IPCFS: Chapter 46 Part 1

Qin Yue had invited many people to watch the screening. From an outsider’s perspective, this was undoubtedly a risky or even self-destructive act.

There was a group of ‘rats’ hiding in the gutters who, with the greatest malice, expected that Country and the World would fail. They couldn’t wait for Qin Yue, the investor and the starring actor, to fail and lose his title as the most ‘Legendary Movie Actor’ of the entertainment circle.

Unfortunately, their wishes were in vain.

Qin Yue leveraged the largest number of in demand screenings to encourage and ferment word of mouth advertising before the release.

In just one week, the pre-sales of Country and the World far exceeded the other movies being released at the same time on New Year’s Day. It could be said that the champion of the New Year’s Day slot had been locked in advance!

Of course, the more that word of mouth movies exploded, the more that sunspots and those who were jealous derided it.

They couldn’t criticize anything regarding Qin Yue’s strength, Yuan Yifei’s popularity, or the veteran actors of the movie. After deciding for a long time, this group of people focused on Ji Li.

Audience members who had seen the screening praised Ji Li, while the audience who hadn’t seen the screening had high expectations for Ji Li. However, jealous people and sunspots believed that this wave of positive public opinion was all created by water armies hired by Chaoying.

-Ji Li is a disgusting resources artist! He relied on the company’s backing to create scenes for himself! Didn’t you see on the live stream that both Qin Yue and Director Zheng didn’t like him?

-Ji Li is an extra! My friend went to see it, and said he only had five or six seconds of screen time! Fans are opening side accounts to brag wildly. Wait until the official launch to see who will be embarrassed.

They unscrupulously released their hatred across the computer screen, but even so, they couldn’t stop the majority of netizens from having high expectations for the movie.

What was there to pick on?

A resource artist and a small extra—weren’t these statements contradictory?

Taking a step back, the main actors of the movie were Qin Yue and Yuan Yifei. Even if Ji Li’s role was small, they would still go to the theater to see it. A bunch of brainless trolls!

In the end, how sad were they in reality that they could only spew shit on the Internet? Disgusting.

Perhaps because Qin Yue saw the shortcomings from the screening, he asked people to create a special 15 second trailer. In this version, netizens finally saw Ji Li’s appearance.

In this trailer, only the scene of the Song brothers eating warmly was shown.

The feeding scene where the two of them looked at each other and smiled gave off an inexplicable harmonious and mutually attractive atmosphere. This made people unknowingly show an auntie’s smile in front of the screen.

Then the faces of the sunspots were smashed.

Was this called ‘Qin Yue and Director Zheng don’t like Ji Li’? If they didn’t like him, why would they release a trailer for him alone? Wasn’t this a slap in the face?

This was called ‘Ji Li only has five or six seconds of screen time’? They needed to open their eyes and look clearly. This trailer alone lasted longer than that! Didn’t their face hurt?

Ji Li’s fans felt relieved. They forwarded it, and this new trailer received more than 10,000 views in one go. Then they started to wait for the moment of the official release.

Under everyone’s increasing expectations, the day when the movie was officially released finally came!

On the first day of the new year, the scheduling ratio of Country and the World was as high as 43%. Even with this scheduling rate, the screenings were full! Taking advantage of the peak traffic of ‘staying up late and not sleeping’ during the Spring Festival, a new round of ticket prices for the movie exploded at 3 o’clock in the morning!

-Going in with a smile and leaving the theater crying! Brother Yue’s eyes for picking scripts are as good as ever!

-Ahhhhh, as a fan of the original novel, I can lie down in peace! The casting is amazing! Song Yi played by Qin Yue killed me too much! The Song brothers plotline made me burst into tears.

-I cried over the monarch and minister and cried even more over the Song brothers. I had to borrow several tissues from the little sister next to me.

-I’m not surprised that the other actors and teachers acted well. To be honest, Ji Li’s performance was beyond my expectations. I think his character’s details were handled well! The change in his eyes when he was strangled by Song Yi, and the trembling of his outstretched hand when he was afraid was absolutely amazing!

-Ahhh, I haven’t paid attention to the details that the upstairs person mentioned. I want to go and watch it a second time! I found that the shots of him eating the relief food were absolutely coherent and the food residue was really mixed with dirt! If it was changed to another newcomer actor, how many could do it?

-I am a pure passerby and I’m not bragging. Ji Li was the number one supporting role. If his scenes were a bit longer, then he might have been able to compete with the two leading actors.

-I have become a fan of little brother Ji Li! I have already bought a ticket for a show tomorrow afternoon and it will be my second time watching.

……

Under this word of mouth evaluation, on the first day of its release, the box office of Country and the World successfully broke through 200 million and reached the top.

On the third day of the release, the rating from four comprehensive movie sites reached over 9 points and the scheduling ratio rose from 43% at the beginning to 50%. This was rare in the history of Chinese movies!

It had to be known that the competition for domestic movies was fierce, let alone holiday slots such as New Year’s Day. The fact that it had half the scheduling ratio was enough to show that Country and the World had received a high degree of approval from the audience.

Five days after its release, the movie became more and more courageous. It directly broke through the one billion mark, and the follow-up was still full of momentum.

Some people speculated that even though the year had just begun, Country and the World was likely to lock the annual box office crown!

A website for data collection took advantage of the popularity and released a research report.

Ever since the release of the movie, the person who received the biggest profit in terms of Internet value wasn’t Qin Yue or Yuan Yifei, but the small supporting role Ji Li. The young man’s various values were unparalleled!

The reason was simple and lucky.

The fan value of the first two had already reached a peak, and it was difficult to experience a big leap. It was a very powerful thing to maintain a small increase.

