Huayu Entertainment: Tianxian really wants to improve

Chapter 305 Oscar Nominations

I don't know if it's because of the economic crisis,
Or is it because the lack of an awards ceremony last year caused the ratings to plummet?

This year's Golden Globe Awards were exceptionally 'well-behaved,' with the awards ceremony conforming closely to the mainstream academic aesthetic, unlike the unrestrained behavior of the previous two years.

Gu Bei's Golden Globe Award for Best Director last year was thanks to the Golden Globe Awards' unconventional approach over the past two years.

Amid this trend of conservatism, the awards season, coinciding with the announcement of Oscar nominations, has entered its third phase, which is also the second half of the entire awards season.

It's the same room in the club as last year.
There were still four people this time.
Gu Bei looked around at the people in the room.

The producer of Whiplash has changed to Leonardo DiCaprio.

Liu Yifei, sitting next to him, was replaced by Kate, the president of the production department of Rose Pictures, who was in the next seat.

Michael and Leonardo were mainly chatting, with Kate occasionally chiming in with a few words.

Gu Bei, on the other hand, was starting to feel bored.

If it weren't for having to wait for the Oscar nominations to be announced,

He might as well go back and work on the storyboard for the movie. La La Land and Gravity, which will be released next year, will both require a lot of adaptation to fit into the present day because of their different historical contexts.

"Jingle Bell!"

at this time,

Gu Bei's phone rang.

He quickly answered the call; the special ringtone indicated that it was Liu Yifei calling.

Has the nomination been announced?

Liu Yifei asked in a slightly hoarse voice.

"Not yet. The nomination announcement will begin at 5:38 PM Pacific Time, which should be around 1:30 PM on your end."

Gu Bei shook his head, then asked with concern, "How's your rehearsal going?"

"Just finished, just like the previous five times!"

Liu Yifei's tone was somewhat dejected, "The only difference is that this rehearsal will be officially recorded as a backup tape, so it has the most complete cast and the live effect is closest to expectations."

Today is also the sixth and final rehearsal for this year's Spring Festival Gala.

"Bruce, is that Crystal?" Kate asked curiously from the side.

"Of course!"

Leonardo looked at Gu Bei with a teasing expression, "Only Crystal's phone call can make him chat so happily!"

Gu Bei turned on the speakerphone so that Liu Yifei could greet the three people in the room.

After saying hello,
Leonard asked curiously, "Crystal, Bruce told me that you stayed in China this time to attend the New Year's Eve party. Are there many people watching the party in China?"

"Of course!"

Liu Yifei said naturally, "More than a third of families will turn on the TV to watch the Spring Festival Gala!"

Leonardo looked surprised: "That's a 33% viewership rating, three times higher than the Oscars' ratings!"

After a pause, he counted on his fingers: "With a population of 13 billion in China, that's an average of at least 4 million viewers!"
My goodness, that's an outrageous number!

Gu Bei shrugged and added, "Although there are no precise statistics on the number of viewers, Chinese people have always had the habit of watching the Spring Festival Gala once a year. In addition, there are viewers overseas, so there are definitely six or seven hundred million viewers."

Even in places like Zhejiang Province, where the Spring Festival Gala viewership is only around 10%, people will still take a moment to watch it during the replay the next day.

The Spring Festival Gala nowadays is absolutely the most terrifying star-making platform in China.

Didn't Xiao Fengtian become known to the world after just one Spring Festival Gala this year?

"Bruce, this has ten times the viewership of the Oscars. There shouldn't be any show in the world that can surpass it!"

Leonardo was shocked once again. What puzzled him even more was that he had never heard of this popular show before.

The five chatted for a while while waiting for their Oscar nominations.

After a while,
Until around 6 p.m.

A list was delivered to a room in the club.

"Ladies and gentlemen, let's see who our final opponent is?"

Michael distributed the list to everyone and took one for himself to look at.

Gu Bei gave it a quick glance.

With nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay, he was guaranteed a spot in all the awards he cared about, without any surprises.

Secondly, there's Leonardo DiCaprio's Best Actor nomination.
Marion Cotillard also opted for a Best Supporting Actress nomination to avoid competing for Best Actress.

What puzzled Gu Bei was that
Harvey, having already begun to settle for less after her poor performance in The Reader, has moved from Best Actress in Public Relations to Best Supporting Actress, but this time we see Kate from The Reader nominated for Best Supporting Actress.

