The King of Soft Rice in Chinese Entertainment

Chapter 357 Reasons
"By the time the game planners realized something was wrong and wanted to make changes, it was too late. By then, it was already the late game, and Zhao Ling'er was about to start saving the world. Naturally, it was not appropriate to portray her as having a romantic relationship, especially since she was pregnant. However, Lin Yueru had already been written out of the story, so it was not appropriate to bring her back. Therefore, the character Anu was added as a temporary replacement for the female lead, which further diluted Zhao Ling'er's screen time."

In this way, Zhao Ling'er's only labels are pitiful and righteous, and most of her love will be given to her daughter Li Yiru, with only a last bit for Li Xiaoyao.

While playing the game, players won't experience this; most of their energy is focused on leveling up, farming money, and navigating dungeons, so the female protagonist only needs to express her affection occasionally. However, reflecting on it after the game ends can feel somewhat awkward, especially since Lin Yueru's story, although ending in the last third, involved her genuinely accompanying Li Xiaoyao for the first two-thirds, resulting in significant character development. This led to the creation of separate factions: Ling'er and Yueru.

Of course, it's a game, so even though the character development might be a bit off, players can continue their adventure with the female protagonist as long as they turn on their computer, so they won't care too much about these details. But if it's to be adapted into a TV series, and the main storyline can't be drastically changed, then adjustments are necessary, especially to the character development.

Xu Jiuyang finished his long speech.

Yu Zheng listened attentively: "So, Teacher Xu, what parts do you think can be modified?"

“I won’t go into too much detail about that, since you wrote the script,” Xu Jiuyang shook his head first, “but from the perspective of the game’s plot, I think we can start in a few places. On Immortal Spirit Island, how can we make Zhao Ling’er’s love at first sight for Li Xiaoyao more convincing? Outside Suzhou City, when Li Xiaoyao is injured by Lin Yueru, how can we show Zhao Ling’er’s unwavering devotion to him when she uses forbidden techniques to save him? In Baihe Village, how can we portray her self-pity in the face of Li Xiaoyao and Lin Yueru’s interactions…”

Frankly speaking, this is still a bit insufficient. After all, the storyline in the capital city greatly enhanced Lin Yueru's image. It was interwoven with Caiyi's deep affection for Liu Jinyuan, and there was the foreshadowing in Yangzhou City before that. Then, she died in the Demon Locking Tower. It can be said that the deeper the players' filter for Caiyi was, the deeper their filter for Lin Yueru was.

It's fortunate that she was written out of the story after the Demon Locking Tower, otherwise Zhao Ling'er would have gone from being the female lead to a supporting character. Even so, Yao still had to bring Lin Yueru out at the end to mess with her. It can be said that from this point on, he had already begun to persecute Li Xiaoyao's entire family.

Of course, TV series are adaptations, and the way they present the story is different from that of games. If the details are handled well, and with Liu Qianqian's portrayal of Zhao Ling'er, it's not impossible to turn the tide.

“I roughly understand Professor Xu’s requirements,” Yu Zheng said at the end after taking notes. “I will start revising the script after I get back, but I also hope that Professor Xu can give me a definite reply time.”

“It won’t be more than a week,” Xu Jiuyang checked the time. “It’s still early. If Screenwriter Yu has nothing else to do, I’ll go to Ms. Liu’s house now.”

"Then I'll take my leave." Yu Zheng didn't hesitate and immediately got up and left.

After he left, Li Xue, who had been watching from the sidelines, asked curiously, "Why did you go through all this trouble?"

"Nothing much, I just feel that 'Chinese Paladin' is a childhood memory, so if it's going to be made into a TV series, at least make it decent." Xu Jiuyang shrugged and started packing up as well. "I'm going to visit Ms. Liu now. Are you staying here or going back?"

"Of course I'm staying here. I haven't had enough to eat yet, and I'm going to call Hao Lei and the others over." Li Xue struck a challenging pose, then rolled her eyes and asked, "Speaking of which, what's your relationship with that Ms. Liu?"

"What do you think?" Xu Jiuyang asked in return.

“I think she’s just like us,” Li Xue said, squinting her eyes.

“You got it right.” Xu Jiuyang spread his hands.

This behavior only made Li Xue more suspicious, especially after someone added, "Don't tell your big boss."

So she immediately changed to a wronged expression: "Oh dear, who would tell the big boss this?"

"Stop acting, you're the screenwriter now." Xu Jiuyang slapped her on the bottom, then left the small living room and called Zhang Yan over.

"I'm going out for a bit now. I'll see if I'm back tonight. Don't worry about Li Xue, just take care of yourself and organize your recent schedule." He instructed. "Understood, boss." Zhang Yan maintained her usual obedient yet aloof demeanor.

Xu Jiuyang smiled nonchalantly, waved to Li Xue, then went out and got into his car, preparing to go to Xiaoli's place.

Convincing Liu Qianqian to play Zhao Ling'er was not a spur-of-the-moment decision, but the result of much deliberation.

The reason is simple. Didn't we mention before that monopolies lead to ratings fraud? The biggest difference between the mainland film and television industry and foreign film and television industries is that foreign industries have to consider the needs of the audience to some extent, while domestic industries have to prioritize those in power.

Naturally, the situation of buying viewership ratings is more serious inside than outside.

In recent years, things have been better. After all, TV dramas need to be watched, so while buying ratings is one thing, producers and broadcasters still need to consider the audience's feelings to some extent.

Once IT capital enters the market and major video apps dominate, then we can do whatever we want.

This is the difference between a certain game magazine and a certain news website. The former requires readers to pay money, so no matter how much it cares about game developers, it still has to consider the readers' feelings. The latter is a free website; traffic cannot be directly converted into money. When Sony throws money in their faces, they can only kneel down and call them "daddy," and produce rubbish like "an unparalleled miracle."

The reason why free things are often the most expensive is because when you get used to free things, you lose your bargaining power.

Getting back to the point, Xu Jiuyang once asked Fan Bingbing about the profits of "The Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber," and she said it was within an acceptable range.

She spoke very casually, as if she didn't care about the profit. Xu Jiuyang was a little confused at first, but then he realized what she meant.

That's obvious. She earned tens of millions from "Legend" last year, and that was pure profit. But no matter how popular "Heavenly Sword and Dragon Saber" is, how much money can it sell?

Xu Jiuyang remembered seeing some data in his previous life: back in 03, TV drama production companies only made about 20% profit. Relying solely on domestic copyrights and basic advertising revenue, losses were commonplace.

After all, the current market size is limited, various laws and regulations are not perfect, piracy is rampant, and derivative products are practically non-existent.

Therefore, it is not difficult to understand why Zhang Jizhong was so lenient with himself.

Then, the Nasdaq index in the United States also began to surge, and the stocks of the three major portal websites rose day by day. If this situation continued until the end of the year, the stocks held by Xu Jiuyang alone would be close to ten million.

Of course, that's unlikely, but with the dividends and shares from Zhulong Technology and Shenlei Technology, he still has a net worth of 20 to 30 million, and if he wants to boast, he could even say over 100 million.

If Xu Jiuyang is like this, one can imagine how much wealth Fan Bingbing has, so naturally she doesn't care about the profits from the TV series.

Similarly, Xiaoli's older sister amassed a fortune early on through short-term trading, and with his guidance, she also made significant gains. Even if she couldn't compare to Fan Bingbing, she wouldn't be far behind. Furthermore, her investment in "Chinese Paladin" was to fulfill her daughter's wish...

(End of this chapter)