectations for this sequel.

But the expectations were still broken.

the reason,
It’s not because Twilight was finally generous with its publicity expenses this time.

Even an investment of 2000 million US dollars is definitely the most luxurious in the history of Summit Entertainment.

Even so, many media people clamored that it was "stingy", thinking that Twilight 1 made so much money, but the investment in Twilight 2 was so little, and that he, as a CEO, was really a true Texas bumpkin.

In this regard, Will Statham really just wants to give these people a middle finger.

make money?

Who?
However, the tens of millions of excess pay has paid off in the recent past.

Some media people have calculated that although the name of "Twilight" was not mentioned directly in the news reports in November, the movie publicity effect brought by the frequent exposure of the male lead was also in the tens of millions of dollars.

Likewise, there is a photo released before the premiere, which corresponds to the famous “hunting” photo.

The post eventually received a million likes and was featured in the Wall Street Journal. Some experts believe that new forms of publicity similar to "private media" may become a trend in the future. For many advertisers, making such an ad on an account with 2000 million viewers is actually very attractive.

This is indeed the direction that will follow.

The result of this wave of advertising was that everyone was shocked.

Everyone knows that "Twilight 2" will be very strong, but who could have imagined that it would be so damn strong!
Weekend box office reached $1.917 million!
Ranked first in the opening weekend box office in North American film history, directly surpassing "The Dark Knight" with 1.86 million and "Spider-Man 1.5" with 3!
This caused countless North American media to exclaim wildly, and when Will Statham saw it, he felt dizzy.

Ranked first in North American film history in its first weekend!

make a record!
Summit Entertainment?

Not only did the media go crazy, Will Statham's phone was almost blown up by calls from various shareholders that day.

In addition to congratulations, everyone has the same idea, immediately, without waiting any longer,
Twilight 4 must start filming in April next year.

More importantly, the contract renewals for April and May should also be put on the agenda.

after that,

Although the box office in the second weekend did not continue the miracle, it dropped by 65%, but at that time, after 11 days of release, the North American box office of Twilight had reached 3.21 million US dollars.

The Twilight Saga: New Moon surpassed the $2 million that Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince grossed in August and the $8 million that Up grossed.
It is second only to the current annual box office champion "Transformers 4.02" with 2 million US dollars.

However, before it was taken off the screen, there was little doubt that it would surpass "Transformers" and take the top spot in the North American box office in 2009.

As a result, the news media was bombarded with reports.

Everyone is discussing.

WHY?WHY?WHY?

A brainless movie for teenagers, the second part scored even worse than the first part from critics. The score on IMDB was only 4.1, almost 3 points lower than Transformers and almost 4 points lower than Harry Potter, but it won the box office championship against all odds?

There has to be a reason for this, right?
Finally, after thinking about it and analyzing it over and over again, I can only say that in addition to the interviews with the actor by Time and People in October, it just happened to warm up the movie and attracted many adult audiences to enter the theater.

Another thing is that the leading actor showed a more diverse performance style in the movie compared to the first one, which was really shocking.

As Roger Ebert wrote in his latest blog:
"In the first Twilight movie, we saw how exaggerated No Chen could act in the movie."

"But just when countless professionals were lamenting the loss of his talent, he won the Cannes crown with a Korean film."

"At this point, everyone, including me, understood that the performance in Twilight was really just a performance. He fully demonstrated what level a qualified vase actor should reach in a commercial film to enter the threshold of the 2000 million club."

"You don't need to work as hard as Tom Cruise, or flirt like Brad Pitt, or go crazy like Leon Leo DiCaprio to show you can act."

"All you need to do is put your face in front of the camera in a suitable position, and leave the rest to those middle school and high school girls, who will naturally donate generously to you with their parents' money."

"I call this kind of acting the skin and flesh acting. That is, as long as you have good skin and flesh, you can copy this kind of acting style."

"That's what I thought."

"But in this Twilight 2, I found out that I was wrong."

"When Nochen walked up the steps in that small Italian town, he walked like a polio patient."

"Then, as if possessed by the male protagonist in some porn movie, he began to undress, revealing his upper body covered with two kilograms of white foundation. Like a giant light bulb, he began to glow under the sunlight..."

"holy shit!"

"After 40 years of writing film reviews, I finally realized that this is what skin-and-blood acting is. Before, it was just called selling one's face. Now this is selling one's body."

"The new king of the Y era? No, the NEW KING of the women's strip club."

Due to health reasons, Roger Ebert has rarely posted film reviews on his blog this year.

After this blog was published, countless people liked and commented on it, and it immediately became the top trending post of the week.

Everyone seemed to see the sarcastic Roger again from the night before.

The most common comment was asking Roger Ebert to take care of himself, and the second most common comment was "Couldn't agree more, lol hahahahaha."

