Chapter 547: Attend or Not Attend (Third update!)

The matter fermented further.

In the entertainment industry, everyone was concerned about the progress and relevant details of this matter.

Yan Liang, being a nominee for this year's Blue Ribbon Awards, was caught in the vortex.

Several people came to sound him out, asking if Yan Liang would attend the awards ceremony.

The Blue Ribbon organizing committee had also been constantly confirming this with Yan Liang.

So far, Yan Liang's reply had been: If the filming of "Friends" goes smoothly, I will attend.

A reply that would normally be very normal seemed to have other meanings in this context.

The Blue Ribbon side was worried he wouldn't come in the end and was hesitating.

And those who wanted to stop him from going to the awards ceremony also felt that he was hesitating.

Both sides were trying their best to win him over.

As a popular star with high popularity and shining star power among this year's nominees, both sides valued Yan Liang's card extremely highly.

At this time, Zhou Ping'an came again.

"Yan Liang, this time it's not me persuading you not to attend the Blue Ribbon Awards ceremony. I know you have your own ideas now and don't believe I'm trying to do what's best for you. I'm just passing on a message: they sent word that if you attend the Blue Ribbon Awards ceremony this year, it won't be as easy for you to get nominations in the future."

Zhou Ping'an took a deep breath.

"I'll make it clear to you first so you don't have suspicions in your heart. I have no interest transactions with those people, and I didn't receive any benefits to agree to persuade you," Zhou Ping'an said firmly. "I must make it clear to you that I am purely considering your career from an agent's perspective. Attending the Blue Ribbon Awards won't bring you anything; on the contrary, some people will blacklist you because of it. But if you don't attend the Blue Ribbon Awards, not only will you gain the favor of those people, but you will also get tangible benefits: a nomination for the next Golden Tripod Awards."

"Brother Ping'an, I'm curious, are the awards of those actors in our entertainment industry who have superb acting skills and have been famous for a long time all operated?" Yan Liang also said. "I'm not arguing with you; I really want to know what the situation is in our industry."

Zhou Ping'an: "Most of them must have been fought for by strength, but you want to say they won awards without any operation? Basically impossible. Talent agencies will do public relations, agents will do public relations, and crews and platforms will also do public relations. You should ask me how many of those actors in our entertainment industry who have superb acting skills and have been famous for a long time have never operated on their awards and honors. The answer is one in a hundred."

Yan Liang: "I originally wanted to say that at least everyone's bottom line is different, but then I thought, actually, I don't know what everyone's bottom line is. However, their approach has broken my bottom line. If they want to threaten me in this way and make me afraid to attend the Blue Ribbon Awards ceremony, to be honest, Brother Ping'an, I'd rather not win the awards they can influence."

Zhou Ping'an looked at Yan Liang and sighed.

"Think it over, and tell me when you've thought it over," he said. "I'll lay it out for you: I don't even want your career to develop so fast, because I know the faster your career develops, the sooner you will leave me. Let's just be blunt about this. You being messed with by them, being squeezed out by them, making it harder and harder for you to win awards in the future, even making nominations difficult—I actually like to see that happen. But you have to know that it's not easy for you to get to where you are today. The further you go, the harder it gets. You need this industry to recognize you, support you, and push you from behind."

"To be honest, look at Lu Yan He. Why is he so smooth and reached the super first-tier position so quickly? Because he occupies a position where the entire industry must push him, recognize him, and lift him up. But let's be honest, you haven't reached Lu Yan He's step yet. Of course, you have hope. 'The Gold Rush' aired very well overseas, and 'Friends' is even more so. Relying on these two dramas, you also have a certain number of fans overseas. You should actually understand that now is the time for you to go further."

Yan Liang smiled. "If I relied on their support to get to my current position, and you said that to me, I would really have nothing to say. However, Brother Ping'an, to get to where I am today, except for Yan He, I haven't relied on anyone, nor have I obtained any roles because of any human relationships or interest exchanges. Now that I'm at the top, I need to rely on others?"

