I'm not a drama freak, I can really see through the script

Chapter 392, Killing someone is like destroying their spirit, killing someone is like destroying their spirit!!
Li Xuan's home.

Han Ping paced back and forth in the living room, lighting and extinguishing cigarettes in his hand, leaving a small mountain of cigarette butts on the floor.

"President Han, why are you even more agitated than I am?"

"Yeah! How can you be calmer than me!"

Han Ping looked at Li Xuan with a speechless expression.

I'm still conflicted.

I'm really torn.
It was a hundred times more agonizing than at the premiere.

If there were no expectations at the beginning, that would be fine. For example, after watching Avatar, if Source Code could reach a "good" level, he would be satisfied. But when Li Xuan's Source Code performed beyond his expectations...
There's still anxiety: will Li Xuan's performance be ruined by being "crushed"?
That conflicting feeling.
On the one hand, there was genuine excitement and joy.

He even felt that Li Xuan could no longer be simply defined as a promising young man poised to become the "leader of the seventh generation of directors"; he was creating a genre of his own.
But on the other hand, there is a deep-seated worry.

The movie is good, but will the market accept it?

That thing called Avatar is like a prehistoric monster, its jaws agape, ready to devour the entire film market.

Its opening day screenings reached a staggering number.
As the head of China Film Group, Han Ping knew just how terrifying the buzz and the sheer volume of films this Cameron blockbuster would generate.
Especially public opinion on the internet.

If we say that Zhang Yimou is the number one in China...

Then Cameron is the number one in the world, the number one in the true sense, built with US dollars, and Titanic is the 'number one' to date.

"I think your opening day box office performance shouldn't be too bad."

Those articles that praise someone to the point of destruction are now like swords hanging over our heads.

Even if the opening day box office is good, these praises will instantly turn into the most vicious mockery.

Because the goods did not match the description.

That's the biggest negative factor.

When everyone is drawn to the special effects.

But this is the result.

What kind of reaction will the audience have?

Whether the box office performance can be sustained remains to be seen.

"Mr. Han, have some tea." Li Xuan pushed the teacup in front of him, his expression unchanged.

Looking at his overly calm face, Han Ping felt a lump in his throat, unable to breathe.

"What...what are you really thinking?"

Li Xuan slowly blew on the steam in the cup, then looked up.

"Mr. Han, from the very beginning, I never thought about beating Avatar."

Han Ping froze, and stopped pacing.

"what?"

"Trying to compete at the box office with a low-budget film that cost five hundred million US dollars? I'm not stupid." Li Xuan's tone was calm. "I know my own limitations."

Han Ping was completely dumbfounded.

"Then why go through all this trouble, and insist on scheduling it at the same time? What's the point?" Han Ping was completely baffled.

Li Xuan put down his teacup and leaned back on the sofa. "President Han, if you back down once out of fear, what about the second and third time? Will you run away every time?"

He stared at the ceiling, as if talking to himself.

"I want to prove that even without world-destroying special effects, we Chinese can still tell a science fiction story of our own."

"I want to make a film for audiences who are willing to sit quietly and watch a good story."

"For those who still believe in us."

Han Ping stared at him blankly, unable to utter a single word.

He suddenly understood.

Li Xuan's battlefield has never been the box office rankings.

His goal was not to defeat Cameron.

He planted his own flag on the ruins of a site colonized by Hollywood culture.

This flag may not be big, or brightly colored, but it stands tall.

It tells everyone that there are still people here.
Great, needless to say!

At this moment, Han Ping, who was intimidated, was seen.

Li Xuan smiled too.

But what I was really thinking was...

A very simple idea.

A business-oriented idea.

Who the hell said that negative buzz isn't buzz?
Li Xuan was very clear about this. He knew that what he wanted and what effect he could achieve was something he couldn't do against Cameron, let alone against Zhang Yimou.

But not being able to do it doesn't mean we should back down here. It doesn't mean we can't take advantage of it.
Just then, Li Xuan's phone rang.

It was Wei Ming calling.

Han Ping's heart jumped into his throat. He knew that the box office results for the first day were out.

Li Xuan answered the phone and put it on speakerphone.

"Xuan'er! The box office results are in!" Wei Ming's voice sounded unusually excited on the other end of the line.

