Chapter 975: The Hope of Sci-Fi (Part 2)

Countless examples have proven that one should not go against the surging tide of public opinion on the internet. Unless you possess the business acumen to look down upon the world and the impeccable character that Luo Quan has, the outcome will be miserable.

The director of *Shanghai Fortress* clearly did not study emotional intelligence well, or perhaps they were flustered because the box office was such a flop; after being scolded by the audience, they actually dared to turn around and question the audience.

Naturally, no netizen would tolerate this kind of victim-blaming behavior.

Originally, it was just the audience who had seen the movie doing the criticizing, but before long, those netizens who were planning to watch it, as well as those who had been paying attention to the film, all began to join in.

Few people would pass up such an opportunity to vent their emotions at will without having to take responsibility. Consequently, the film's official team, the director, and the lead actors were in for a rough time; they encountered the largest-scale "cyberbullying" of the year.

The last person to be cyberbullied by so many people was Li Yifeng. After the details of his case were exposed, the entire internet was outputting criticism against him.

While *Shanghai Fortress* was not guilty to that extent, because the marketing efforts during this period were outrageously excessive, and the final content presented was so rotten, it became very normal for it to encounter such a massive backlash.

If they had just laid flat and accepted it, it is estimated that there wouldn't be so many people criticizing them. After all, the box office was so poor that not many people would have spent money on it, and the netizens following the trend would have mainly been joking and being sarcastic.

But since the film's production team was so stubborn from top to bottom, the aggressiveness of the netizens naturally rose accordingly.

Currently, the film's official Weibo has been forced to close its comment section due to tens of thousands of insults and sarcastic remarks. The film's director deleted the four questioning posts they had previously made and then began to play dead.

The lead actor, Lu Han, has restricted his comments, and there is no good solution for the time being.

However, because this movie was so shockingly rotten, even Lu Han's own fans didn't know how to defend it.

They had originally agreed to go to the cinema together to boost their idol's performance, but after reading the reviews, apart from the die-hard fans, the other fans all began to hesitate.

After all, no one's money comes from a strong wind. Lu Han has the appeal to get them to go to the cinema to watch a movie, but he does not have the appeal to get them to go to the cinema to suffer.

Therefore, *Shanghai Fortress* not only failed to harvest the fan economy, but it didn't even receive the protection of fan public opinion, which shows how dire the situation is.

Currently, the half-day box office for *Shanghai Fortress* is only 34 million, which is not even as much as *Tiny Times*, which has been in theaters for many days.

With the word-of-mouth already collapsed, it would be a miracle if the box office of *Shanghai Fortress* could exceed 200 million.

Furthermore, there are quite a lot of voices on the internet calling on everyone to absolutely not contribute to the box office of such a big rotten movie again. Let alone 200 million, it shouldn't even be allowed to reach 100 million.

Going to the cinema to watch it now is aiding and abetting, and being an accomplice in destroying the Chinese film environment.

Although it is unknown whether such appeals are useful, the box office growth of *Shanghai Fortress* is indeed slow.

It is truly rare for such a high-investment blockbuster to flop on its first day of release. A conservative estimate is that the investors of *Shanghai Fortress* will lose at least 800 million, a total loss of capital.

However, the discussion sparked by *Shanghai Fortress* on the internet has only just begun.

Someone on Zhihu asked: How should one view the movie *Shanghai Fortress*?

The most upvoted answer said this:

*The Wandering Earth* opened the door to Chinese sci-fi films, while *Shanghai Fortress* has closed that door again.

With an investment of 900 million, they ended up producing this kind of thing, and they even claimed it had world-class special effects. I think it's world-class shamelessness!

I don't know where those creators found the courage to film such promotional videos after seeing the finished product. It truly is a case of practicing their shamelessness to the point of being thicker than a city wall.

Congratulations to this group of people; their work is already enough to be remembered in film history, and at the same time, they have made a huge contribution to eliminating traffic-driven pretty boys from the film and television industry.

I don't believe that any investors will dare to spend a lot of money to invest in movies starring traffic-driven celebrities in the future. If there really are any, I suggest investigating directly to see if it's money laundering!"

………………

This answer directly characterized *Shanghai Fortress* and the movies behind it. Although the words were extreme, they were not without reason.

