Chapter 381

Er Yuan saw her dad wasting her milk, and she called "ah, ah" twice, feeling anxious, unable to express the complicated meaning.

Er Yuan saw her dad wasting her milk, and she called 'ah, ah' twice, feeling anxious, unable to express the complicated meaning.

Seeing Er Mao still staring at the TV, Er Yuan became unhappy, she patted the small chair, using her voice to show her dissatisfaction.

"Dad—Dad—"

Hearing Er Yuan's call, Er Mao finally turned around and handed the milk in his hand to Er Yuan.

"Daughter, that black coal actually went to act in a movie!"

"Hei Ge?" Er Yuan didn't quite understand what making a movie was, but she knew that the "black coal" her dad mentioned was Hei Ge. Just like Zhuo Xiao Mao, she and Wei Xiao Pang also call Zheng Tan "Hei Ge".

"Exactly, definitely that guy—I can tell at a glance. Besides the black coal, no other cat could act like that; that look is just listlessly bad, listlessly bad." Er Mao said.

Er Yuan held the cup and drank milk, wondering what her dad meant by 'listlessly bad, listlessly bad'. She thought for a long time but couldn't figure it out, so she forgot it—drinking the milk was important. When she sees Hei Ge later and follows her dad's example, she will say to Hei Ge, 'listlessly bad, listlessly bad'.

Er Mao had no idea what his daughter was thinking, and he was still shocked from the movie trailer he'd just seen. Last year he'd been busy taking care of his wife and kids, hadn't paid much attention to that black coal, and never expected that they'd already made a movie!

What a life!

After a while, Er Mao felt he couldn't calm the curiosity and surprise in his heart, but it wouldn't do to just run upstairs to ask. At this point, that cat was surely out wandering, maybe even flirting with some female cat.

If Zheng Tan knew what Er Mao was thinking now, he'd definitely rush over and beat him up.

Seeing the phone placed on the table, Er Mao picked it up, saw Er Yuan earnestly drinking milk, and told her to finish, then put the cup aside and behave herself while playing for a bit; if anything came up, just shout, and he'd go next door to make a call.

The nanny was airing clothes; after Er Mao said something to her, he went to the next room, closed the door, flipped through the address book, and directly called Wei Leng.

Wei Leng was at the company side, checking a few transport sheets and stamping them. Looking at the sheets made him a bit tired, so he went outside for some fresh air. Hearing Er Mao's call, Wei Leng wondered why Er Mao was calling at this time. As soon as he answered, he heard Er Mao's shouting from the other end.

"Senior brother, do you know? The black coal actually went to act in a movie! Not a pet ad. It's a real movie. Acting alongside a few little stars, released on the big screen—that kind of big movie!"

Wei Leng choked on that 'zao' character, then after a moment realized what it meant.

"Speak properly!" Wei Leng said.

Er Mao is such a person. Ever since his daughter Er Yuan learned to speak, he's often talked with her. Although he influenced her, teaching her many words, Er Mao also picked up from her some unclear pronunciations and habits of speaking to toddlers, like saying "eat rice" as "eat rice rice" and "sleep" as "sleep sleep". If it were only said to the child, it'd be fine—many parents do that—but Er Mao, this guy, talks like that even when everyone's gathered together, mixing in some infantile terms, directly making everyone break out in goosebumps. A bunch of old guys together actually talking like that, Wei Leng thought he'd love to punch him twice.

However, Hei Tan acting in a movie? Last year he'd heard similar rumors, thinking it was just filming an ad with the pet center, not taking it seriously, but now seeing it, is it really true?

"What's it called?"

Wei Leng walked into the office, sat at the computer, and searched for the movie 《Black Cat》 as Er Mao had said. The cast list had no cat's name, only a few actors and the director's intro. However, from what's known from publicity, the director told the media that the black cat appearing in the film was borrowed from a friend, a trained black cat, and everyone calls it "z", breed unknown.

Seeing this, Wei Leng laughed, still "z", still breed unknown—obviously it's Hei Tan. He even put on a disguise; one stage name wasn't enough, he came up with a second.

Just then, Er Mao's call came in again.

"Have you seen it? Is that the black coal?" Although phrased as a question, it expresses strong certainty; Er Mao doesn't doubt his eyesight at all.

"Hmm." Wei Leng, on the phone, flipped through webpages, having just watched the online-released trailer; since there was nothing else going on, he happened upon this, got interested, and took another look.

"Ah, senior brother, the release date isn't far off—why don't we organize a group to go see the movie then? Boost the black coal's box office?" Er Mao said eagerly on the other end. He doesn't often go to the cinema to watch movies; actually, few films attract him. When he wants to watch a movie, he searches online, and huh, copyright and such are just a word to him.

"Sure, let's go together then." Wei Leng was also quite looking forward to it. As one of the early people who knew that black cat, he knew exactly what kind of character it had.

"By the way, senior brother, can kids be brought into the cinema? It's been so long since I've hung out at the movies, I don't know the rules." Er Mao said.