Han Ping nervously swallowed.

"Avatar grossed 130 million on its opening day," Wei Ming announced, a figure that was expected and enough to crush everything else.

Han Ping's heart sank.

Although I knew that Avatar would be a strong box office hit, I didn't expect it to be this strong. It was so strong that it was almost an overwhelming advantage.

It can be said to be the strongest opening day box office in history.

"Then...what about us?"

"We... thirty-eight million."

An even better result than expected—

Han Ping was also slightly stunned at this moment.

This box office performance was even better than predicted.
According to professional analysts from China Film Group, who combined the intensity of the publicity campaign with the "black traffic" that infiltrated the Beijing film circle, the opening day box office should be around 2800 million yuan.

As a result, the box office on the first day is now 38 million.

Something was calculated incorrectly.

Han Ping immediately realized that something had been miscalculated.

Yes, Li Xuan miscalculated his own influence.

Li Xuan's influence and appeal are far greater than imagined, and the impact he can create is far stronger than anticipated.
Its influence even extends beyond the scope of analysts' analysis of 'data'.

For a large conglomerate like China Film Group, a lot of information is transparent.
However, some people go beyond the scope of data analysis.
For example, Jiang Wen and Zhang Yimou, those great directors with unique souls.

And Li Xuan's influence is now beginning to extend beyond the scope of data analysis.
He has an innate box office draw. In a private room at a private club in Beijing...
Zheng Long, with a cigar between his fingers, wore a confident smile. Wang Shuo was beside him, and the two listened to their subordinate's report.
"Avatar grossed 130 million on its opening day; Cameron is still a god."

He exhaled a smoke ring and slowly began to speak to Wang Su across from him.
"What about our little hero? Thirty-eight million on the first day, not bad!"

"This number is a bit higher than we expected. It seems our 'help' worked quite well this time. I wonder if he'll thank us," Zheng Long joked. "Should he thank us for our contribution to his box office?"

Wang Su didn't reply, but just swirled the glass in his hand, looking at the wine clinging to it, seemingly lost in thought.

He had seen "Source Code," and the film gave him a strange, complex, and somewhat unsettling feeling.

"Why aren't you saying anything?" Zheng Long glanced at him sideways. "You've been acting a bit strange since you watched that kid's movie."

"No, I was just thinking about some things."

“Wang Shuo, you’re an old hand at this. His fate will only be like that of ‘The Promise’ back then. He’ll be backfired on. You know what happened to Chen Kaizi after that.” Zheng Long looked at Wang Shuo with a strange feeling. No matter how you looked at it, Li Xuan had been mercilessly crushed by “Avatar” during this Lunar New Year season.

"What are the audiences going there for? 'Hope for Chinese science fiction,' 'Challenging Hollywood,' 'Epic special effects'! We're the ones who put these labels on it ourselves."

"And what happened? They went to the movie theater and saw, 'What the heck? No spaceships, no aliens. This is supposed to be a sci-fi blockbuster?'"

"If this isn't a lie, then what is?"

Zheng Long pondered for a moment.

"On the first day, with the hype we generated, we can fool 38 million people. Once the first batch of viewers comes out and word spreads, guess what will happen tomorrow?"

He stretched out a finger and slashed it sharply downwards in the air.

"A crash! An avalanche! When that happens, those viewers who feel cheated will curse Li Xuan to death. They'll praise him so highly, and then they'll kick him so hard! That's called backlash!"

Wang Su finally raised her head, glanced at him, and remained silent.
Zheng Long took his expression as a tacit agreement and laughed even harder.

"We don't even need to lift a finger; the angry audience will bury him themselves. This tactic is brilliant—a classic case of cutting off the enemy's supply lines and using someone else to do the dirty work."

He raised his wine glass and gestured towards Wang Su.

"Once he's ruined and his reputation is destroyed, I don't think Han Ping from China Film Group will still treat him like a treasure."

Before he could finish speaking, the door to the private room was suddenly pushed open, and his assistant rushed in, holding a tablet computer, his face pale.

"Mr. Zheng, no... something terrible has happened..."

Zheng Long frowned, annoyed that his victory speech had been interrupted.

"What's the panic? Is the sky falling?"

"You...you should quickly look at the comments online!" The assistant handed over the tablet.