Knowing full well that pretty boys plus big IPs equals a big rotten movie that loses money, investors still flock to spend money to make movies. If this isn't money laundering, what is it? Is it charity?

Therefore, the investigative remarks proposed in this answer are completely fine. As for whether they will be adopted, that is unknown.

And the second most upvoted answer said this:

"As a highly anticipated sci-fi movie, *Shanghai Fortress* really deserves to be scolded for ending up like this.

However, after scolding, I couldn't help but start to ponder: where is the way out for Chinese sci-fi films?

As a manifestation of a country's film industry strength, sci-fi blockbusters with special effects are actually very important yet overlooked.

The main thing is that the Oscars don't really favor sci-fi movies, so they haven't gained much influence, but the movies that can gain a large box office in cinemas happen to be sci-fi movies.

Therefore, a good sci-fi movie is a manifestation of film industry strength.

Previously, there was *The Wandering Earth*, which had a bumper harvest in both box office and word-of-mouth. It was originally hoped that it could drive the domestic sci-fi movie craze and take the domestic special effects production technology, which had already reached the top level, to a higher level.

But who would have thought that what it brought out was a thing like *Shanghai Fortress*.

Scolding is scolding, but after scolding, we should think about where the way out for domestic sci-fi movies is.

Or rather, will anyone still make domestic sci-fi movies in the future?

My current view is quite pessimistic, because the performance of *Shanghai Fortress* is truly heartbreaking.

Clearly, the country has such a huge sci-fi market, but investors only think about how to make quick money. They would rather spend huge sums of money to hire pretty boys than spend some money on special effects.

With this kind of production attitude, wanting to make a good movie is no different from a fantasy.

What's even more distressing is that this kind of investment and filming philosophy is everywhere in the country.

I don't know when the next *The Wandering Earth* will be, but I dare say that the next *Shanghai Fortress* will definitely arrive soon.

Because capital never sleeps, and rotten movies never die!

At this moment, I can't help but want to ask: who can save the sci-fi movie market, or rather, when will the next *The Wandering Earth* arrive?"

………………

Compared to the first answer, which was purely venting emotions, the second answer appeared to be more constructive. It seriously discussed the current situation of Chinese sci-fi films and raised a problem that urgently needs to be solved.

As the saying goes, three cobblers are better than one Zhuge Liang. When a smart person cannot solve a problem, the general public brainstorming can often find a solution more easily.

Faced with the question from this respondent, the comment section soon mentioned a person's name, and that is Luo Quan.

Today, as the stars in the Chinese music scene are gradually dimming, she is like a sun that has suddenly emerged, illuminating the entire sky and bringing light and hope to everyone.

As long as the sun is still there for a day, people can feel the light and heat!

In the Chinese film industry, which has been criticized for being completely self-indulgent, it was also she who stepped out of the country again, winning the Oscar for Best Actress and the Oscar for Best Picture, among other honors, and making a resounding name for herself internationally.

If miracles have other names, then it must be called Luo Quan.

Those feats that netizens previously thought were impossible to accomplish have all been realized one by one by Luo Quan.

She is like an omnipotent goddess, dedicated to helping fans fulfill those unrealistic fantasies.

For example, good songs, good movies, and good-looking swimsuit photos.

There is often such a saying on the internet: if you have any difficulties, just ask Luo Quan. If even she finds it troublesome, then you should decisively give up.

Of course, except for having children.

Luo Quan is currently single and has no plans to find a partner. In the case that humans do not have the function of parthenogenesis, she is indeed powerless.

Apart from that, she should be the human most worthy of the four words "omniscient and omnipotent." If she were placed two thousand years ago, she would at least be an incarnation of a god on earth.

Now that sci-fi movies have encountered difficulties, netizens thought of Luo Quan for the first time.

Although she hasn't had any plans to film a sci-fi movie recently, even if she just filmed a documentary with herself as the protagonist, that would already be sci-fi enough.

Of course, this is just a joke.

Plans can be changed. Not planning to film now doesn't mean she won't plan to film in the future.

And with Luo Quan's speed of filming, if she really made up her mind, this sci-fi movie might meet everyone very soon. Thinking of this, a group of sci-fi fans couldn't help but get excited.

If Luo Quan is really willing to film it, that would be a great thing.

Therefore, netizens successively @ her in the comment section, wanting her to notice this Q&A and the calls from netizens in the comment section.

