Entertainment: Who still wants to fall in love when there are cheats?

Chapter 261 Eighteen Billion Dollars
After the premiere of "Dying to Survive" in mainland China, Li Boda, Son Ye-jin, Wang Chuanjun, Wang Baoqiang, and a few others flew directly to South Korea.

Even with Hwang Jung-min and Lee Jung-jae backing them up in South Korea, it would still be more appropriate for Lee Baek-da, the director who won the Golden Lion Award, to step in and make an appearance, which would be more conducive to boosting the box office.

And indeed, Lee Baek-da was very popular after he came to South Korea.

As soon as he appeared, he was surrounded by a large group of reporters and even fans. The fans were so excited when they saw Li Boda that they screamed and some even fainted from excitement.

The reason why Lee Bo-da is so popular in South Korea is naturally because Lee Bo-da himself is handsome.

As a country that takes pride in cosmetic surgery, its people are even more obsessed with appearance.

Moreover, unlike those handsome men who have undergone plastic surgery, Li Boda is a truly natural and 100% handsome man. In addition, Li Boda's achievements are unmatched by anyone else in South Korea. Whether it is the "Infinite Terror" series or "Holy Grail War", they have all achieved such high box office results, and even ranked very high globally.

Now, with "Dying to Survive", he has won the Golden Lion Award.

Especially after watching the movie "Dying to Survive," which is a South Korean film, they subconsciously started to consider Li Boda as one of their own.

Many South Koreans have even started saying that Lee Baek-da is from South Korea and has South Korean blood.

Therefore, it is perfectly normal for Lee Baek-da, who is both handsome and exceptionally capable, to be so popular in South Korea.

When Li Boda and his team arrived in South Korea, they received news that the film "Dying to Survive" had been nominated for seven awards at the Blue Dragon Film Awards: Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Actress, and Best Editing.

While it's still uncertain how many awards "Dying to Survive" will ultimately win, many believe it will be the biggest winner at the Blue Dragon Awards.

In fact, the film "Dying to Survive" was submitted to many film festivals, all of which were international film festivals, because only international film festivals accept foreign films.

For example, the Golden Rooster Awards in China is indeed a very large film festival, but its target audience is mainly domestic films, including those from Taiwan and Hong Kong. Films from countries like South Korea have no chance of being selected.

However, since "Dying to Survive" won the Golden Lion for Best Film at the Venice International Film Festival, it's likely that the film will also win awards at other film festivals such as the Blue Dragon Film Awards and the Tokyo International Film Festival.

Of course, for "Dying to Survive," which has already won the Golden Lion for Best Film at the Venice International Film Festival, these awards are at most just icing on the cake.

After running several promotional events for "Dying to Survive" in South Korea, Li Boda and his team flew to South Korea.

Similar to when Lee Bo-da came to South Korea, he was also very popular when he came to Japan.

The main reason is that the two movies Li Boda previously filmed, "Infinite Terror 2" and "The Holy Grail War," both incorporated elements or storylines from the Little Days Kingdom, causing the people of the Little Days Kingdom to subconsciously regard Li Boda as one of their own. As someone who achieved such great success, Li Boda has garnered a large number of fans in the Little Days Kingdom.

Li Boda and his entourage had just gotten off the plane and hadn't even left the airport when they were surrounded by a large number of Li Boda's fans, which even affected public order.

Then Li Boda's face hardened, and he directly reprimanded the group of fans.

Unexpectedly, Li Boda's scolding of them did not cause them to lose their fans. Instead, they felt that Li Boda was genuine and a true man, and they became even more infatuated with him.

Then there's "Dying to Survive," a movie that's clearly not suitable for multiple viewings, yet these fans watched it over and over again, repeatedly boosting Li Boda's box office numbers.

It can only be said that the people of Xiao Rizi Kingdom are sometimes just shameless; the worse you treat them, the more they worship Li Boda.

……

"You mean, let 'Dying to Survive' compete for an Oscar?" Li Boda was somewhat astonished when his American partner told him that they could help 'Dying to Survive' compete for an Oscar.

Well, Li Boda made "Dying to Survive" hoping to win awards and enhance his credentials, but even with this in mind, he had never considered the Oscars before.

After all, the Oscars, how should I put it, have never opened the door to China from the very beginning.

International film festivals, no matter what, still have a standard. If you portray China as poor and backward, you still have a chance to win a major award.

However, these kinds of films, even if they go to the Oscars, don't win any awards at all, even if it's a genre they like to see. They just won't give you an Oscar.

Although Li An's "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" won an Oscar, the first advantage is that Li An has lived in the United States for many years, attended university there, and already has connections and influence there. Furthermore, the film's investors were also American. Even the style and themes of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" align very well with American ideology.

It was a combination of factors that led to winning the Oscar.

However, the film "Dying to Survive" didn't have as many advantages; competing for an Oscar was something Li Boda hadn't even dared to consider before.

"That's right, the quality of the movie 'Dying to Survive' is very high, and Director Li, your international status is also very high now. The Oscars would be very happy to extend an olive branch to you. It would be even better if you could get a green card or even apply to immigrate to the United States."

“I have no intention of immigrating,” Li Boda said, waving his hand dismissively.

Li Boda finally understood. The United States wanted him to immigrate there, preferably to obtain citizenship, so that he would become one of their own. And if Li Boda became one of their own, then Oscar was their gift to him.

Moreover, Li Boda believes that the reason why the people there invited him to immigrate there is probably not only because of his identity as a director, but also because of the Rubik's Cube Group under his name.