Zheng Long took it impatiently and glanced at it.

Then, the smile on his face froze.

On the screen were pages on Douban and Weibo, filled with densely packed comments about "Source Code".

Holy crap! This script is amazing! The best sci-fi movie I've seen this year, bar none! I went in expecting special effects, but they delivered something even better than that.

[Who the hell said they went to see the special effects? Li Xuan's acting is the best special effects ever! During the protagonist's awakening scene at the end, I, a grown man, cried like a fool in the theater!]

[The ending was phenomenal! I thought it was a tragedy, but it gave me the warmest hope! When that text message came out, I just shouted it out in my seat!]

This is true Chinese science fiction! It's not about fighting and killing, not about saving the world; it's about a soldier, a fallen soldier, using his last vestiges of consciousness to fulfill his mission: to save lives!

I originally went to see Avatar with my girlfriend, but the tickets were sold out, so I just bought a copy of Source Code instead. Now all I want to say is, thank goodness the Avatar tickets were sold out.

Each and every word struck Zheng Long's face, leaving it stinging.

There was no anger, no cursing, and not a single comment about the special effects being bad.

All positive reviews, overwhelmingly positive reviews!

"This...this is impossible!" Zheng Long exclaimed in astonishment, "What's going on with these comments?!"

"Fake! It's all fake!"

It's not what I imagined!

Zheng Long was stunned. The backlash and box office ban he had imagined, like that of "The Promise," did not come.

In Zheng Long's eyes.

This outcome is almost inevitable.

Because Li Xuan's investment amount is what it is—30 million yuan. Do you expect him to produce a big-budget production with amazing special effects? No matter how talented you are, you still have to follow basic principles.

in the country, it is absolutely impossible to produce good special effects.

Special effects are the lifeblood of sci-fi blockbusters. If they are not good, they will inevitably lose all their advantages. These are inevitable factors. Zheng Long also believes that no matter how capable Li Xuan is, he cannot conjure up a special effects team out of thin air.

No, it's impossible.

The final score is the result of the first round.

The assistant stammered, "Mr. Zheng... it's not just the reviews... managers from major cinema chains are contacting us, saying... saying that the attendance rate for 'Source Code' is actually increasing after 8 PM... many cinemas are adding extra screenings..."

"And... tomorrow's pre-sale tickets... have already sold more than half of today's tickets..."

If the overwhelming positive reviews online made Zheng Long both angry and think it was all nonsense.

These solid box office figures sent a chill down his spine.

His plan, his proud "praise to death," his prediction of a "box office collapse"...

All wrong.

That's completely wrong!
"real or fake?!"

"It's true, Wanda has a very good relationship with us. They said they had no choice but to let Li Xuan make a film."

That's how capital works; when it comes to profit, all that talk about drinking, eating, and sentimentality is utter bullshit!

Zheng Long was also in a daze.

The fire he lit himself not only failed to kill Li Xuan, but instead illuminated him even brighter.

All the negative publicity he went through to generate was completely reversed by Li Xuan with just one movie!
"puff……"

Zheng Long felt a sweet taste in his throat, and blood rushed to his head.

Wang Su watched him silently, looking at the computer screen, scrolling through the heartfelt comments, her expression becoming even more complicated.

There didn't seem to be many surprises.

As someone who has seen this movie.

There weren't too many surprises, although the result was still quite shocking.
Despite the overwhelming pressure from "Avatar," Li Xuan did not adjust his release schedule and even capitalized on the box office success the following day—he absorbed the "hype" used by the Beijing entertainment circle to smear him.
Li Xuan then told a rather explosive story.

In some ways, it's a more damn relatable story than the conflict between the blue-skinned primitives and humans!
Wang Su was scrolling through the screen when the mouse suddenly stopped.

It's a Weibo post by Li Xuangang.

He turned the tablet toward Zheng Long, whose face was ashen.

On the screen, there was only a short line of text.

"Thank you for your support, and a special thank you to some kind friends I've never met. Your generous support in promotion and distribution has allowed this story to reach a wider audience. This success is partly your achievement. Thank you, this is amazing!"

Zheng Long stared intently at the line of words, his eyes turning red.

To kill someone is to kill one's heart.

(End of this chapter)