Zhou Ping'an was choked by Yan Liang's words and couldn't recover for a long time.

Yan Liang: "Let them threaten me. If they have the ability, let them make it so I can never get any nominations again."

At this moment, half of him was acting out of spite, and the other half felt that this award was really not worth winning.

On the contrary, for this Blue Ribbon Award, even if he basically had no hope of winning, so what? His nomination was clean and voted for by everyone, so he could attend with justification.

Lu Yan He reunited with the "The Mist" crew in Los Angeles.

"I watched 'Friends' which you starred in. People are chasing it in the United States too. I've seen articles discussing your drama."

As soon as they met, Lily Williams said to Lu Yan He.

Lu Yan He: "Do you like it?"

"Anyway, I finished watching all the updates in one go. It's just very painful that this drama only updates two episodes a week," Lily Williams said, not understanding. "Aren't current streaming dramas usually released in full at once?"

"This drama is currently airing on a television station in China, and it just got on Maxine," Lu Yan He explained.

"That's too little," Lily Williams said very seriously. "I've always liked watching these lighter dramas. Many dramas now are made too heavy, with complex character relationships, various secrets, pasts, twists... especially sometimes when I don't want to think about anything, I just want to watch something light to decompress."

Lu Yan He nodded: "I know, this is actually one of the reasons why I like the 'Friends' series very much."

"Series?" Lily Williams was a bit surprised. "Is this still a series?"

"Don't you know?" Lu Yan He said. "This is actually the fourth season of 'Friends'?"

"It's the fourth season of 'Friends'? Really? I know 'Friends,' but I haven't watched it," Lily Williams said. "I know it's also a drama you starred in, but I heard that the reputation collapsed after you didn't act in the last two seasons, and I don't want to watch such a drama with a bad ending."

"It's true to some extent, but since you like 'Friends,' you can also watch the first season of 'Friends'," Lu Yan He said. "The style hasn't changed at all; it has always been this flavor."

"Okay."

The two of them chatted very enthusiastically.

Arne Bogut came over and said: "BOX's box office forecast for our movie is out."

"How is it?" Lily Williams asked expectantly immediately.

"It is expected that the first three days of the opening weekend will achieve a box office between 23 million and 27 million," Arne Bogut said. "The final box office is expected to be around 70 million."

Lily Williams heard this and showed a look of surprise. "It seems they are also very confident in our movie."

"Yes," Arne Bogut nodded. "'The Mist' has always had very good data on the internet, and the trailer's playback volume has exceeded 50 million."

The production cost plus promotion cost of "The Mist" totaled only 21 million US dollars. According to BOX's box office forecast, it can recover its cost and achieve profitability just by relying on the North American box office.

Coupled with the movie's overseas box office and home entertainment income, this movie is obviously going to be successful. Moreover, because this movie was filmed in Canada, according to local policies, this movie can also get a tax refund of over one million US dollars.

For horror movies, the box office is the primary measure.

Hearing that the early results of "The Mist" were quite good, Lu Yan He also breathed a sigh of relief.

This was his first English-language film, and he didn't want the movie's results to be bad, or even a loss.

"I heard you are going to participate in CBN's morning news program tomorrow morning and accept an interview?" Lily Williams asked.

Lu Yan He nodded.

Lily Williams immediately said: "Then you must be well prepared. The host of that program seems to be a bit discriminatory against you Asians."

"Hmm?" Lu Yan He was stunned.

"He hasn't publicly expressed discrimination, but we have heard about it in private," Lily Williams said. "If it's true, he might not be very polite to you tomorrow."

"It's fine," Lu Yan He shrugged.

Maybe it's really because in the past few years, his performance in various occasions can be described as particularly good, Lu Yan He is really not afraid of being made difficult.

In a sense, he is so liked by the audience, and his witty response in various occasions also contributed to it.

Everyone is always easy to like a clever, smart, but not annoying person.

Some people are smart but annoying, definitely not because they are too smart, but because they are not smart enough. IQ and being smart are definitely two concepts.