"Seems like there aren't any restrictions. Do you want to bring Er Yuan to the cinema? Er Yuan's too young, she's only one and a half, and besides, the cinema's sound is loud, the air poor, the screen flickers—worried it might affect her hearing and eyesight." Wei Leng recalled what his wife had said before and passed it on to Er Mao.

"Oh, I'll ask again then." Er Mao actually really wanted to bring his daughter to see the movie; if by then her mom still hadn't come back, would he go alone? Even if he went with the senior brothers, Er Mao still really wanted to bring his daughter—plus, this is the movie starring the black coal, Er Yuan's Hei Ge; not going to the cinema to show support? But the cinema environment really isn't great either.

So, for the remaining time, Er Mao pondered what methods to use to reduce the cinema's impact on the child.

The Jiao family also learned of the movie's impending release, downloaded the trailer and watched it over and over several times; unfortunately the trailer was too short, they just hoped the release date would come soon.

Before release, everyone was busy promoting; the actors weren't exactly big names, and there were plenty of newcomers. Purely talking about actors, aside from the modest effect brought by those few idol stars, there was nothing else.

The director? Also someone without much fame. Compared to those several well-known big directors, everyone is still relatively unfamiliar with Kong Han. However, this time there's a new element in it, so the fresh appeal for many people has increased.

The plot isn't novel, but you can watch the cat!

Since the trailer aired, quite a few people have analyzed what kind of box office this film will have.

Some people mocked those few shots in the trailer, saying this movie must have blown who knows how much money to achieve such an effect.

It's well known. Domestic movie special effects are mostly hard to bear to watch. Why do overseas blockbusters have production costs in the tens of millions to hundreds of millions of US dollars, while domestic productions are much lower? The former's computer effects start at $10,000 per second, while those domestic deceptive effects are only a few hundred to a few thousand RMB per second. This cost difference shows up.

They say you get what you pay for. That still makes sense.

In movie-related forums, there are many so-called "professionals" analyzing. Such special effects—production costs must be in the tens of millions, right?

"Initially, movies like "Cat Dog War," "Pig Treasure," etc., animal-type films had production costs of tens of millions of US dollars. If you tried to spend tens of millions of US dollars to make an animal film domestically? That's suicidal—wasting money, right?"

"Although animal-type movies are popular, because production costs are too high, domestically basically no one wants to get involved. I didn't expect Kong Han to actually pull this off—have to say, this director is still too young."

"With a production cost of tens of millions of US dollars, I'll definitely go check it out—see if that cat looks genuine, especially the trailer shot of it standing up and walking, so natural—just the computer stunt alone, how much would that cost?" This is the type of person who loves big-budget movies. They think small-budget films are too rough. They belong to the kind who only buy expensive, not suitable.

Some go for the production cost and computer effects; others go for the "cat" element.

"I don't know who Wei Wen is, never heard of Shi Xiao Tian—I just want to go see the cat in it."

"Anyway, there's not much else to watch; it's rare for a domestic cat movie, so support the domestic product—it won't cost much either."

"Ah, that cat looks a lot like my family's coal ball!" Behind it is a big picture—picture proof.

Besides, the cat in the photo really does look a lot like Zheng Tan, but there are plenty of native cats domestically that look just like it.

Besides this netizen, there will continue to be other netizens who keep black cats posting photos.

Before release, various computer-effects professionals online were sniping at each other, just waiting to see the overall effect after it comes out, then do further analysis, see who's right in the analysis. If one were to say there's no behind-the-scenes manipulator, Zheng Tan wouldn't believe it. But movies are like that—before release, they always need promotion and operation.

What made Zheng Tan laugh the most was someone taking Yang Yi out to mock.

"I heard Yi Xing Culture invested tens of millions of US dollars to make a movie this time—anyone know the details?"

"Tens of millions of US dollars? Nonsense—how many movies could you make domestically with that amount? Only you guys believe those rumors, hype, pure hype!"

"Who knows, I think those computer effects look pretty good—maybe it really is. Who let Yang Yi have money? He's willing to splurge."

"Who is Yang Yi?"

"You don't even know Yang Yi upstairs? Yi Xing Culture's boss, ah, Kuan Ye!"

"Kneel before Yang Kuan Ye!"

"……" => "……" (we keep as is)

23rd floor: "But, I heard that this movie's production cost was only a few million— or is it RMB?"

24th floor: "The idiot upstairs won't explain, don't say you're on the same technical forum as me."

25th floor: "23rd floor idiot."

26th floor: "23rd floor idiot +1."

……

Zheng Tan found their posts amusing; he didn't understand the production costs, but he had once heard Kong Han say that the film's production cost wasn't high, relatively speaking it was a low-budget production. If Kong Han's words were true, then those people in the so-called technical forum were all monkeys.

Nobody believed those shots were performed by Zheng Tan himself, especially the action, gaze, and micro-expression shots, without computer special effects or so-called stunt robots; the few stunt cats Kong Han recruited were utterly useless and even ended up getting fat.

Nevertheless, regardless of what anyone says, the film 'Black Cat' indeed became a hot topic before its release due to production cost controversies, dragging Yang Yi, Kong Han, all the actors, and the post-production team into the spotlight; Easy Prosperity Culture also became known to many.

The publicity effect has been achieved. (To be continued...)