Entertainment: I am the peak

Chapter 641 I have something to tell you
Transformers 5 grossed over 3 million yuan on its opening day in China and 8.5 million yuan over its opening weekend, completely igniting the summer movie season.

In contrast, Transformers 5 did not perform well in its home market of North America. Although it was still number one in North America that week, it set a new record for the series with only $6910 million, which was even less than Transformers 3.

Even the media is chanting the slogan "Relying on China to save the market".

Lantern Entertainment is absent from this year's North American summer movie season, but it will release "It" after the summer. You can't expect an independent studio to keep up with all the release dates; that's unreasonable.

In February of this year, the company released "John Wick 2," which has grossed $170 million worldwide, exceeding its target.

For Lantern Entertainment, releasing two films a year is quite an achievement.

Of course, it can't compare to when the company still had "The Hunger Games," which is also a major reason why The Hollywood Reporter is pessimistic about Lantern Entertainment. The company no longer has any big IPs, and relying on some low-budget horror film IPs that are nothing special will never get it on Hollywood's table.

John Wick 2's performance was only so-so. This IP still needs time to prove itself. The third installment has been greenlit and the script is currently being written.

However, Mr. Li is not in a hurry; his attitude towards Lantern Entertainment has changed in recent years.

From "a profit-driven Hollywood film company" to "Li Qiutang's talisman in China".

Li Qiutang knew that a large part of his wealth and status came from Lantern Entertainment, and that no one or no company in China had achieved such success in Hollywood.

Of Autumn Pictures' 500 billion yuan market value, at least 200 billion yuan is due to Li Qiutang owning a successful Hollywood company. Just like Tesla's high stock price is because Elon Musk also owns a rocket company.

Those involved are often blinded by their own perspective, and Li Qiutang only truly understood this principle in the last two years.

So, what constitutes good lantern entertainment?

A half-dead lantern entertainment is the best lantern entertainment.

Lantern Entertainment was incredibly successful during the Hunger Games era, but such fame often leads to trouble.

After the Hunger Games series ended, Lantern Entertainment immediately entered a period of decline, never producing another big-budget IP film, and instead releasing mostly low-budget productions.

You can make money, but not much; it's not very worthwhile.

They made a sci-fi film, aiming for awards, but only won an Oscar for Best Sound Editing—a consolation prize among consolation prizes.

This year is even worse; Lantern Entertainment only released two movies, both of which were low-budget.

John Wick 2 cost $4000 million, It cost $3000 million, which makes it rather uninteresting.

After two years of "decline", Li Qiutang believes that Lantern Entertainment should enter a new period of rapid development in the next two years.

We can't keep declining, can we? Wouldn't it be a huge loss if the company really went bankrupt?

Yang Mi's "Reset" chose to be released on the 29th, coinciding with "Transformers 5". It can't be said that she was courting death, because it was indeed unavoidable.

Will things get better once the summer movie season starts?
The feud between Yang Mi's and Yang Ying's fans ultimately affected Yang Mi's promotion of "Reset".

Despite the ridicule surrounding Yang Mi's "Reset" winning the Houston Film Festival Best Actress award, the necessary promotion still had to be done. Yang Mi had no choice but to ask reporters to only talk about the movie and not mention the Houston Film Festival Best Actress award, since it had been more than two months.

Yang Mi must know about the fan war between the two sides. It's best for celebrities not to get involved in fan wars, but Yang Mi herself also dislikes Yang Ying.

Everyone in the industry knows about Yang Ying's messy affairs. Only Huang Xiaoming and her fans are foolish enough to think she's a pure and innocent white lotus flower.

Adding to the woes, Yang Ying was injured and rested for more than three months, lost the Dior contract she had held for five years, and also lost the variety show "Running Man," which was her livelihood. Dilraba wanted to quit, but Yang Mi would definitely disagree and continue to work on her to keep the show going. It can be said that Yang Ying has had the worst luck this year.

Yang Mi doesn't mind kicking him while he's down. What can Boss Dong do to her?
So during one of the promotional events for "Reset," she made a subtle reference to the film:
"Some people are just good at putting on a good show. In time, everyone will definitely see their true colors. In fact, they are nothing." After fulfilling the bet and filming an art film like "Baby" to prove her acting skills, Yang Mi was in a much better mood and even said, "Actors still need to have their own representative works. They can't just stay in variety shows."

She certainly has the right to say that; Yang Mi has the most representative works and roles among the post-85 generation. But when it comes to variety shows, no one can compare. She has one regular show a year, plus countless guest appearances, surpassing even Yang Ying in many ways.

Yang Mi's words were clearly aimed at Yang Ying, and the reporter understood this and actually reported it as fact.

Isn't this just adding fuel to the fire?
I didn't say it wasn't true; Yang Mi did exactly that!

However, this added fuel to the fire did not bring any good news to "Reset," which still only grossed 1800 million on its opening day.

Yang Mi is really not good at making money in the film industry.

But it doesn't matter. With "Brotherhood of Blades 2" coming out in a few days, Yang Mi will definitely have enough exposure during the summer season with two movies released in a row.

On the opening day of "Reset," Zhao Jinmai, the female lead of "The Wandering Earth," finally returned.

To Zhao Jinmai, Li Qiutang wasn't really an elder, and her brother was much older than her. Now that she was back, this jerk deliberately spoiled the mood, asking Zhao Jinmai, "How did the exam go? Are you confident you can get into No. 2 Middle School?"

"How can you be so annoying?" Zhao Jinmai stomped her foot in anger. "Mom, look at him!"

Zhao's mother, who brought her to the film set, didn't care about any of that. She just smiled and said, "Calling me 'Mom' won't help. She's the director."

With her mother around, Zhao Jinmai started complaining to her face: "You said you would help me with my homework, but you can't even do it yourself."

It's really not Li Qiutang's fault. He might be okay at tutoring Chinese and English, but Zhao Jinmai asked him math and chemistry questions!

He really doesn't know how to prove that an angle equals another angle, molecular mass, or chemical equations.

Let alone Li Qiutang, even Professor Wang Hongwei, whom he was bragging about back then, didn't know these things!

"You can't blame me for this, there are some questions I really don't know how to answer." Li Qiutang resigned herself to the situation.

“I’m going to complain to Teacher Li,” Zhao Jinmai said.

Should I give you his phone number?

"I'm too lazy to talk to you."

“Then I’ll pay attention to you,” Li Qiutang said with a smile. “Go and put on your makeup and change your clothes. We’ll be starting work soon.”

After Zhao Jinmai returned, the crew's work began to speed up. After all, Han Duoduo was the female lead, and she was with the crew from beginning to end. Without her, many scenes would be difficult to film.

"Come on, get ready—power on!"

After another busy day, Li Qiutang wasn't tired. She went back to the hotel, looked at some documents, and scrolled through her phone before bed. That's when she saw the news that Mr. Jia and his wife's 12.36 billion yuan in deposits had been frozen by the bank.

Li Qiutang then realized that LeEco was about to collapse.

So he picked up his phone and made a call to Yanjing.

"Hey, Lao Hu, are you asleep? I just finished work here. I need to tell you something..."

(End of this chapter)