Huayu Entertainment: Tianxian really wants to improve

Chapter 325 Let's add another pot to the pot for Little Wang!
[Live from the scene: Gu Bei and Liu Yifei returned to China together after the MTV Awards. Liu Yifei denied in an airport interview that she and Gu Bei came out of the same room!]

Who taught you to write news like this?

Posting on Weibo? Then it's fine!
When Gu Bei heard Liu Yifei's answer, he knew that her words would definitely be misinterpreted to some extent. He didn't expect that someone would take out their phone and start posting on Weibo on the spot.

However, this person is probably not a proper journalist. Nowadays, entertainment journalists are still journalists, but they haven't evolved to this level.

He turned to look at Liu Yifei and found that Liu Yifei was giving him a wink.

From that glance, Gu Bei immediately understood her meaning. It turned out that she was using this tactic of "besieging Wei to rescue Zhao" to avoid answering the first part of the question.

If you don't want to lie or hide, this is the only way you can go.

Gu Bei followed up by saying to the reporters, "Does anyone else have any other meaningful questions? If not, we need to go to the parking lot; the company car is here to pick us up."

"Director Gu, may I ask about the progress of Mission: Impossible 4?"

The reporters found Gu Bei to be quite easy to talk to, so they asked him questions as well.

"The project is still in progress, and the return of some roles has been confirmed."

For example, Simon Pegg, a very good actor; and Ving Rhames, how could we forget him?

Seeing the expectant looks in everyone's eyes, Gu Bei smiled and began to reveal some big news, "Of course, there's also Xixi. I've always really liked her action scenes, and this time we can finally work together."

Ultimately, however, we are still waiting to see if Tom Cruise, the soul of the series, will decide to return.

The main disagreement between Paramount and Tom Cruise was over salary.

Compared to Paramount, Tom Cruise needs the Mission: Impossible series more right now.

Therefore, it's impossible for actors to receive the same amount of box office revenue and back-end profit sharing as before. However, the exact amount to be reduced and how much they will receive is still under intense negotiation between the two sides.

In this regard,
Gu Bei and Rose Pictures are both aligned with Paramount.

The portion that Tom Cruise didn't get was all going to the producers.

However, for domestic journalists, the most explosive part of this statement was undoubtedly the middle sentence, which was personally confirmed by Gu Bei as Liu Yifei joining the Mission: Impossible series.

In comparison, even the news of whether Tom Cruise will return is not that important.

"Director Gu, could you tell me more about Liu Yifei's role?"

"Was Liu Yifei's joining the Mission: Impossible series your idea?"

Is Liu Yifei the female lead in this sequel?

Faced with the reporters' enthusiasm,
Gu Bei calmly released the message he wanted to share: "This sequel will reconnect with the previous films and focus more on the main characters."

Everyone in the main cast is important. Sissi's role isn't to provide romantic scenes, since Ethan is already married.

She will play a disgraced agent struggling to save her life.

This description also sparks a lot of imagination.

If she's not a character who provides romantic scenes, then that confirms her status as the female lead, since in a male-dominated drama, one woman in the main cast is already more than enough.

Moreover, Gu Bei's character description, though brief, contains a great deal of information.

After all, this character's situation,
He looks just like Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible 1.

Before the excited reporters could ask their questions, a reporter with a slight Hong Kong accent preemptively asked, "What's the connection between this one and the second one? After all, that one was the highest-grossing film in the series!"

It's also the worst-rated film in the series!
Gu Bei couldn't help but want to complain.
Mission: Impossible III was critically acclaimed but commercially unsuccessful.

A large part of the reason is that Tom Cruise's public image has deteriorated.
Another reason is the poor reputation of the second installment.

Wu Baige's film was nominated for the Golden Raspberry Award for Best Remake or Sequel.

When Gu Bei was writing the script, he paid homage to Mission: Impossible 1 and made connections to Mission: Impossible 3, but completely forgot about Mission: Impossible 2.

So he replied casually, "I don't have that plan for the time being."

The reporter immediately became dissatisfied: "How can you deliberately ignore the contributions of your senior? Do you have a problem with our director Xiangdu?"

"Here's a pen, you write it?"

Gu Bei looked at him with a smile.

The other reporters were slightly taken aback, but then they burst into laughter, looking at the reporter as if he were a fool.

The reporter was initially somewhat unconvinced.
But in everyone's eyes,
All that was left was a burning, pent-up anger.