Yes, Chen Nuo really went too far this time.

The combined androgynous and yandere acting of G-Dragon and Justin Bieber can really make any man over 30 with eyesight lose his appetite in the cinema and want to vomit out his dinner.

Pretentious, artificial, and corny, if they were not afraid, many film critics would have labeled him as a gay shemale.

Can be the same.

The same problem that Warner Bros. encountered when "The Dark Knight" was released in North America was also encountered by Summit Entertainment this time.

Not only the main actors who were on the roadshow, but also Kristen Stewart and the second male lead often encountered very embarrassing inquiries. What they meant was, the main actors didn't come, what are you doing here?

And once we get into the interview, the questions are all about, is he like this on the set? Is he like that on the set?

Robert Pattinson was so angry that his stomach exploded.

In addition to the explosion, the phone numbers of Summit Entertainment were also almost blown up.

"BITCH, where's Chen? Where's Edward?"

"Why don't you let him come to the United States to promote? Why don't you let us see him?"

"Tell your boss that if he doesn't let us see Edward, I'll come over from Iowa this weekend to kick his ass!" "Where's Edward? All the students in our class want to see him!"

"No, I don't want to watch a movie. I want to see a real person, a real person! If you don't invite him, I won't go to the cinema. Do you hear me? I swear on the moon!"

However, unlike the phone frenzy caused by the Dark Knight, the voices on the calls to Summit Entertainment this time were mostly clear and pleasant.

There aren't that many swear words, at most there are some F-words, assholes, or pronouncing BITCH as biaaaaaaaatch.

It's completely different from the style of those crazy people in The Dark Knight who always tried to cram everything into something.

"Sweetheart, just look at his Facebook account and you'll know he's filming in China."

"Yeah, we wanted to invite him too, but he doesn't have time babe."

"He asked us to say sorry on his behalf. Yes, I'll call you when he comes to the United States, okay?"

After receiving the unified reply here, he was comforted.

Yes, after all, this time, although the male protagonist is in China, he also has his own voice channel.

On his nationally famous FB account,
In addition to releasing a photo titled "falling" as a promotional photo before the release,

The greetings and apologies for not being able to attend the premiere day, and the record-breaking smiling photos during the first weekend of release, all indicate that this man is not imprisoned, and it is not that Summit Entertainment did not allow him to come to the United States, but that he is truly filming.

But then again, five years ago, no, maybe two years ago, when he was still the vice president of Summit Entertainment,
Who could have imagined that the films produced by the company would have such an influence in North America and even the world?

"Will, Rob is here."

At this moment, the secretary knocked on the door, interrupting Will Statham's sighs.

Then former president Rob Friedman pushed the door open and looked at Will Statham for a few seconds. Suddenly, they both smiled and hugged each other tightly.

After a while, old colleagues who hadn't seen each other for a long time took their seats one by one, but their seats were exactly opposite to their previous ones, which made Will Statham, who was sitting at the president's desk, feel a little uncomfortable.

However, Rob Friedman did not seem to be any different. He looked around at ease and said with a smile, "It looks like nothing has changed."

Will smiled and said, "I haven't changed anything. After all, it's yours..."

Rob Friedman interrupted, "No, no, no, Will. It's yours now. I'm just an ordinary shareholder now, that's all, and you are the one who runs our company."

Will shrugged and said, "Well, say what you want, but I'll remember what happened."

Rob Friedman then glanced at the documents on Will Statham's desk and said with a smile, "Three weeks, 8.03 million, huh? That's not far from the 2 million of Transformers 9. It's estimated that it can sell a lot more before the next film. It seems that Will, your shareholders' meeting this year will be better than my last one."

Will Statham laughed and said, "I think so. There are many things that we didn't expect. We originally thought... that we might be tired of him. So, we prepared to consider Taylor as the second option, but in the end, it didn't come in handy. It's still Edward and Edward everywhere."

Rob Friedman smiled and said, "But it's not completely useless. At least I heard a lot of praise for the werewolf. His muscles are still quite attractive, aren't they?"

Will shook his head and said, "After all, it still didn't achieve the effect we wanted."

Rob Friedman disagreed and said sincerely: "At least it works. If you don't believe it this time, try it next time. It's really too risky to put a whole series of movies on one person. By the way, why is it scheduled to be released in November this time?"

"It was his suggestion!" Will was a little indignant when he talked about this. "If it was released during the Christmas season like last year, I think the results would be even better. Maybe it could have won the first place in the North American box office this year. Unfortunately... I believed him. In November, haha, those damn schools didn't have holidays."

Rob Friedman narrowed his eyes and said, "Yeah, it's not holiday yet. Well, Will, you should be very busy now, and I don't want to disturb you from work anymore. What did you call me here for today? Tell me."

