IPCFS: Chapter 89 Part 1

‘Time Lobbyist’ was scheduled very abruptly, but after weighing the pros and cons, this time was the best choice for the producers.

The film was an ordinary digital movie, so the post-editing process took less than four months. According to common sense, it should have been released in summer.

However, this year’s summer holidays saw a big fight between domestic movies in the box office. There were also the sequels to several popular foreign films that would be released during the National Day holiday. They wouldn’t be able to gain any benefits from scheduling it at these times.

A niche theme like ‘Time Lobbyist’ could easily become a ‘victim’ of the holiday scheduling. So, the producers dragged it out.

However, a movie had a ‘time limit.’ If it wasn’t launched online or was kept unreleased for too long, it would be easy for the audience to lose interest in the movie. The most serious issue was that they might lose their qualification for a theatrical release.

‘Time Lobbyist’ would basically suffer if it was dragged out to be an online movie.

Therefore, the producer struggled for a while before deciding to release the movie during the New Year’s holiday.

“At present, there aren’t many new movies that are expected to be released on New Year’s Day, and we are the only youth movie. There are no other competitors in this genre. We should be able to gain a small advantage from this.”

In the office of Chaoying, Yu Fuya handed over the latest list of ‘confirmed to release’ movies.

Ji Li was the third male lead and didn’t have much of a direct connection to the box office, but he obtained the script and role after he fought hard for it at the beginning.

He still hoped that this movie could deliver satisfactory results to the greatest extent.

Ji Li glanced at the list and asked, “What are the favorites to win the box office championship on New Year’s Day?”

“The favorite to win the championship is ‘Godslayer Flower Demon’ directed by Xu Cheng.”

Baozi helped analyze the championship. “Director Xu Cheng’s Godslayer series is now up to its third part. The materials are all based on Chinese mythology, and the box office of the first two movies were very stable.”

This time, Flower Demon took a year for the post-production stage alone. The concept of an Easter Egg was given at the end of the second part of the Godslayer series, and many fans had been looking forward to it early on.

“Director Xu said in an interview some time ago that this Flower Demon will definitely surpass the results of the first two movies.”

Ji Li nodded calmly upon hearing this.

A series of movies like this had an audience base laid down by the first two movies. They also had the reputation of a big director, and this alone could easily attract passersby.

The box office basically wouldn’t ‘crash’ as long as the plot and special effects were good.

“What else?”

Yu Fuya continued, “Director Song Yonghui’s ‘Great Lost Wealth in the World’ was originally scheduled for the Spring Festival, but it is now scheduled for New Year’s Day.”

Ji Li was familiar with this light comedy movie.

Before encountering the script of Special Operations, the producer of ‘Great Lost Wealth in the World’ and the director Song Yonghui had invited Ji Li to be the male lead.

Baozi obviously remembered this. “I heard that after Brother Ji rejected this movie role, he appointed the comedian Chen Ming as the male lead.”

Song Yonghui and Chen Ming were veteran partners, and they already had an established audience base. As for whether the movie could explode in popularity or not, they had to see the audience’s word of mouth after the release.

Suddenly, a staff member walked in. “Brother Ji, there is hot milk tea that was just sent in by a delivery man. He said it was for you.”

“For me?”

Yu Fuya saw the ‘Mr Qi’ on the order and understood. “Right now, it should be early in the morning over in the United States, right? Someone is still thinking that they are raising a child and asked someone to order milk tea for you?”

From her perspective, this was the takeout milk tea that Qi An asked Qi An in China to help him order.

Ji Li’s eyes lit up immediately, and he took a few deep breaths under Yu Fuya’s mother-like gaze. “You go on, I’ll listen.”

Yu Fuya saw his smug expression and shook her head helplessly.

She reached out and pointed to another movie on the list. “There is also this movie that has a high amount of attention.”

“Night Detective?” Ji Li repeated the name of the movie.

“It is adapted from a popular suspense novel of the same name. The most important thing is that the male lead of this role is…”

Yu Fuya met his eyes and reported a familiar name. “Cai Yishu.”

Baozi sighed angrily. “Absolutely, the road is narrow for enemies.”

At the beginning, Cai Yishu was chosen as the first male lead of ‘Time Lobbyist’ and brought Wang Yongwei, who had no professional ethics, into the crew. The two of them blindly changed the original script and had a dispute with Ji Li in the crew.

Later, they were kicked out of the crew by the investor Qin Yue. Then this absurd farce came to an end.

It had been silent for a while after Cai Yishu quit the crew. Later, he received this movie script that was adapted from an original novel.

Yu Fuya dug out the movie materials that she collected early in the morning, and her lips curved with deep meaning. “I took a look and Wang Yongwei is still on the screenwriter’s list.”

Ji Li stared at the male protagonist Cai Yishu on the movie poster. The words ‘Wang Yongwei’ were on the co-screenwriter column. In his heart, he could already guess what the quality of this script was.

What was the saying?

Changing the mountains and rivers was easier than altering one’s character. In other words, ‘bad habits are hard to change.’

Baozi was a bit worried. “They won’t make trouble any longer, right?”

“What is there to be afraid of? Don’t we still have a trump card?” Ji Li sneered and a sharp aura suddenly emerged from his body.