"Ms. Liu Yifei, you won the MTV Award this time, which means you have a lot of popularity in North America. Will you focus on developing your career in Hollywood and not come back to China to film?"

That's a very important question.

Liu Yifei's fans are particularly concerned about this issue.

Although Hollywood blockbusters are great, it also means that they will see Liu Yifei much less often in the future.

Liu Yifei also knew that this question required a serious answer: "I definitely want to make more Chinese-language films. As long as there is a good story, I can send a cooperation request to Linlang Entertainment."

"So what kind of story qualifies as a good story?" another reporter pressed.

"I don't ask for much, just something like Gu Bei's 'The Message' script."

Liu Yifei looked up at Gu Bei and said with a smile.

Well, they've mistaken me for a unit of measurement!

Gu Bei saw the bodyguards who were already in place, and led Liu Yifei through the crowd of reporters. Under the protection of the bodyguards, they got into the car sent by the company.

As soon as he got into the car, he asked his special assistant, Li Wanyun, "Have you found out?"

Li Wanyun handed over her phone: "Someone took pictures of you in the VIP lounge and posted them online. Then an account called Fengxing Studio reposted them, leading to widespread exposure, which attracted these reporters."

Gu Bei never expected it to be such a coincidence. In the end, it was actually his own Weibo account that caused this mess.

Liu Yifei listened quietly to Li Wanyun's report, then asked with some confusion, "Judging from her tone on Weibo, she seemed very happy to have met us. Why didn't she come to take a picture with us?"

"Uh... based on our investigation of her past interactions, the owner of this 'Wind Chime Grass' account appears to be Wang Zhonglei's wife."

Li Wanyun hesitated for a moment before revealing more detailed but uncertain findings, "Furthermore, the tone of this Weibo post is different from your usual style of posting long articles."
The message was simple but emotionally charged, so it was very likely posted by their daughter.

I inquired, and it turns out that Mr. Wang's wife at Huayi Education is indeed raising their two children alone, sending them to North America for their education.

Gu Bei and Liu Yifei looked at each other.
They never expected that...
This even somehow involves Huayi!
However, this explanation makes sense.

Liu Yifei is currently the most popular teenage idol in North America, so it's normal for Xiao Wang's daughter to like her. However, Xiao Wang's wife knows that Huayi, Gu Bei, and Liu Yifei are at odds, so she naturally wouldn't let her daughter come up for a photo, otherwise she would be putting herself at a disadvantage compared to Gu Bei and the others.

Ultimately, this has led to the current situation!

good good!
Add another pot to Mr. Wang's tally!
A cold glint flashed in Gu Bei's eyes.

Although it has not been announced yet,
However, Huayi has confirmed that it will be listed on October 30th of this year.
Gu Bei was so certain because
This is because that's when the first batch of companies listed on the China Growth Enterprise Market (GEM) went public.

The most influential factor on a film company's stock price is undoubtedly its latest released film.

This year's National Day film season
Gu Bei's The Message vs. Feng Xiaogang's 1942

This is not just a box office battle.
It is also an important factor affecting Huayi's listed stock price.
If 1942 defeats the whistle, Huayi's listed stock price could take off.

But if the result is the opposite, or even worse, then things will get interesting!
Gu Bei was unaware of this Weibo incident.
Was it intentional or unintentional on the part of the other party?
But he held a grudge against Xiao Wang for this.

Anyway, this isn't the first time that Mr. Wang has been blamed for something!

Previously, Gu Bei had taken Xiao Wang and Huayi.

There really isn't a good, direct solution.
But this time, Huayi Brothers deliberately used "Back to 1942" and "The Message" to compete for the National Day holiday slot in order to go public. They delivered themselves to Huayi Brothers' doorstep, so why not take advantage of it!
While Gu Bei and Liu Yifei were still rushing to Linlang Entertainment,
Their interview at the airport, along with that 'war correspondent' who used Weibo, spread across the entire internet in no time.

"That's great! Sissi has really landed the lead role in Mission: Impossible this time. I'm looking forward to surpassing Zhang Ziyi's performance in Rush Hour 2!"

"Among Asian actresses in Hollywood blockbusters, Yang Ziqiong is probably the most eye-catching. Her performance in 007 was also very cool. However, Director Gu said there are no romantic scenes because Ethan is already married. We can only look forward to Liu Yifei's action scenes!"

