Entertainment: I just want to be the boss behind the scenes

Chapter 376: The ratings of the group are fake!

Young men and women are always like this, no matter what they talk about, they will end up talking about sex.

After the fierce battle, the "fallen elf" turned back into the "elf princess" again, leaning against Meng Bai's thigh, with a look of comfort and joy on her face.

Li Yitong really likes the feeling of cuddling each other after the act. Even if they just lie down and do nothing, they feel full of happiness.

In a trance, she heard Meng Bai say something.

"What did you say?"

"I'm asking you if you have any new drama coming up?" Meng Bai repeated.

Talking about her work, Li Yitong regained some spirits: "A few days ago, the company said that they have contacted Tencent to adapt a novel into a costume drama, but it has not been confirmed yet."

"Tencent's drama? What's it called?"

"It's called Celebrating Yu Nian. It seems to be a drama with a strong male lead."

"Ah, this project..." Meng Bai suddenly realized.

When he was in Shanghai some time ago, he heard that in order to compete with the popular Qiyi TV in terms of content, Tencent Video, under the coordination of its parent company, acquired New Classics Media through China Literature Group in order to better serve the huge IP copyright library.

The first project after the official merger of the two is "Joy of Life", one of the classic male online novels.

Although male-oriented online literature has always far surpassed female-oriented online literature in overall scale and development, it has never made much of a splash when it comes to film and television adaptations.

Of course, this is related to the fact that the mainstream audience of the film and television market is mainly female. Many popular plots in male-oriented novels are not popular among female audiences.

However, with the development of online dramas, male-oriented works represented by "arc light suspense dramas" have gradually increased, attracting a large number of male audiences.

According to the gender portrait of users collected by the three major video platforms, the ratio of female to male viewers is about 60:40. Combined with the current number of online drama viewers exceeding 600 million, it can be said that there is a fairly large audience group.

In fact, many years ago, video websites have tried to adapt many male-oriented novels, such as "Good Men in the Tang Dynasty", "Criminal Master", "Back to the Ming Dynasty to Become a Prince", "The Best Butler", etc.

It’s a pity that due to the limitations of the times, most of the online dramas at that time were produced by small teams and with low costs, and the quality of the finished films was average - such as the famous "Fighting Qi Hua Ma".

Most male-oriented novels use "grand scenes and strong special effects" as selling points. Now these advantages have been cut off, so naturally no one wants to read them.

But now it is different. With the financial support of major capitals and the efforts of first-class teams like Arclight, online dramas have gotten rid of the label of "shoddy production". Various large-scale, high-quality online dramas have appeared one after another, gradually becoming the representative of the new film and television form.

Especially compared with those melodramatic TV dramas about fighting the Japanese, catching mistresses, having affairs, and making dumplings every day, online dramas are even at the top of the contempt chain in the reputation of young audiences.

There is a market, an audience, funding, and a team. Therefore, in recent years, after the audience has gradually become tired of the love-themed plots in female novels, male novels have gradually become a new adaptation trend.

"Joy of Life" is an attempt by Tencent Video. Costume themes are not as expensive as fantasy. At the same time, the original author's other work "Ever Night" was recently aired as a web drama, and both the reviews and data performance are quite good, proving its feasibility.

Although it is a male-dominated drama, there must be a female lead as well. The invitation Li Yitong received was for the role of the female lead "Lin Wan'er".

"This project is not bad. Xinli has just been acquired, and they will definitely do their best for their first drama." Meng Bai said: "I will talk to Tencent later and ask the crew to send the script to you."

Li Yitong said weakly: "I haven't auditioned yet..."

"Well, the image of the heroine in this kind of male-oriented novels is basically the same. It doesn't matter who plays the role. There is no need for an audition." Meng Bai said indifferently.

After thinking for a moment, he continued, "Let me ask about the casting first. If the cast is too bad, there's no need."

"Okay, I'll listen to you." Li Yitong responded, "By the way, what did you want to ask me just now?"

"Oh, I almost forgot." Meng Bai said, "I wanted to ask if you have any plans before the end of the year. Arc Light has a new drama, and the heroine wants you to try it out."

"Arc Light's new show?"

Li Yitong immediately perked up after hearing this: "Sure, I have time!"

"You don't even ask what play it is?"

"It doesn't matter. I'm fine with whatever you say." Li Yitong said without hesitation.

Meng Bai laughed, lowered his head and kissed her on the cheek, but still explained: "The new drama is the second part of the 'Zijin Chen Trilogy' in cooperation with Qiyi TV, called 'Undocumented Crime'. The scale of this drama is not large, but the role design of the heroine is very good, there are many highlights, and there is also a lot of room for acting skills."