They all know that Luo Quan has a Zhihu account and comes to take a look from time to time. @ing her would definitely be seen, but this time Luo Quan was slow to respond.

It wasn't that she thought it was impossible and was playing dumb, but simply that she hadn't seen it.

When the Zhihu netizens were calling out, she was at a critical moment of cultivation.

Having refined the pill with the Samadhi True Fire for so long, and with the True Qi in her body running through thousands of small cycles, she finally achieved some results.

Although it is still early to refine the Golden Core, her dantian has completely taken shape, and the True Qi in the dantian has gathered into a ball, beginning to have the prototype of a Golden Core.

If the progress of refining the Golden Core is divided into ten parts, she has already completed at least two parts.

And this phased breakthrough also brought a huge improvement to her body attributes, which is a full 25%!

This improvement is truly too exaggerated; it is permanent and completely without side effects.

The progress only reached 20% and there was such a big improvement. When the Golden Core is refined, her strength will probably directly multiply several times!

For her, whose strength is increasing day by day, the bonus is not insignificant.

It was precisely because she had reached such an important node in her cultivation that Luo Quan did not go live for the whole day, specifically asking for leave from her fans, just to focus on getting over this hurdle first.

In the end, the process was very smooth. After she had continuously circulated her True Qi for who knows how many times, she finally achieved the goal of the first stage.

When she opened her eyes again, her face was rosy, and her body was a bit damp.

After observing, it was because the heat emitted when the Samadhi True Fire was acting was too high, causing her to sweat quite a bit.

Therefore, after finishing her cultivation, Luo Quan walked into the bathroom to take a hot shower.

After cleaning up, she opened the live stream.

Not seeing her for more than ten hours, she believes the fans must be anxious.

"I know you are anxious, but don't be anxious yet."

Luo Quan looked at the barrage in the live stream room and said with a smile.

The fans were all asking what she had been doing. She posted a leave of absence in the morning and then disappeared. Now that she is back so late, they almost missed a wonderful show.

"A wonderful show?" Luo Quan was stunned for a moment, not yet understanding what had happened.

After reading the explanation in the barrage, she knew that this wonderful show was *Shanghai Fortress*. This blockbuster, which flopped on its first day of release, had already become the biggest joke of the end of the year. Netizens were all torturing it, and the roast videos on Bilibili were coming one after another.

From this point of view, it is indeed a good show.

And the fans also hoped that Luo Quan could play a role in this good show, which is to roast it in the live stream.

However, Luo Quan scratched her head and said: "I haven't seen this movie yet. I don't know the content, so how can I roast it?

Although I saw from the beginning that this movie had a high probability of flopping, I haven't bought a ticket to watch it after all. If I were to roast it now, wouldn't that be a cloud roast?"

"You can go watch it quickly, and we'll wait for you to start the live stream after you finish."

"Indeed, it's only past six o'clock. You can come out for lunch after watching the movie."

"Hurry up, we'll wait for you to start the roast meeting at eleven o'clock."

………………

Seeing the fans' instigation, Luo Quan laughed out loud: "No way, haven't you read the movie reviews on the internet?

It's already rotten to this extent, and you still want me to go watch it? Isn't this intentionally torturing me?

Spending money to go to the cinema, forget it. With this movie flopping like this, it is estimated that it won't be long before it lands on video websites. When that time comes, let's watch it together on Bilibili."

In order to avoid wasting money, Luo Quan didn't even want to ride the heat of *Shanghai Fortress*.

In fact, many people on the internet haven't seen the movie either, and they are just following the trend to criticize it.

But as a public figure, she still needs to be rigorous in her words and actions.

For things she hasn't seen, many details cannot be controlled well. If she were to criticize it randomly, it would instead become a black spot for herself.

Therefore, although the fans really want to see her roast *Shanghai Fortress*, it is estimated that they will have to wait for a while to see it.

Since the movie roast didn't work out, the fans soon asked her to look at the relevant Q&A on Zhihu, wanting her to talk about where the future of Chinese sci-fi films lies.

Or to put it bluntly, that is to let her solve the problem.

Luo Quan saw that there were quite a lot of barrages brushing this, so she opened Zhihu to watch.

After understanding the ins and outs, she looked at the camera and answered cautiously:

"As for sci-fi movies, it's not that I can't film them. I even have a few quite good scripts." ===== CHAPTER 976 =====