Entertainment: I am the peak

Chapter 688 Empress Gong and Princess Ying
This year, the couple is both free of work, so they can spend the Lunar New Year with their parents.

Liu Yifei stopped training on the 29th day of the twelfth lunar month and had a five-day rest period.

When her parents-in-law, who had come from afar, saw their daughter-in-law, they said she looked a little plumper than before, adding that it was good that she was a little plumper because she was too thin before.

"She's been working out lately to build muscle, so she looks a bit stronger." Li Qiutang is thrilled that her wife is gaining muscle and training.

The closer it gets to the Spring Festival film season, the less Li Qiutang has to do.

The pre-sale landscape for the Spring Festival films is largely clear, with "Monster Hunt 2" leading the pack. Thanks to its massive advertising campaign and insane ticket subsidies, the film's pre-sale box office reached a staggering 3 million yuan, setting a new record for the highest pre-sale volume in film history.

The second-place film, "Detective Chinatown 2," only had 1.3 million yuan in pre-sales.

The third place goes to "The Monkey King 3: Kingdom of Women". This is the first time Zhao Liying has played such an important role on the big screen. Zhao Liying is indeed very popular. As the third female lead, the pre-sale tickets were able to reach 100 million.

In a few years, even for dramas where the female lead is the third lead, the fandom won't be helping to generate data.

It's not entirely logical to attribute the 100 million pre-sales to Zhao Liying. Zheng Baorui's "Journey to the West" series has already produced two installments, both of which achieved great success. It's only natural that the third installment would achieve this level of pre-sales.

The fourth place goes to "Operation Red Sea," which had pre-sales of less than 2000 million yuan—a truly dismal performance.

Both "Operation Red Sea" and "Detective Chinatown 2" are progressing smoothly and efficiently according to their established marketing plans. As long as no one in the team comes up with a foolish idea that could ruin the whole thing, there shouldn't be any major problems.

Li Qiutang should be able to have a more relaxed New Year.

As for the low pre-sales of "Operation Red Sea," Li Qiutang felt it was nothing to worry about. The Spring Festival film season is for family entertainment; how could a film like "Operation Red Sea" expect high pre-sales? It's unreasonable!
Pre-sales explain some issues, but not all issues.

However, the tactics used in high-end business warfare are often simple and unpretentious, even as ridiculous as a makeshift operation. What we need to achieve victory is often not what we want to do, but rather to wait for our opponents to make mistakes.

For example, before the Lunar New Year, "The Monkey King 3: Kingdom of Women" suddenly played an extremely bad marketing card—Empress Gong Yinghuang.

The predecessor to "The Monkey King 3," "The Monkey King 2," achieved a box office of 12 billion yuan. Gong Li's portrayal of the White Bone Demon was described by the audience as a queen with an overwhelming aura, and her acting skills overshadowed Aaron Kwok. The Heavenly King's portrayal of Sun Wukong looked like a mischievous monkey in front of Gong Li's White Bone Demon.

The production team wanted to show their continuation of the previous work and promote Zhao Liying's portrayal of the Queen of the Women's Kingdom, but did they really need to play such a foolish card? What genius came up with this idea?
Gong Li, you are the true queen of Chinese film history, the current No.1. Why do you call yourself "Empress Ying"? All your movies have flopped. Last year's "Duckweed" was a good movie, but the actors' performances were just average.

The marketing for "Empress Gong" and "Empress Ying" appeared in the official poster of the drama: "Last time it was Empress Gong, this time it's Empress Ying." "The Queen besieges the city, an unstoppable force."

Zhao Liying's fans went wild, enthusiastically promoting the "Empress Ying" marketing campaign.

"Liying should have the best film resources among the post-85 actresses. She is directed by Han Han and is the female lead in a big IP like 'Journey to the West'."

"What is the significance of the role of the Queen of the Women's Kingdom?" "Journey to the West is a top national IP, and the Queen of the Women's Kingdom is one of the most well-known female characters in Journey to the West."

"The moment Li Ying accepted the title of Queen of the Women's Kingdom, she became '851'." 851 means Top 1 among actresses born in 85.
"Li Ying, a top-tier character within a top-tier IP, has ascended to a higher level; she's no longer on the same track."

