Chapter 178: Taylor Swift Sympathizes with Stone Sister, Drags Things Out Again with Widow Sister

In his past life, *La La Land* had an investment of 30 million and ultimately earned over 400 million dollars.

It premiered at the Venice Film Festival in September 2016 to a decent response, followed by its North American premiere on December 16, but the opening weekend box office was only 4.1 million dollars.

Thanks to its strong word of mouth, the final box office kept climbing — a classic case of small investment, high return.

And it swept 14 nominations at the Oscars,

If not for the Best Picture blunder, *La La Land* could be called the 20

For this somewhat artsy musical, Xu Can didn't hold out too high a hope.

His initial motivation for shooting the film was mostly that he'd promised Stone Sister to collaborate on a movie with her.

On the box office front, Xu Can estimated that breaking 20 million dollars in the opening weekend would already be quite good,

As long as the final box office exceeded 500 million, it would be a massive windfall!

After all, the original version invested 30 million, most of which went to Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone's salaries.

Both of them had basically entered the 20-million-dollar club at the time; even at the lowest, each would have to be paid 10 million, so the actual filming cost came down to just 10 million.

Since both Xu Can and Emma starred for zero salary, and with the double buff of Xu Can's god-tier directing plus god-tier acting, the filming progress was lightning fast.

The total investment was even less than 10 million!

30 million would already break even — if it exceeded 500 million, it would absolutely be a blood-profit with dozens of times the return rate!

But what Xu Can didn't expect was that this kind of film could also break 100 million in its opening weekend?

He really likes a line from the netizens: Huh?

But on second thought, it was understandable.