After saying this, he lowered his head again and drank his milk tea in an enjoyable manner.

One second, he was an aggressive, big wild leopard. The next second, he turned back into a sweet little milk leopard. This contrast made people laugh and cry.

Yu Fuya nodded and agreed. “How good can a movie written by Wang Yongwei be? If Cai Yishu really dares to make small, behind the scenes movements behind, Chaoying will happily slap him in the face with the materials that we’ve prepared previously.”

Movies released at the same time had always been competitive.

If Cai Yishu dared to provoke them, they could just join forces with the producers of ‘Time Lobbyist’ to fight back.

“In addition, there are two foreign sci-fi movies. They won’t win the box office championship, but they might divert some of the box office.”

To put it bluntly, ‘Time Lobbyist’ wasn’t the first choice of fans for the holidays in terms of the subject matter or theme.

However, their advantages were also prominent. They were the only youth movie launched during the New Year’s Day holiday. The leading actors also consisted of handsome men and beautiful women. They could rely on the advantage of their outstanding appearance to absorb a wave of audience members to enter the theater.

Baozi sighed. “Hey, I’m afraid that we will be ridiculed terribly if it becomes a pure fan movie.

As the name suggested, a pure fan movie was a movie where only fans of the actors bought tickets in support. If this was the case, the actors could easily suffer a lot of ridicule.

After all, for actors in the movie industry, the power of the box office was always stronger than an actor’s popularity.

Ji Li might have only been the third male lead of the movie, but Baozi still hoped that he would gain something by relying on the movie.

It was said that there was only a three month ‘love period’ for actors who relied on dramas to attract fans of their character role.

It had been almost a year since the drama ‘Schemes of the Great Zong Dynasty Youth’ was aired. If Ji Li had no new characters to attract fans, then the next resources might not be available to him.

“Don’t worry, I believe that this movie won’t be bad.” Ji Li said with strong confidence in his eyes. So far, none of the movie or television scripts he liked had been overturned.

Besides, this movie was personally invested in by Qin Yue. To a certain extent, there was already a double guarantee for the box office.

Yu Fuya had always believed in Ji Li’s vision when picking a script. “That’s fine. Then we will attend the premiere on the night of the 30th.”

“Okay.”

***

Three days later, the New Year’s Day movie collectively opened for pre-sales.

‘Time Lobbyist’ had no advantage against the movies in the same period, and the amount of their pre-sales was at the bottom of the list. The existing box office pre-sales were almost all supported by the fans.

On Weibo, there were already movie critics who ridiculed it.

[‘Time Lobbyist’ is just a movie for fans who lick actors’ faces. At first glance, it looks good with Qin Yue’s investment, Wang Zhang as the director, and Ji Mingyue as the chief screenwriter, but it is a complete publicity stunt.

There are five starring actors. Except for Ji Li, who exploded in popularity in the first half of the year, the rest of the actors are still hovering around the second or third tier. Does such a movie want to break out of the siege in the New Year’s Day period? The probability is 0%!

I advise passing netizens not to waste money and to watch other movies.]

Another movie and television marketing account took the opportunity to comment on ‘Time Lobbyist.’

[Does anyone remember the incident where the male leader Cai Yishu was temporarily replaced during the filming of Time Lobbyist? Now it seems that producers have dug a hole for themselves.

Cai Yishu is starring in Night Detective, and the pre-sales box office is more than double that of Time Lobbyist. He is absolutely a face-slapping male lead!]

[True strength is turning popularity into box office! None of the current main creators of Time Lobbyist have this qualification! Ji Li hasn’t appeared in front of the public for half a year, and the drama fans he accumulated through Xie Yan are almost gone.

Last year on New Year’s Day, he was named a ‘newcomer dark horse’ in the movie industry with ‘Song Zhao.’ Now it seems that he had actually borrowed the ‘double male protagonist’ halo of Qin Yue + Yuan Yifei.

Hey, this movie is doomed, and the three big names Qin Yue + Wang Zhang and + Ji Mingyue will follow suit.]

Comments such as these emerged one after another. Most of the Weibo IDs that liked these comments were from Cai Yishu’s fan group.

At the beginning, Cai Yishu had silently lost the position of male protagonist of this movie, and his fans had been full of anger.

Now that the two movies were on the same starting line, the Cai fans took the opportunity to blacken the movie ‘Time Lobbyist.’

Under this disgusting manipulation, apart from the fans of the actors, very few netizens took the initiative to buy pre-sale tickets of Time Lobbyist.

-I will watch a few other movies first. After all, there are only so many days during the New Year’s holiday.

-The leading actors are in fact very good-looking, but I had better wait for word of mouth after its release before deciding whether to watch it or not.

-The name ‘Time Lobbyist’ makes people have no desire to watch it at all.

-Ji Li’s false popularity is vividly displayed at this moment. Tsk tsk.

-It is a fan movie, so just open the fans’ wallets. How can you cheat normal people?

Passersby were led by this biased point of view, and the black fans and fans of opposing actors fished in troubled waters on the Internet.

Apart from the concentrated buying effort of fans during the first three days, the pre-sales box office of ‘Time Lobbyist’ only experienced a small increase in pre-sales in the next four days, and it was stuck at 26 million.

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Proofreader: Azure