Chapter 506

Liu Tianxian didn't say anything about this—this circle works this way: you strike me, I strike you.

If you have the ability, strike back; if you don't, endure it.

She herself was once like this—her godfather wanted to help but couldn't; no one in this circle could protect her, so she had to endure it.

The truth behind Zhang Songwen's incident isn't that important—if no one protects you and you're still this popular, you're just a sacrifice.

If you don't act to stop it, outsiders will think your agency is garbage.

Not that they pity the artist in any way.

The opponent is clearly targeting Yutu and the Principal, because Zhang Songwen now has too many resources under Yutu—several movies a year.

Get him out, and whether his upcoming films get released is uncertain, but even his past films will be affected.

Because problematic artists cause movies to be taken down!

Fang Hong only planned to target Yan Zi, not use such extreme measures—he wanted to test the waters first, because he knew Alibaba's shadow was behind it, since Alibaba wanted to enter the film market.

Right now, Alibaba is at its strongest, at its peak, with a market cap over a hundred billion dollars more than Amazon.

Not just domestically, but also internationally—the film market for Mission Impossible 5 included Alibaba's involvement.

Domestically, whether it's Alibaba's subordinates or Alibaba itself, all are moving into film; among the several giants in the film market, Yutu is undoubtedly the most formidable.

BoNa, Huayi, Guangxian—all can be settled with capital; Yutu is an ironhead, no one can settle it.

Not just Alibaba, but other institutional capital are all infiltrating this circle.

Otherwise, this year wouldn't have seen so many investment firms suddenly pouring money into films.

With this scale, Fang Hong certainly can't confront them head-on, but targeting Yan Zi is enough—to let them know, to let the circle know—that the Principal isn't easy to bully.

And now is precisely the time for the entertainment circle to be reshuffled, as these capital institutions infiltrate it, bringing forth a wave of new rising flow stars.

Such as Yatai, Wu Lei, Shuangzi, Li Yifeng, Yang Yang, Tboys, and others.

This matter must wait until after National Day—now is not the right time to retaliate.

A sudden large-scale retaliation would drag the Dying to Survive public opinion into the spotlight, right at the critical moment of National Day—this kind of war of words would look bad.

Zhang Songwen's sudden scandal didn't affect Dying to Survive—the box office on October 4 was still 91.53 million.

On October 5, it was 86.7 million.

The film was released on the 30th, meaning in six days it reached 600 million in box office.

This audience is very pragmatic—they don't care how the actor's reputation is, whether he's good or bad.

As long as the acting is good, the film relieves their stress, and everyone says it's great, they go watch it.

An actor's reputation isn't the main factor for viewers—Liu Tianwang's reputation is good enough, yet Gu Tianle is still called "the sun can't darken him."

If the box office is bad, it's still bad.

Reputation has some effect—it brings in some viewers' goodwill—but its impact on a film isn't nearly as large as imagined.

The public opinion market hasn't yet been fully controlled by capital.

What puzzles people in the circle is that Zhang Songwen's incident has been fermenting for days, yet Yutu hasn't reacted, and the Principal seems to have no reaction either, letting it fester.

This is completely unlike the Principal's style—has he become a coward?

Besides the film, Honor of Kings has been online for a month, with revenue exceeding 100 million and downloads surpassing 15 million—far surpassing the original Hero Glory.

Back then, Hero Glory only made a few tens of millions; mobile games are just much stronger.

Of this 100 million in revenue, at least 50 million goes to Swan Castle, and this money will be reinvested into promotion and marketing.

Honor of Kings didn't run any promotional campaigns or deliberately push players to spend money on skins—many skins are still trial-only.

For example, a skin might be trialable for three days or a week.

This is just to expand market share, to make users form the habit of playing this game—first secure the market, not to make money from the start.

The Hero Glory Global Finals are currently underway; this finals lasts 19 days, with 15 match days, and players need rest and adjustment in between—victory won't be decided until late October.

This global finals is broadcast through 40 live-streaming partners in 19 languages.

On each match day, the average number of unique viewers reaches 288 million.

Total global online viewing time exceeds 179 million hours, far surpassing the previous season's 70 million hours, indicating more regions' players are participating in watching this year's event.

Besides live streams, game video clips from the matches are everywhere on Bilibili, Chang'e Video, Youku, and other video platforms.

Even overseas platforms like YouTube are filled with Hero Glory match clips—so even if you don't watch live, you can still see the matches through other channels.

This audience reach is at least five times higher, exceeding one billion people—though this number can't be precisely calculated.

The Hero Glory Finals are definitely exploding globally.

"G-League 2014 Hero Glory Finals: Peak of Glory, Battle of Dreams!"

"League of Legends Finals: Legendary Battle!"

Such promotional slogans are everywhere—in gaming platforms, across the internet.

Of course, mainstream official media don't see this spectacle—they don't see it, don't acknowledge it, as if the game doesn't exist. It's normal—right now, the authorities aren't interested in games!

While the Hero Glory Finals are ongoing, on October 6, Dying to Survive's box office was 80.55 million; on October 7, it dropped to 60.8 million.