"The biggest surprise this time is that Liu Yifei will be acting in Chinese films in the future. Screenwriters, hurry up and submit your scripts to Linlang Entertainment. Linlang Entertainment not only has money, but also has Liu Yifei, who has the greatest international fame, backing it up. Don't you want to go international?"

"When did Liu Yifei become the most famous? She only had one hit work. Shouldn't Zhang Ziyi be the one who truly deserves the recognition?"

"What are you arguing about! The two people you're talking about are too young. You should see Yang Ziqiong from the Hong Kong film era!"

"A bunch of young people, have you all forgotten about Teacher Gong Li?"

A group of people immediately started arguing, debating which of the four people was the most famous internationally. It was a classic online cricket-fighting segment that applies to any topic.

The person staring at the account's comment data looked at Zhuo Wei next to him with a puzzled expression: "Boss, why don't I understand this data?"

Zhuo Wei looked at the backend data and asked, "What don't you understand?"

The younger brother said in confusion, "The Weibo post about Gu Bei and Liu Yifei's rumored relationship on the first day had the highest number of likes and comments, but the system gave it the lowest number of views."

On the contrary, the later Weibo posts,

The like and comment rates are normal.
But its readership is already several times that of the former!

"Ugh……"

Zhuo Wei patted his underling on the shoulder and said earnestly, "You're still too young. You've been following me for so long, and you've never realized that negative comments about Liu Yifei are the easiest to trigger traffic restrictions?"

"what?"

The younger brother was slightly taken aback.

He thought of many reasons.

It's possible that people are more likely to comment on rumors.
It's also possible that because Gu Bei and Liu Yifei have been involved in so many rumors, everyone has become somewhat desensitized to them.

But I never expected that there would be such a pattern on the Weibo platform.

"Delete it, don't affect my account's follower growth!"

Although Zhuo Wei had some ideals, he still succumbed to the authority of the platform.

He said with a hint of helplessness, "From now on, don't reveal anything about Liu Yifei unless it's a major scandal. Even if you do reveal something, you should do it on our website. Otherwise, it's all for nothing if it gets deleted!"

……

Hangcheng.

Gu Bei only stayed in Kyoto for one day, had a meal with Liu Yifei and her daughter, and checked on the progress of Linlang Entertainment's project.

Subsequently,

He flew to Hangzhou.
After all, Weibo is more important now.

"Mr. Gu, congratulations on winning the MTV award!"

Upon seeing Gu Bei, Peng Shaobing offered his congratulations with great enthusiasm.

"Ok!"

Gu Bei nodded.

He led the way into the conference room.
He looked around the conference room.
A large majority of them were acquaintances, veterans of the Weibo blitzkrieg six months ago, who watched Weibo surpass Fanfou in user numbers and reach millions of users at the fastest pace in history.

At the most critical moment,
Even though Gu Bei had almost disappeared for half a year,
But Weibo has never been short of money; Gu Bei single-handedly supported this rapidly growing internet company.

So when they saw Gu Bei walk in, they all felt their confidence return.

"Hello everyone!"

Gu Bei sat down.

After listening to everyone's work results over the past period,

Weibo now has 1200 million registered users, which is still far behind Twitter's 1500 million users, but at the current growth rate, it's only a matter of time before it surpasses Twitter.

In particular, Weibo Farm, launched last year, is the most powerful tool for maintaining user activity.

During this year's Chinese New Year,
Weibo Farm's limited-time event

This once brought Weibo's daily active users to over 800 million.
It was this event that brought the previously low-profile Weibo into the spotlight of tech giants.

After all, internet traffic is public. Even if Weibo doesn't disclose its data, when Weibo's traffic ranks among the top dozens in the world, even a fool can notice this little elephant hidden in the shadows.

After the meeting ended,

Peng Shaobing met with Gu Bei alone: ​​"President Gu, what do you think we should do to deal with the aggressive moves from Sina, Tencent, NetEase, and Sohu?"

Gu Bei didn't answer the question directly. Instead, he started to ask about the review process: "Now that you have such a large user base, you haven't neglected the review process, have you?"

With a formidable enemy at hand, what are you concerned about, Mr. Gu?

Peng Shaobing replied somewhat helplessly, "It's impossible to review such a large amount of data manually. We now use machine review, and human review is only conducted on Weibo posts that have received too many complaints."

(End of this chapter)