They took a few sets of posters together, had dinner together, and made some preparations for the premiere tomorrow afternoon, then dispersed early and went back to rest.

Especially Lu Yan He, he had to get up early tomorrow.

He had to arrive at CBN at 6:30, put on makeup, and then go through the interview process, and go live at 7:45.

This meant he had to wake up at 5:30 tomorrow morning.

Fortunately, now that Lu Yan He has come to the United States, Wan Qingqing is responsible for all local communication matters, so they can worry less.

Lu Yan He returned to the hotel, and just as he arrived at the room, Chen Ziyan suddenly sent a message: Are you back? Have you seen the revelations on the internet?

Lu Yan He: What revelations? I just got back and haven't had time to look at my phone.

Chen Ziyan sent a link. Lu Yan He opened it and found that it was actually a list.

Someone made a list with some names on it, all of whom were controversial winners of the three major awards in recent years.

Not only television dramas but also movies.

Among them, the first one was He Daren, who won the award in an upset against the favorites Liu Teli and Chen Pinhe at the Feihong Awards two years ago, causing huge controversy.

What Lu Yan He didn't expect was that his name also appeared on the last line. The reason written on the list was: Lu Yan He's winning the award was not very controversial, after all, his acting skills are already recognized as good, but in the same year, Shang Yongzhou, who starred in the same movie as him, clearly had a higher difficulty role and better completion, but was defeated by Lu Yan He, which is strange.

Chen Ziyan: The discussion caused by this list is quite large, and many people on it are questioned for buying awards.

Lu Yan He: This list even put me on it. It feels like just the guess of the person who wrote this list.

Chen Ziyan: It is indeed a guess. They have no evidence, just saying they put people with relatively large controversies in winning awards in recent years.

Lu Yan He: It feels like the public opinion controversy caused by this matter is getting bigger and bigger. Now even things without evidence are starting to be argued about.

Chen Ziyan: Yes, if it continues according to this trend, who knows if something will really be dug out.

Lu Yan He: If someone really bought an award and evidence was exposed, the credibility of other major awards would be directly cut in half.

Chen Ziyan: That's right, and the Blue Ribbon will directly change from a three-legged situation to the domestic television drama award with the highest credibility.

Lu Yan He: Sister Ziyan, you wouldn't be... suspecting that the person behind the hype of this matter is the Blue Ribbon Awards, right?

Chen Ziyan: Why is it impossible?

Lu Yan He: Uh, it's an official award after all.

Chen Ziyan: You wait and see. No matter what, the Golden Tripod Awards and the Honghe Awards will not watch their credibility be weakened like this. If such controversy continues, the forces behind them will definitely take action. The Blue Ribbon may not be clean enough to withstand being dug into.

Lu Yan He: I suddenly feel the excitement of the "big things happening" you mentioned. If the organizational forces behind the three major awards really fight, the entertainment industry really can't stay out of it.

Chen Ziyan: Yes, I shouldn't have come out with you this time. I should have stayed in the country. I can be sure that there must be undercurrents in the industry now, and the fighting has already begun.

Lu Yan He: Indeed, at least both sides are frantically trying to win over Yan Liang, one side hoping Yan Liang will not attend the awards ceremony, while the other side is desperately inviting Yan Liang, asking him to attend.

Chen Ziyan: Fortunately, when the Feihong Awards invited you to be an award presenter, we had already declined. If it dragged on until now, I guess you would also be overwhelmed. You not being able to attend really saved you a lot of trouble.

At that time, Lu Yan He declined because he was busy at the end of January and early February: filming "Friends," promoting "The Mist," preparing for the Spring Festival Gala, and the global premiere of "Love Letter" at the Hexi Film Festival... too many things.

Lu Yan He smiled.

Chen Ziyan: Go to sleep early, you have to get up early tomorrow, there are several hard battles to fight.

Lu Yan He said "um" and said okay.

He picked up the interview outline and answer template prepared by Wan Qingqing, went through it before going to bed, then put on an eye mask and earplugs, and fell into a deep sleep. ===== CHAPTER 548 =====