After some searching, I found out it was in the Best Actress category. It seems the Academy doesn't recognize Kate Winslet as a supporting actress in The Reader.

According to the rule that only one acting award can be nominated, Cate Blanchett was nominated for Best Actress in Revolutionary Road. It is impossible for her to win both Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress at the same time, like she did at the Golden Globes!

Besides these major awards,

The most important technical award, Best Cinematography, was also nominated.
Eric, the photographer who started as a sound engineer and helped Gu Bei,
Who knows, they might even be able to take home an Oscar!
Before Gu Bei could finish reading,

Michael across from him spoke up: "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button has thirteen nominations, but it's not much of a threat. The main reason is that The Slumdog Millionaire has also received ten nominations, just like our artist!"

"Ten awards against ten awards, there are quite a few overlaps!"

Gu Bei said lightly.

The Best Picture and Best Director awards inevitably clashed, making this the fiercest competition between the two films.

Secondly, there's the Best Cinematography award, which is also extremely competitive.

But the screenplay award,
Because the artist created the original script.

The Slumdog Millionaire was an adapted script, so I didn't run into any of them.

Of the remaining awards,

There are more major awards nominated by artists.

Both the male and female leads were nominated for acting awards.

Meanwhile, millionaires from slums received more nominations for technical awards.

This is actually because artists are black-and-white silent filmmakers, which fundamentally excludes them from many technical awards and leaves them with little room to showcase their talents.

The Slumdog Millionaire was primarily played by Indian actors, and the Oscar judges appreciate exotic styles. These Indian actors were just for show, so they were completely out of the running for acting awards.

"Hahaha!"

Leonardo smiled slightly. "It seems that's something you should be worried about, it has nothing to do with me!"

"is it?"

Gu Bei looked up at Leonardo DiCaprio and retorted with a smile, "Your opponent is Milk, the biographical film about the first openly gay politician in North American history."

This film also received eight nominations, and the male lead is Sean Penn, who has already won an Best Actor award.

Leonardo's face darkened immediately. Sean Penn had won all three major European awards ten years ago, and five years ago he won the Oscar for Best Actor. He was not an easy opponent to deal with!
"And Brad Pitt, who received thirteen nominations for his performance in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button."

Seeing this, Gu Bei pressed his advantage, "Although he was nominated for the Ballon d'Or five times and won none, who knows, the Academy might actually give him the Oscar?" Leonardo smiled helplessly, "Bruce, stop talking!"

"Oh, and Mickey Rourke, our Rose Films wrestler."

Gu Bei continued to rub salt into Leonardo's wounds, "Although you won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy, you lost to him in the Best Actor in a Drama category!"

"I was wrong!"

Leonardo waved his hand helplessly.

The joy of winning the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor made him a little too arrogant.
Of the five nominees, three are formidable opponents.

The competition for Best Actor at this year's Oscars is extremely fierce!
"Gu Bei, you're so mean!"

After listening to the whole thing, Liu Yifei smiled at Gu Bei and said...

"call!"

Gu Bei took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.

He said with a smile, "I was telling him to be wary. The road to becoming the Best Actor is very difficult, and the Oscar judges have a bias against actors like him who are famous for big-budget films."

Otherwise, Johnny Depp could have defeated Sean Penn with Pirates of the Caribbean!

"cut!"

Liu Yifei said dismissively, seeing right through Gu Bei's thoughts, "You're just under too much pressure, so you want to transfer it to Leonardo!"

Gu Bei smiled.

How could he not be under pressure?
After all, their opponent was a millionaire from the slums.

Although this film doesn't possess the same dazzling brilliance as director Danny Boyle's earlier works like "Trainspotting" and "28 Days Later"...
But this kind of exotic English-language film is a favorite of the Oscar judges.
Moreover, Danny's directing skills have indeed become increasingly precise and refined.

Subsequently,

Gu Bei continued looking at the nomination list in his hand.
This year's five Best Picture and Best Director awards completely overlap.
Aside from the unexpected appearance of some readers who were not up to par,
The Dark Knight was not on the list.

This surprised Gu Bei; the academy was truly stubborn!

He said to Liu Yifei, "I didn't expect that The Dark Knight would receive eight nominations, but they were all minor technical awards. The only major award was the Best Supporting Actor award for the late Heath Ledger."

Liu Yifei was also somewhat surprised: "Wasn't the Dark Knight a hot favorite before?"

"Looks like Harvey's got another kick out. That guy's a real scoundrel!"