Will Statham was silent for a while, then said: "Rob, the board of directors has put some pressure on me to renew the contract for the remaining two Twilight movies."

"You know, Chen is different now... He is very popular now. It gives me a headache to negotiate a contract with him. To be honest, I am not good at this. So, I want to hear your opinion."

Rob Friedman nodded and said, "Yes. I understand. Not only did he win another Cannes Award at this time... more importantly, he is really popular now. But on the other hand, we also have to see who brought him such popularity now?"

"I dare say that Twilight helped him a lot in this! Remember the hunting photo he posted on Facebook? If it weren't for Twilight's fans liking and reposting it, how could it have become some kind of Internet pop culture icon now?"

"So, not only did he make Twilight a hit, but Twilight also made him a hit."

"You can even say that it was us, you and I, who made him what he is today during our trip to Tokyo."

"It's not just us who need him. He needs us, the Summit, and Twilight City. Without us, his value will be greatly reduced."

"Will, if you can't see through this, you will end up like me. You will be eaten up step by step by his greedy appetite, and finally kicked out by the board of directors."

Will Statham nodded as he listened, and finally said, "Rob, you're right. I think so too. What about the share? How much do you think our company should give him?"

"Share? My God, Will, you're going to give him a share? Do you want him to be the richest man in the world?"

Rob Friedman said in disbelief:
"No no no no, Will, just write him a check for $2000 million and be damned to his profit and his lies."

"He should be content. We made him a billionaire and are willing to personally promote him to the top of Hollywood in the last two films."

"If he were a man with a conscience, he wouldn't ask for more."

"And if he really wants more, then let that motherfucker go home and eat himself!"

"Don't worry, Will. He'll give in."

"I have spent a lot of time in China over the past year or so, and now I understand Chinese people very well."

"As long as you put enough pressure on him, he will definitely kowtow in front of us and sign whatever you want him to sign."

"Yes, I promise."

Twenty minutes later, the door of Summit Entertainment's president's office opened, and Rob Friedman and Will Statham shook hands and said goodbye at the door.

Then, Rob walked out of the office where he had worked for almost ten years with a strong step.

He walked very quickly and had no intention of looking back. When he greeted his former colleagues and subordinates along the way, he had a gentle smile on his face, which was similar to Will's usual smile, a straightforward Texan smile.

Until he finally walked out of the Summit Entertainment office building.

Still has a cheerful look on his face.

Until he got into his car and lit a cigar in the back seat.

The expression on his face began to disintegrate little by little.

Finally, Rob Friedman sat in the smoke for a long time with a wooden face.

It was not until he was sure that he was nearly 5 kilometers away from the Summit Entertainment office building that he suddenly revealed a smile that was completely different from before.

It was a Californian smile.

It is cold, sarcastic and ambitious.

It's like a person who has lost a lot and now wants to take back everything he has lost.

……

……

Before flying to Paris, France, to begin the next phase of filming for Inception.

Chen Nuo stayed in Beijing for one night in order to go to CCTV for rehearsal.

When we returned to Ziyu Villa, the villa was dark and the furniture and floor were covered with a thin layer of dust. It was obvious that no one had lived there for a long time.

Naturally, Chen Nuo would not stay there any longer, so he immediately returned to Pan Chengrong's place and stayed there for the whole night, to the surprise of Cui Xueli and Pan Chengrong.

The next morning, I went to the CCTV building and attended the second rehearsal of the 2010 Spring Festival Gala.

On that day, the number of reporters waiting outside CCTV was at least five times that of previous years. The vast sea of ​​cameras was aimed at every artist who parked their cars in front of CCTV.

Liu Qian, Jiang Kun, Tan Jing and others were all caught red-handed.

But unfortunately, no one took the photo of the person they wanted to take.

Just when everyone was wondering whether he would come today,
Finally he posted on Weibo.

It was on that Weibo account whose number of followers reached over 12 million in December, ranking fourth on Weibo in terms of followers.

When he posted, there was a gap of about 100,000 to 200,000 followers between him and first place Yao Chen, second place Cai Kangyong, and third place Han Han.

Then he posted a photo taken from the side, showing him wearing a sportswear and singing on the stage.

The lighting wasn't great and the cinematography was even worse.

But the profile is that profile, the figure is that figure, and the person is definitely that person.

This completely confirmed the news that had been circulating wildly in major media outlets.

CCTV, Sina, and the parties involved have not confirmed the news, but now it seems to be true.

Chen Nuo is going to sing on the stage of this year's Spring Festival Gala!
Within three hours after this Weibo post was published, the number of followers of Chen Nuo soared by more than 50, surpassing Yao Chen by more than 10 and directly topping the list of the number of followers on Sina Weibo.

In that Weibo post, in addition to the photo, there was a sentence:

"Do you believe it? I'm Chen Nuo."

(End of this chapter)