Although Li Yitong is a latecomer, at Meng Bai's request, she has been looking for acting teachers to guide her in addition to filming. Although her acting skills are not that great now, they are at least acceptable. However, most of the dramas she has starred in in recent years are ancient idol dramas or youth dramas. This kind of drama has no problem with popularity, but it is not helpful for the professionalism of the actors, so she is gradually reaching a bottleneck.

It just so happens that the filming of "The Undocumented Crime" is about to start. Although the protagonist of this drama is still Yan Liang, he is more of a clue character. The real core is actually the female lead Zhu Huiru.

Because of an accident, she accidentally killed a gangster during the resistance. Then in order to escape the crime, she disguised herself with the help of a mysterious man to escape the police search.

The setting of this character is very complex, and there are many parts in the plot that can show the acting skills.

After all, I am an actor. It is easy to shoot those simple ancient costume dramas, but occasionally I still need some difficult roles to challenge myself.

The role of "Zhu Huiru" is very good. It is somewhat difficult but not too difficult, and is very suitable for Li Yitong's current level.

Li Yitong naturally had no objection to Meng Bai's arrangement and agreed to it immediately.

She wasn't worried that she wouldn't perform well - based on her understanding of Meng Bai, since this guy allowed her to act, she would definitely be able to meet the requirements, it would just be a little difficult at best.

"Okay, I'll give you the script in two days. Or, you can also read the original novel first to get an understanding in advance." Meng Bai said.

As for whether there is any conflict in the schedule between this drama and "Joy of Life", there is no need to worry about it.

The filming of The Undocumented Crime is expected to start at the end of October and will be completed before the end of the year. The filming of Joy of Life is still in the process of preparing the crew and casting, so it will definitely not be that soon before the official filming starts, so the timing can be staggered.

After finishing the business talk, it was already dark. The two washed up and cleaned up, and by the way, they reviewed the game with the sound of the shower.

Meng Bai didn't let Li Yitong go until she was exhausted and begged for mercy. After half-supporting and half-carrying her to wash, they fell asleep in each other's arms.

After a night's rest, Li Yitong got up early the next morning, feeling refreshed and started her daily exercise.

Meng Bai ran on the treadmill for a while, took a shower, and then collapsed on the sofa, admiring the girl's figure while browsing the trending searches on Weibo.

Although he is in the entertainment industry, as a behind-the-scenes practitioner, he reads Weibo a lot but basically never posts.

The follow list is also very empty. Apart from the official Weibo of Arclight Films, there are a few official and news media accounts. I haven’t even followed Li Qin, Li Yitong and others.

After all, their accounts are basically managed by the staff of the agency team, so it doesn't matter much whether you look at them or not.

In fact, when Weibo was first launched, many celebrities posted on their own accounts. At that time, everyone had no burdens and it was really fun to share their lives on it.

However, as Weibo has become more and more popular in recent years, celebrities have to take more things into consideration, so it has gradually evolved into business needs such as new drama promotion and endorsement advertising. Apart from their own fans, few passers-by care about it.

The entertainment industry has been relatively calm during this period. Apart from the exposure of the Douyin video shot by Li Xiaolu and PG One, there has been nothing else that has attracted attention.

However, there was a piece of financial news that caught Meng Bai's attention. Sunac, which had made a big investment to "rescue" Leshi.com last year, continued to operate the business while holding back tears after boss Jia ran away, but it finally couldn't hold on any longer recently.

Sunac boss Sun Hongbin first posted on his WeChat Moments that he was defrauded of money by the "scumbag" boss Jia, and then admitted that investing in Leshi.com was "the most failed investment since he started his career."

With huge debts and one year's profit not even enough to pay the interest, Sunac had to start "passing the buck".

First, it sold Leshi.com to a company under Sunac, separating itself from the company. Then it spread the news that it was interested in selling Leshi.com.

Of course, it is easy to tell that there is only one such smart company as R&F, and it would be difficult to find a second one.

Meng Bai was moved when he saw the news. Although Leshi.com is now barely surviving, it still has a framework and a huge copyright library. Although it has declined a lot compared to the Big Three, it still has a place in the video website market.

At least, Leshi.com still has "The Legend of Zhen Huan".

But he was just thinking about it. He couldn't afford to bear the billions of debts and the annual operating costs of more than ten billion.

Alas, what a pity!
After browsing for a while and about to close Weibo, he suddenly saw an entry that looked familiar.

#Director Guo Jingyu wrote a long article criticizing the black industry chain of ratings#
Meng Bai was stunned for a moment, then sat up straighter and clicked on the hot search term.

When you click on it, the first thing you see is Guo Jingyu’s Weibo account, which contains a sentence and a long picture of text.

The content of the text is very chilling——

[Rise up and fight to the death with the dark forces that manipulate the ratings! ]

(End of this chapter)