She seemed to look down on the other actresses born in 85.

It's fair to say that Zhao Liying's career has been thriving in the past two years; calling her a ratings queen wouldn't be an exaggeration.

However, Yinghuang's marketing was indeed excessive, because even if Liu Yifei was removed from the ranks of the post-85 actresses, there was still Shu Chang.

Among the actresses born in 1985, Shu Chang is widely recognized as having the best acting skills. She is also the most senior and the only one among them to be nominated for Best Actress at the three major Chinese film festivals.

Zhao Liying's marketing strategy of belittling other actresses born in the 85s has most upset Shu Chang's fans. Shu Chang's popularity in the drama industry is comparable to Zhao's, but she hasn't yet landed a leading role in a big-budget production like "Journey to the West," temporarily overshadowing Zhao Liying.

Shu Chang's fans said that Zhao Liying is desperate to act in movies and climb the ladder of success. "She's gotten a little success and is now frantically trying to climb higher, as if she's afraid others won't know."

"We don't even know how the performance will turn out yet, so why are you opening champagne in advance? Be careful not to fall and die."

"One minute you say you're comparable to Gong Li, the next you say you're from the 851 generation. If you're comparable to Gong Li, then don't bring up other actresses born in 85."

"On the contrary, I admire this marketing campaign. Zhou Xun and Zhang Ziyi, both three-time Golden Horse Award winners, and Liu Yifei, who are already so famous, don't dare to compete with Gong Li. Zhao Liying dares to be on par with Gong Li after just one movie, 'The Monkey King 3'. I really want to see how she ends up doing this."

How should this end? Why should it end?

What they want is the marketing title of "Empress Gong" and "Empress Ying," and to make fans proud that their sister has landed such great opportunities.

Whether it truly lives up to its name or not is completely unimportant.

It can be said that the marketing of "The Monkey King 3: Kingdom of Women" aroused the resentment of some viewers even before its release.

But the production team ignored it; being infamous is still being famous, and being infamous is still traffic and attention.

Before the Lunar New Year, Li Qiutang would give gifts to others, and others would give him gifts in return.

Putting everything else aside, just after noon on the 30th, Huang Xiaoming sent someone to deliver two boxes of dried seafood to him. Huang Xiaoming has been delivering things to Li Qiutang's family like this for five consecutive years. Every year he says he doesn't want them, but he still insists on sending them. He said that Li Qiutang doesn't listen, so he asked Qin Lan to do it.

The items themselves aren't worth much money, but the sentiment behind them is invaluable.

“We eat so much of their food every year, we should find some time to give them something back.” Li Qiutang and her two mothers were cleaning up together. “These oysters are huge, they look delicious.”

Liu Yifei said from the side, "If you introduce him to a good movie, you'll pay off all your debts."

"Isn't that too pragmatic?"

"Then what do you want to repay?"

“Okay, I’ll look for some roles that would suit the couple.” Li Qiutang also felt that this kind of give-and-take approach was the best long-term solution.

"Is Xiaoming's ex-girlfriend still causing trouble?" Liu Xiaoli couldn't remember her name, but she knew that she was the one who went crazy on Weibo on Xiaoming's wedding day. Just hearing about this kind of behavior made Liu Xiaoli not like Yang Ying.

"She doesn't seem to be up to anything lately; I haven't heard from her in a long time."

Liu Yifei added, "I heard she's pregnant."

"Huh?" The whole family was stunned.

"Yang Mi told me." She herself wouldn't pry into such gossip. "I don't know the specifics, but she wanted to squeeze out Dilraba and return to 'Keep Running Season 2,' and she was almost successful, but suddenly she withdrew halfway through, saying that she had family matters to attend to and needed to rest for a while, and then she disappeared. Now Dilraba can't leave even if she wants to; the 'Keep Running' production team won't allow it, and neither will Jiaxing Media, so she can only continue recording Season 2."

"Reba is not important, you're talking about Yang Ying."

"Then someone photographed her entering an OB-GYN in the US. The news didn't get out before Jaywalk Studio bought out the contract. As for whether she herself is pregnant, we don't know."

"My question is, how did Yang Mi end up buying all of her information? And why did Yang Mi tell you about it?"

"I don't know, we just chatted about it."

(End of this chapter)