The Magic Cube phone, a product of the Magic Cube Group, is currently selling exceptionally well globally, ranking third in the world, only behind Samsung and Apple.

It would be strange if the US didn't have any thoughts about this.

Li Boda was well aware of their intentions and naturally rejected them without hesitation.

He's doing well in China; he's a big entrepreneur, a great director, and a highly respected figure in any industry.

Why give up this status and respect to become a second-class citizen in the United States? Or even turn yourself into meat on the chopping block of the United States, letting the United States slaughter you? Isn't that just plain crazy?

Therefore, Li Boda directly refused to compete for an Oscar.

The visitor was very disappointed after receiving this reply.

However, shortly after the other party left, Li Boda's Rubik's Cube Group was sanctioned.

The chips used in the Rubik's Cube phone have been blocked by the United States, which has directly prohibited factories in Taiwan from manufacturing chips for the phone. If this happened to any other group or company, it would be a devastating blow, potentially crippling them or even leading to bankruptcy.

However, the United States sanctioned the Rubik's Cube Group, whose owner is Li Boda.

This little thing, how could it possibly stump Li Boda? That's a joke.

Putting aside the fact that Li Boda is capable of easily making a lithography machine by hand.

Even if Li Boda didn't manufacture them himself, he could easily have secretly borrowed several or even dozens of lithography machines from abroad.

However, to avoid being too conspicuous, or going too far.

Li Boda went directly to the lithography machine manufacturer, used some tricks and disguised himself to purchase a batch of the most advanced lithography machines.

By the time Li Boda's chip factory was established and even started producing chips, the United States finally realized what was happening and launched various investigations and attacks. But by then, it was too late.

After purchasing the lithography machine, Li Boda also began to develop new lithography machines, and these machines would bypass those technologies that had already been patented.

What is extremely difficult for ordinary people is nothing more than simple for Li Boda.

Although Li Boda's use of this technology might seem somewhat unreasonable to some, Li Boda is already a superhuman, so why should we need to consider whether it's reasonable or not?

Add a little something, and people all over the world will subconsciously overlook some of the irrationalities in Li Boda's character, and then nothing will happen.

Because of the issues surrounding lithography machines and chips, Li Boda didn't have the energy to pay attention to movies for a while.

However, Li Boda didn't pay attention to it afterward, but it didn't affect the box office of the movie "Dying to Survive".

Because of its overall dark tone, "Dying to Survive" only grossed 2.5 billion yuan at the box office after being pulled from theaters for two months, even with the support of Li Boda's fame. However, this was just enough to surpass the previous film, "Monster Hunt".

On the contrary, in South Korea, "Dying to Survive" had a particularly high box office, directly taking in more than 100 billion won, which is equivalent to 600 to 700 million RMB.

In smaller countries, the film "Dying to Survive" also performed exceptionally well at the box office, grossing over 10 billion yen, which is roughly equivalent to over 300 million RMB.

Adding in the scattered box office revenue from other countries, "Dying to Survive" had already grossed over 3 billion RMB by the time it finished its run, which is equivalent to 500 million USD.

For an art film, especially one with a low budget, to achieve such high box office numbers naturally makes director Li Boda even more popular.

As a result, Li Boda quickly received many invitations, and a large number of scripts were handed to him.

He received invitations to direct both special effects blockbusters and low-budget art films.

However, Li Boda didn't even glance at these invitations and rejected them outright.

As mentioned before, Li Boda became a director entirely because he wanted to make the movies he wanted to make, or rather, to play the roles he wanted to play.

Therefore, in Li Boda's view, the profession of director was more of a service to his acting career.

Giving up acting roles to become a director? For Li Boda, that would be putting the cart before the horse.

Therefore, even when faced with director's fees of over 20 million US dollars, Li Boda was not tempted at all.

Meanwhile, Infinite Terror 5 had already been released worldwide.

The box office performance goes without saying; assuming the film's quality is good, the box office is guaranteed to be excellent.

The box office of the "Infinite Terror" series of movies can only rise one after another, and at most we can only see how much higher they can go.

When Infinite Terror 5 was released, Li Boda was busy developing a new lithography machine, so he didn't pay attention to the premiere of Infinite Terror 5.

By the time Li Boda finished his work, "Infinite Terror 5" had already finished its run in theaters.

The final box office of "Infinite Terror 5" reached 1.8 billion US dollars.

Although the box office of "Infinite Terror 5" only just caught up with the global box office of "Titanic" in 97, this achievement is still enough to attract global attention.

After all, not everyone is Cameron.

To date, there are only a handful of films that have grossed more worldwide than Titanic.

As the director of "Infinite Terror 5", Xu Shanzheng has become quite arrogant this time.

Well, it wasn't just his attitude that became arrogant; even his body swelled up along with it.

After all, he's the director of a film that grossed a staggering 1.8 billion US dollars worldwide—an internationally renowned director.

Both domestically and internationally, people adore him.

Every day, he receives invitations to meals and drinks from people all over the country.

Countless beautiful women wanted to get close to him. Let alone Xu Shanzheng, anyone would be insane if they were in his shoes!
Fortunately, although Xu Shanzheng had become quite arrogant, he was still relatively clear-headed and did not go too far. At least, he had not forgotten about the movie "Infinite Terror 6" that he was going to film next.

At the same time, Xu Shanzheng still maintained respect for Li Boda.

Of course, the main reason is also because of Li Boda's identity. He is the mastermind behind the "Infinite Terror" series. Who is the director is just a matter of a word for Li Boda. In addition, he is the boss of the Magic Cube Group. These identities make Xu Shanzheng not have the courage to be arrogant when facing Li Boda.

(End of this chapter)