Chapter 152

Xu Can couldn't help but sigh.

To be honest, the whole affair began with his remarks at the Iron Man premiere.

After the musical La La Land, Spider-Man 2 was about to begin filming, along with Marvel's upcoming Avengers plans…

These were enough to ignite Hollywood and even explode across the entire North American internet.

Xu Can single-handedly drew all the spotlight, becoming Hollywood's most sensational figure.

Disney, Paramount, Fox, Universal, and many other film giants spent hundreds of millions of dollars promoting their own movies.

Yet Xu Can's single sentence turned them all into clowns.

Next, Emma Stone would star in two consecutive films alongside Xu Can,

no wonder the Meimei Society was anxious, fearing he and Stone-jie would fall in love on set and end up together for good.

The two were already North America's most famous couple—soon wouldn't their kids be able to run errands?

Fortunately, Xu Can had now "secured the prize," officially becoming her boyfriend.

But… did Xu Can really have no feelings for Stone-jie at all?

Amid her excitement, Meimei secretly harbored a trace of unease.

As for Xu Can, his phone kept lighting up with calls from friends bringing good news.

Including Happy Hogan and Kevin Feige.

"Xu! We've made it! Opening day box office: $55 million, second only to Spider-Man!"

"Great, Xu! Based on theater pre-sales, the North American opening weekend should hit $140 million!"

Iron Man was delivering one good report after another!

With an opening slightly below Spider-Man's, Iron Man's global box office could aim for $1 billion, at least surpassing $800 million.

After acquiring Marvel, his first shot had been fired with full force!

Marvel was now on solid ground; Xu Can could shift his focus to other projects.

Kevin Feige could handle the Marvel Cinematic Universe; Xu Can would oversee the final approval and guidance.

After dinner, back at his Beverly Hills Shanzhuang mansion, Xu Can picked up Meimei without a word and slung her over his shoulder.

"Hey… wait! I haven't taken off my heels yet!"

"Perfect."

"Huh? Wait… Oh-my-1ord…"

Beverly Hills Shanzhuang echoed once more with Meimei's melodious, flowing song.

…

Two days later, Iron Man's North American opening weekend box office indeed reached $146 million, as analysts predicted.

Disney's National Treasure 2, Cloverfield;

Fox's Bride Wars;

Columbia's Step Up;

Warner's The Bucket List;

In the same release window, all these major Hollywood studios' films were utterly crushed by Xu Can.

The second-place film, Cloverfield, earned only $40.03 million;

Even the third-place film, The Dark Knight, which had been in theaters for a month, still held $36 million.

Xu Can occupied two spots on the chart—his dominance left other Hollywood filmmakers speechless!

As director James Cameron recently said in an interview,

"I thought I could spark a wave with Avatar, but this Chinese youth has already done it."

"His films are truly outstanding; comparatively, by 2009, people may no longer care about Avatar…"

"Xu Can has presented Hollywood with a dilemma: unless it transforms and improves its own strength…"

"In the realm of commercial films, no one can challenge him!"

"I once called myself the King of the World; now I dare say Xu Can is at least the King of Commercial Films…"

Xu Can's box office earning power was terrifying—he had directly participated in four films that generated $3 billion in box office revenue within two years.

Suddenly, everyone in Hollywood was on edge.

In other international markets, Iron Man was equally dominant.

Falanxi, the British Isles, the Apennines, Iberia, Scandinavia, Southeast Asia…

In all these markets, Iron Man claimed the box office crown with overwhelming superiority, earning several times more than other films.

Hong Kong, Baodao, and the mainland were no different.

In Hong Kong, Iron Man grossed $12 million, crushing Alien vs. Predator 2, National Treasure 2, and The Warlords.

In the mainland, The Warlords and Assembly had been locked in a fierce battle since early in the year,

until Iron Man completely disrupted them, earning 63 million yuan in its opening weekend and securing the weekly box office title.

Yet despite the film's success, news reports about Xu Can were mostly handled quietly.

Star River Entertainment's PR team wasn't based domestically, making it hard to generate sufficient public influence.

Perhaps only at a major award ceremony, like the Oscars,

would domestic media finally break free and report on the glory of Chinese artists.

More than a month remained until the Oscars ceremony, and the nominations would be announced in two days.

At this moment, Xu Can wasn't paying attention to any of this—his crew had already been assembled, and his new film La La Land was about to begin shooting!

Compared to Spider-Man 2, this film was more true to Xu Can's original vision.

After playing so many comic book characters, it was time for something more grounded.

……

Just before the movie started filming, Happy Hogan was reporting to Xu Can on recent progress across the company's various sectors.

The movie from Star River Pictures was about to begin production;

On the Star River Music side, Taylor Swift still had several concert performances pending, including appearing as a guest at her best friend Selena Gomez's concert.

Following Xu Can's advice, the music label had signed three new singers.

In the music world, they were known as: A, Squatting Sister, and Thunder Sister.

The three of them had not signed with any company yet, nor had they released any albums,

Even Doug Morris, the head of music, couldn't understand why Xu Can had pinned his hopes on these three.

Xu Can could not explain it for now, but told the old man:

"Together, their songs will one day dominate half of the Western music scene."

"What?"

Xu Can merely smiled mysteriously.

The music division had originally been created just to bring Taylor Swift under his control,

Now that goal was achieved, Xu Can had paid it little attention and left it entirely to them to run as they wished.

"The three female singers should arrive in Los Santos before March, Xu. Do you have any plans for them?"

Happy asked.

"Leave it all to the old man. He has full authority over music."

"Alright, let me give you one final update on the online streaming progress."

Happy continued his meticulous report.

Star River Entertainment's online streaming platform was tentatively named "GalaxyTV+"; the company had already been established, and the team fully assembled.

Next came developing the web version of the video platform and building the client applications.

To ensure the streaming platform had sufficient content, a content library was essential first.

Sony was willing to contribute its television series resources,

Marvel also still held some animation copyrights that could be added in.

Most crucially, they needed to create a television drama that would sweep across America and draw more users to watch it.

For example, the previously envisioned "The Big Bang Theory," a low-cost, high-return sitcom, was a solid investment.

"Have Chuck from the production department handle recruiting the crew. I'll give you the names of the director and actors—hold auditions according to these standards."

Novel reading group: 674022413

"Get it up and running quickly—complete the pilot episode before the first quarter."