Gu Bei glanced at it and guessed that it was The Reader who had pushed The Dark Knight out of the Best Picture and Best Director nominations. "This time, the Academy is probably going to make a big splash!"

Gu Bei's prediction was correct.
After the Oscar nominations were announced, The Dark Knight missed out on an Oscar nomination.
It quickly became the hottest topic of discussion on the internet, even surpassing predictions for Oscar-winning films, with everyone criticizing the Academy members for their outdated ideas.

Taking this opportunity,

In an interview, Gu Bei began to betray Harvey.

He casually remarked, "I have no comment on this matter."

This nomination list was selected by thousands of academy members, and it certainly represents everyone's thoughts.

However, in the more than ten years after its founding, the Academy consistently received more than five nominations for Best Picture.
The more nominees there are,

This makes it less likely that the trainees will be influenced by certain Oscar specialists!

Who is Gu Bei referring to?
So hard to guess!

The name Harvey,

It quickly caught the attention of Dark Knight fans.

After all, Harvey did not restrain himself after his comeback, but instead publicized his achievements. Anyone with a keen eye could easily trace it back to Harvey.

Isn’t that just perfect?

The IMDb rating war between The Dark Knight and The Godfather

The Dark Knight's overly flamboyant fanbase has drawn public backlash, leading to widespread low ratings for the game.
This led to the Dark Knight being pushed down to third place in just one day, only 22 days after it reached the top spot on IMDb.

The ranking is still dropping, and it's already down to fifth place.
It was completely ignored by the Oscars once again.

Dark Knight fans had a lot of pent-up frustration that they had nowhere to vent.
Then naturally I have to go and vent my frustrations on Harvey!

……

Weinstein Co.

“F*ck!”

Harvey truly never imagined that one day he would become the center of public opinion, and the one being attacked by the masses.

Whether the public opinion is good or bad, it doesn't really matter to him personally.

Make money, don’t be shabby!
The key is,
Many within the academy were quite dissatisfied with him this time, and they expressed their dissatisfaction with him at yesterday's Producers Guild Awards.

His "The Reader" made a comeback against all odds, but so be it. In any case, neither "The Reader" nor "The Dark Knight" had any hope of winning the two major awards.

However, this massive public outcry has damaged the college's credibility and interests.

Coupled with Harvey's past outrageous actions, dissatisfaction with him within the academy has been accumulating step by step, and this time there is a genuine discussion about how to limit some of his public relations tactics.

Harvey looked at Gu Bei's face on the news and his expression turned cold: "Bruce, don't think that just because you have a Twilight series, your Rose Pictures can survive."

I'm waiting for your A-grade production of Gravity to completely fail!

In this round of public opinion,
Harvey became an enemy.
So Gu Bei became a teammate.

His Best Picture nominations have increased, and the influence of Oscar veterans on the trainees.
Both within the academy and in the public eye, they have earned considerable positive impressions.

The college wasn't at fault, Harvey was—what a perfect excuse!

Harvey still couldn't do anything about Gu Bei.

Rose Pictures only made independent films for six months before starting to move towards becoming one of the "Big Six" studios.
Now they've even started producing multiple A-list productions, making them a completely different competitor from The Weinstein Company.

……

"Aqiu!"

Gu Bei rubbed his nose, wondering who was talking about him behind his back.

He glanced at the large medal behind him, an award he had just received from the Producers Guild Awards yesterday—the Producers Guild of America Best Theatrical Film award, a great start to the second half of the awards season.

This award was accepted on Liu Yifei's behalf.
Now, holding Liu Yifei's award, we await Liu Yifei's appearance on the Spring Festival Gala.

There were only a handful of truly outstanding performances at this year's Spring Festival Gala.

I have already listened to Zhou Jielun's Compendium of Materia Medica.

I've already seen Liu Qian's magic show.

The show currently airing on TV is about how they have plenty of money.

Xiao Fengtian became famous all over the country because of this show. He made hundreds of millions of yuan for his master in just six months of performing. It was also the last glorious moment of the Spring Festival Gala sketches!

Who knows, in some parallel universe, Gu Bei was reborn and made his fortune through this!

After "Not Short of Money," there was a medley of songs.
Then we finally entered the aerospace phase.
2008 was also a pivotal year for China's aerospace industry.
Shenzhou VII, carrying astronauts, conducted China's first spacewalk.
After honoring these great space heroes, the ground platform for the event opened, and Tiangong-1 slowly rose from underground, being officially displayed to the world for the first time.

(End of this chapter)