Entertainment: I am the peak

Chapter 727 The whole city is in turmoil
"iPartment" deserved to die, while "The Island" led the August box office, grossing 5.34 million yuan in its first three days and receiving good reviews.

Huang Bo's transition to directing seems to have been successful.

But no one expected that "The Meg" would catch up. It grossed over 300 million in its opening weekend, which, although less than "The Island," still brought in 60 to 70 million every weekday after the opening weekend, which was something no one expected.

Within two days, it had reached over 5 million. Even Autumn Pictures hadn't expected it.

To be honest, shark monster movies have a large audience in the West, but it's hard to say whether they will be successful in China.

The Meg isn't exactly a masterpiece; it's at best a passable film, but that's enough.

Global audiences have similar expectations for monster movies as they do for horror movies: quality is hard to find, and if something isn't shoddy, people will buy tickets.

Surprisingly, so many people in China watch these shark monster movies.

This unexpected windfall brought Autumn Pictures a windfall. They had only hoped to make a small profit domestically, but it turned out to be a minor hit.

The biggest winner in this summer's film market is undoubtedly Autumn Pictures, but in the television drama market, Autumn Pictures has unusually remained silent.

This summer's TV drama season has seen a string of blockbuster hits.

Yang Zi's two TV dramas, "The Legend of White Snake" and "Ashes of Love," helped her sweep away her decline and rise to become a top-tier actress.

The drama "Story of Yanxi Palace" made the previously unknown Wu Jinyan a star, and also brought Qin Lan back into the public eye after giving birth.

Leaving aside "Guardian," this kind of subject matter really makes people famous and attracts female fans.

Despite the controversies surrounding dramas like "Legend of Yunxi" and "Bloody Romance," they all achieved good broadcast results.

Of course, we wouldn't forget about "Ruyi's Royal Love in the Palace," which arrived just in time. When this drama aired, nobody really said anything negative about Zhou Xun, and the premiere was very successful.

There's also Yang Mi's "Legend of Fuyao," which aired in mid-June, practically placing it in the summer season. Although its average viewership was only 0.84, it consistently ranked first or second in its time slot, proving Yang Mi's strong presence in the drama industry.

Century Autumn has been actively seeking transformation in the past two years, and with fewer films this year, it hasn't attracted much criticism.

With the release of "Ant-Man and the Wasp" in China, the summer movie season has basically come to an end.

Summer brings a constant stream of new works and celebrity gossip.

This summer, the love lives of celebrities big and small in the entertainment industry have all run into problems.

They're either dating, breaking up, or having rumors circulating about them.

First, Jing Boran and Nini broke up, then Kan Qingzi and Ji Lingcheng broke up—you'd think they were two Taoist priests if you didn't know them.

Hu Yanbing and Zheng Shuang were seen patting each other on the head, sparking rumors of a reconciliation. Hu Yanbing quickly clarified that this was the last time they would see each other and that he would delete all contact information afterward.

Then Zhang Xinyu became a military wife. Although it's not nice to say it like that, it has to be admitted that her marriage was arguably the most cost-effective in the entertainment industry. Zhang Xinyu's reputation was terrible before, but after getting married, she immediately turned her life around and swept away all the negative public opinion.

Two days later, Ma Sichun and Ou Hao broke up, and two days after that, Yang Zi and Qin Junjie broke up. Originally, it was just a breakup, but the two of them broke up because of a bowl of hot and sour soup, which involved Zhang Xueying, Deng Lun, Yuan Bingyan and others.

Rumors circulated that Zhao Liying and Feng Shaofeng, the male lead of "The Story of Minglan," had developed feelings for each other while filming and that Zhao was pregnant. Zhao responded by boldly doing a split on Weibo to refute the rumors.

Anyway, every summer vacation is chaotic, fun and funny.

With the release of two Hollywood blockbusters, *Ant-Man and the Wasp* and *Mission: Impossible – Fallout*, the domestic summer movie season is drawing to a close. Although *Dying to Survive* received an extended release date, its box office performance stalled as early as the beginning of August. At that time, *Dying to Survive* had already surpassed 3 billion yuan, and as of the end of August, it still hadn't broken 31 billion yuan.

But this has already satisfied both the production team and the company.

This summer, Autumn Pictures achieved an unprecedented victory, with all three of its films entering the summer Top 10 and ranking highly: "Dying to Survive" at number one, "Hello Mr. Billionaire" at number two, and "The Meg" at number five.

It brought the company a record-breaking 66 billion yuan in box office revenue. It's worth noting that the total box office revenue for this summer season was only 174 billion yuan. It was originally expected that the summer season would decline, but unexpectedly it has increased. It seems that the total box office revenue for this year will break the 600 billion yuan mark in no time.

The positive response from the capital market brought unexpectedly high returns to the shareholders of Qiutian. For example, Liu Yifei earned at least 30 million yuan from the company stock she held in just two months.

Not to mention Mr. Li.

Liu Yifei doesn't understand these things; she's currently in Xiangyang Tangcheng working on the final stages of the "Mulan" movie.

Once the summer movie season is over, the media's attention will naturally turn to the upcoming National Day movie season.

Autumn Pictures is still present, with the Mahua comedy "Li Cha's Aunt," invested in and distributed by Autumn, set to hit theaters during the National Day holiday.

Of course, the most anticipated film during the National Day holiday is Zhang Yimou's "Shadow".

However, prior to the release of "Shadow," an insider revealed that Feng Xiaogang had already been arrested by the Wuzhou Procuratorate.

Netizens speculated about the veracity of the news, but neither Feng Xiaogang nor Huayi Brothers responded.

When I called their companies, either no one answered, or they hung up as soon as they heard I was asking about Feng Xiaogang.

There's no need to ask others whether the news is true or false; even if someone knew the truth, they wouldn't tell anyone.

But some people are just naturally big mouths, or they're simply self-media trying to ride the wave of popularity, making up things that didn't happen.

Since this revelation came out, the silence of the parties involved has given many people room to speculate.

The news spread like wildfire throughout the city.

"Feng Xiaogang originally thought he would be fine, but the things he did were too serious, and no one dared to protect him. This time, he will be severely injured even if he doesn't die."

"Feng Xiaogang was working on post-production for 'Cell Phone 2' in his own studio when he was taken away overnight."

“Some people advised Feng Xiaogang to run away, but he refused, thinking that if the sky fell, someone taller would hold it up. Now Xu Fan has taken the children abroad to avoid the storm.”

"Fan Bingbing left the crew and ran away as early as June, and the female lead of 'Cell Phone 2' has been replaced."

Zhuo Wei would be doing a disservice to his title as the number one paparazzi if he didn't capitalize on this trend. Although his account has been suspended, he still has channels to speak out.

The information he revealed was different from what others had:
"Feng Xiaogang's case is very serious. The relevant departments have been investigating for two months and found many problems. The financial and tax issues of the entertainment industry have always been a major problem. The entertainment industry has been living too comfortably for the past few years. The higher-ups intend to use this incident to rectify the entertainment industry. In the future, if you see a celebrity suddenly disappear for a few months and then reappear, it's probably because they've gone to pay back taxes and explain their problems. The days of making money while lying down in the entertainment industry are gone forever."

Some people say, "The relevant departments have uncovered many problems, but if they really want to crack down, they will uproot the entire film and television industry. So Feng Xiaogang has become the scapegoat. It's still unknown how this issue will be handled."

Feng Xiaogang and Huayi Brothers have remained silent on the matter. It is Sunday and the market will open tomorrow. If Huayi Brothers does not respond to netizens' inquiries, it will face the suspicion of the capital market.

(End of this chapter)