On October 8, everyone returned to work—Dying to Survive crashed to 34.42 million.

On this day, Dying to Survive's total box office reached around 780 million.

"Dying to Survive box office surges toward 1 billion!"

Such news appeared online, along with some film review articles interpreting the movie Dear.

The article said: "This film has extremely twisted values—a lawyer impersonating a public official, plus a human trafficker who traffics children, clumsily forcing a heartwarming ending."

"The film promotes that we should treat those pitiful human traffickers who can't have children but want them kindly—don't blame them, sympathize with them, treat them well, and be grateful to them."

Be grateful to human traffickers for kidnapping your child and raising it for you! Be grateful that they kidnapped your child not for money but because they needed a child! Can I curse? Are these values correct? Shouldn't human traffickers be severely punished?

In ancient times, this crime was punishable by extermination of nine clans!

If a trafficker's husband died and his wife was gone, is he innocent? Has he done nothing wrong? Should he be sympathized with? Won't human traffickers now all start performing tragic dramas, crying and sniveling, saying, "I can't have kids, so I picked one up and raised it—I didn't know anything, he's my son!"

These articles spread everywhere online in an instant, and some people even said this film was using tears to emotionally blackmail the audience, making people lose their basic judgment.

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"Human traffickers shouldn't be sympathized with, and neither should those who buy and sell people—they were committing crimes to begin with," someone shouted.

Even a professor posted to the media: "Dear has given the criminals too much sympathy!"

The emotions in these articles were all very intense, and led by them, many viewers also came around to the fact that this film's values were off, gradually sparking public opinion online.

"Dear's publicity promotes wrong values, it's simply destroying one's worldview/values. Why is it sympathizing with a human trafficker's wife the whole time? Watching it made me so angry."

"This film is very realistic, very cruel, but it doesn't promote correct values."

"She's the victim. The only evil in this film is that blurry photo of the husband. The trafficker's wife is stupid and muddled, but really not hateful."

"Not the only evil—the judge, the lawyer, the police, and that migrant worker, naked social reality."

"."

In an instant, Tieba, Qzone, Q groups, and forums were all discussing how this film's values were off.

Others said Yan Zi's values were off for acting in such a film; the director's values were also off for filming such a film, and slowly the rhythm shifted onto the actors and director.

They were smearing Zhang Songwen, so Fang Hong smeared this film as having ideological problems, and along the way smeared Yan Zi as having ideological problems.

If public opinion got too big, it could very well get this film pulled from shelves.

People of a certain level in the circle basically all knew this was the Principal making a move—his moves were always steady, precise, and ruthless, accusing your film of having ideological problems, accusing your people of having ideological problems.

The film was just the surface; he wanted to shift public opinion onto the people. Films are made by people—if the film has problems, then people have problems.

If the film's values are off, then the people's values are off.

This made Chen Kexin break out in a cold sweat, and also left Yan Zi rather dumbfounded—the Principal was just too vicious and too unorthodox.

They were only smearing Zhang Songwen's character as a person, but the other side smeared their ideology, smeared their values as being off—and this kind of smearing could very well wipe them out entirely.

Not only would the film be wiped out, but even they as people would have problems.

"Principal, this person does have some tricks," Yan Zi said.

"You all had little contact with him before so you don't know—this person, if you don't provoke him, nothing happens, but once you provoke him, he just has to come after you."

The one speaking was Fan Luyuan, the leader specifically in charge of Alibaba's Big Entertainment, and of course his relationship with Yan Zi was also quite good.

Even Jack Ma had a very good relationship with Yan Zi.

He only heard him continue: "This time he's just probing, not really attacking us—it seems he still knows his limits."

Fang Hong's move this time was indeed just probing. If he really wanted to go after them, he would have stirred up all those old scandals of Yan Zi to death—those scandals were real ideological problems.

Things like military flags, things like having killed someone.

The main thing was consideration for Alibaba. If they really tore off all pretense and went to war with him, full-scale combat, it wasn't that Fang Hong couldn't bear it—it just wasn't worth it.

"Then what should we do?" Chen Kexin asked.

He was a bit anxious inside—if he got wiped out like this, then he wouldn't be able to survive in this market.

Say what you will about the censorship here, but truly giving up is not an option—no profit in it.

"If it's just probing, then let's play with him too, test his depth." Yan Zi was still quite confident.

She had fought her way up like this too. Although she'd heard a lot about the Principal's reputation, and also knew of the Principal's deeds, and knew this person was not easy to deal with, that didn't mean she was afraid of him.

Who hasn't gone through some great storms!

"Alright, what do you plan to do?" Fan Luyuan didn't care either; he also wanted to play with the Principal.

After all, having just entered this industry, Jade Rabbit was an insurmountable mountain—you had to encounter it eventually, you had to compete with it eventually.

Yan Zi didn't speak, only gazed at him with dark eyes. The two of them shared a tacit understanding, while Chen Kexin's face was one of complete bewilderment.

(End of this chapter)