However, Ji Li was different. He was a newcomer to the movie industry.

This meant his Weibo fans and Internet mentions still had a lot of room for growth. The explosive word of mouth and popularity of the movie completely drove his personal data.

In just five days, Ji Li’s number of fans had increased by more than one million. His total number of fans was about to exceed the four million mark.

In addition, he successfully squeezed into the top 10 of the artist network’s comprehensive daily rankings with his role of ‘Song Zhao.’ With his accomplishments, he was completely worthy of being called a new ‘dark horse.’

It was only then that Ji Li’s fans dared to open up and brag.

See, this is my brother. Isn’t he awesome?

See, this is my cub. Isn’t he promising?

-See, this is our family’s Ji Li. Are you envious? If you are envious, then follow us into the pit!

At this moment, if there were any anti-fans who dared to talk nonsense with Ji Li’s name, then the fans would surely catch them and tear them apart! After enduring for many days, they finally retaliated with the highest amount of combat effectiveness, frightening many sunspots and jealous people into deleting their posts.

The even funnier thing was that some anti-fans scolded the movie so much that they ran to watch the movie. After watching it, they had red eyes and became Ji Li’s fans.

The black fans before watching the movie: Ji Li is garbage! I want to see if I can find a new black spot in the movie!

The black fans after watching the movie: I’m sorry, I’m garbage! Song Zhao is so pitiful and Ji Li is so handsome!

The movie was right in front of them, and the fans had the confidence to prove that Ji Li was awesome! It was just their luck to have such a good-looking actor with acting skills!

This wasn’t the end. The popularity of the movie meant that more people were willing to go watch it twice or even three times.

Qin Yue and Song Yi, Yuan Yifei and Cao Shijing, Ji Li, and Song Zhao… they had become one with the audience. In particular, Song Zhao’s newly added role made the crowd cry out in distress.

Even the original author, Uncle Meng, couldn’t help sighing on Weibo.

“All the teachers and actors acted very well. I didn’t expect that after the third watch, the role of Song Zhao would be the one that touched me the most. Before this, I didn’t know Ji Li, but after this, I am willing to become a fan of his.”

“I want to write something for the character Song Zhao, but he has already been killed in the novel. As the original author, I have only just met Song Zhao formally, and the other person has already chosen to leave. It is a pity.”

Under this Weibo post, fans of the original novel and the audience cried out and begged at the same time.

-Teacher Uncle Meng, please write one!

-Don’t be sorry, just write it! I am willing to read it even if it is the daily life of the brothers when they were children.

@Screenwriter Chen Fang, Teacher Chen, come see this. You can also write a small scene.

There was a saying that ‘tragedy wins people’s hearts,’ let alone a poor and cute tragic character like Song Zhao. Almost everyone who had seen the movie remembered him in their hearts.

Thanks to the character filter, Ji Li’s popularity with passersby expanded again and again.

On the 8th day of the first lunar month, Movie Magazine published the latest monthly interview. The one being interviewed was Ji Li, who had been gaining momentum these days.

The sales of the physical magazines priced at 60 yuan exceeded 100,000 copies. The electronic version was priced at 3 yuan and it exceeded three million in sales in just six hours after it was launched.

It had to be known that such sales were rare for first-tier actors, not to mention that Ji Li was still a newcomer actor who just made a name for himself.

This achievement really took advantage of the ‘wind’ of the movie. It could be described as a favorable time and place, and Ji Li had become the biggest winner.

The other media entertainment reporters saw the data and their envy and regret doubled.

Why didn’t they originally think of interviewing Ji Li?

In this era of data explosion, how much of a performance did they miss because of their own dullness?

If possible, they wanted to fly back in time using a time machine so they could put the microphone in front of the young man and not let go!

It was a pity that there was no time machine, and Chaoying didn’t give them a second chance.

There was a saying that went ‘you love to ignore today’s me but you can’t climb high onto tomorrow’s me.’ This accurately portrayed the relationship between them and Ji Li.

***

The artist lounge of Chaoying Culture.

Ji Li signed the two stacks of autographed photos. Then he shook his sore hands and sighed. “It is finally finished.”

Baozi rushed to his side and massaged him. “Brother Ji worked hard, Brother Ji doesn’t have it easy. Brother Ji in front of us is so good-looking. How can there be a perfect person like my Brother Ji…”

This exaggerated praise was very perfunctory.

Ji Li imitated Yu Fuya and gave him a gentle hit. “Are you going to send out all these autographed photos? Can they all be handed out?”

“Brother Ji, you are underestimating yourself! At this time, there were too few people in the artist’s publicity department. It was Sister Yu who loved you too much to hurt you, so she waved her hand and decreased the number of autographed photos in half.”

The movie had been released for eight days, but the popularity hadn’t yet diminished.

These autographed photos were to be handed over by the company to the filmmakers in order to send them to fans through various publicity channels.

During this time, the publicity team that Chaoying arranged for Ji Li was very good.

Not only did they send a wave of daily life beauty photos once in a while to maintain the popularity of fans, but they also took the opportunity to set up a special support group, official anti-fan organizations, etc. They formed a perfect fan system for young people.

Ji Li’s popularity had skyrocketed too fast, and the level of the fans was also different. This required good guidance from an official organization.

“Brother Ji, many samples of new scripts were sent to your inbox. I’ll help check them for you and reject the ones that obviously won’t pass at first glance. Wait until you’re free, and I’ll print out the remaining ones for you to take a look at?”

Ji Li took a sip of hot milk tea and nodded. “Yes, there is no hurry.”

He had been too busy recently and he always felt he had to calm down when it came to such important matters.

Proofread: Azure