Chapter 564: Look at Your Shamelessness

This year's Oscar opening ceremony was on February 22nd, which happened to be the fourth day of the Lunar New Year, so Fang Hong and the others had to head to the United States by the third.

Only three people went to the United States this time — besides Fang Hong and Liu Tianxian, there was also the director of Big Hero 6, Shi Zhimao.

Fang Hong was also the screenwriter and producer of this film. Many of the characters were personally designed by him, and he controlled the artistic quality of this Animation Department production, making him one of the creators.

"If you play it this way, what if they expose your lie?" Liu Tianxian looked at him, referring to the rumor that the United States had banned Gravity.

"Isn't there an old saying — starting a rumor takes one mouth, debunking it takes running legs off? Surely you've experienced that deeply." Fang Hong touched her pretty face; it was soft and tender.

Liu Tianxian nodded, saying she understood completely. Of course she had experienced it deeply — people spread rumors about her every day, and she couldn't even explain them away.

"Exactly, you're being so shameless, treating the public like monkeys." Liu Tianxian rested her hand on his thigh.

The two were sitting cross-legged together.

"All's fair in war. I never said my film was banned — it's purely a rumor from outside. Tomorrow, we'll come out and explain that it's all hearsay, nothing to it." Fang Hong said it as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

The buzz was already built up. Tomorrow when the film releases, it'll rely on word of mouth — Gravity can still beat those trash films.

As long as the film is good, the audience won't care. What they care about is being lured into the theater and then fed garbage.

"Hey, how can you be so shameless?" Liu Tianxian laughed, raising her hand to pat his face.

He started the rumor himself, and now he wants to come out and play the good guy, explaining that others are spreading rumors about him. Anyone with a shred of decency couldn't pull off something like this.

"Who needs decency? If we cared about decency, we'd lose." Fang Hong said.

In this entertainment industry, anyone with a shred of decency gets nothing done — they're destined to be bullied. Other industries are the same.

"Come here Xixi, Xiaofang — it's New Year today, here's a red envelope for the two of you." Liu Xiaoli came over with two red envelopes and handed them to the pair.

Xu Liyun was also nearby, holding a red envelope in her hand as well.

"Wow! We're already married and we still get red envelopes!" Liu Tianxian jumped up at once, taking the red envelope from her mother's hand.

"So what if you're married? In our eyes you're still our children, still not grown up." Liu Xiaoli was in a good mood today and didn't tease her daughter.

Xu Liyun nodded, indicating that was right.

"Then give me that one too." Liu Tianxian tried to snatch the other red envelope from her mother's hand.

Liu Xiaoli pulled her hand back and dodged: "This one can't go to you — it's for Xiaofang."

Having said that, she handed the other red envelope to Fang Hong.

"Thank you, Mom." Fang Hong had already stood up, took the red envelope and expressed his thanks.

The red envelope felt heavy in his hand — it should be several thousand yuan.

"You give it to him, but won't it end up being mine anyway?" Liu Tianxian said smugly, looking rather playful.

"That's between you two as a couple." Liu Xiaoli didn't interfere — courtesy was courtesy, and whoever controlled the family finances was their own business; as a mother, she didn't get involved.

Liu Tianxian said nothing, then turned to Xu Liyun and said: "Mom, Happy New Year!"

"Good, good, here you go." Xu Liyun handed the red envelope in her hand to the two of them, smiling so wide her mouth couldn't close.

"Let's eat New Year's Eve dinner — it's already ready."

Just as Fang Hong and Liu Tianxian were eating New Year's Eve dinner at home, Gravity's presale box office on New Year's Eve alone had already exceeded 230 million.

That was the box office result from opening presales that very day — breaking through that much in a single day, setting a new domestic presale record in one day, making it one of the most talked-about films at the moment.

The market appeal was fierce — it seemed everyone's patriotic enthusiasm was still running high.

Gravity's presales had siphoned off a huge amount of box office, making other films very miserable. Their buzz and presale numbers had dropped to varying degrees, and they were feeling unprecedented pressure.

A reporter asked Fang Long: "What's your view on the matter of Gravity being banned by the United States?"

"I haven't heard about it, but I don't think it's very likely — someone is spreading rumors." Fang Long couldn't say anything good about the United States, so he only subtly hinted that Jade Rabbit was making up rumors.

He didn't name names directly — he was still quite tactful about it.

Wang Jin also told reporters: "Such a big country banning one tiny little film of yours — do you think that's possible?"

This remark drew the dissatisfaction of some Wangyi, who fired back at Wang Jin: "The United States has done too many dirty things like this — nothing is impossible."

The Wangyi even said proudly: "Our film is just that awesome!"

Some even thought he was pro-America, labeling him a traitor — patriotism is not something you can touch.

This forced Wang Jin to quickly come out and explain: "What I meant is that there's a reciprocal agreement — American films can release here, and our films can release in America too. There wouldn't be a ban."

Only after this explanation did the storm temporarily die down.

However, both of them were just doing their job for the money — that is, once they finished filming, the money was already in hand, so the pressure wasn't as great as the investors'.

These actors had negotiated their rightful pay at the start of filming; as for box office earnings, that was a separate matter, and it wouldn't be too much — the lion's share went to the investors.

Take Fang Long, for example — he openly said he wouldn't use his own money to make films.

This put enormous pressure on the investors, who saw Gravity's publicity explode across the media in a very short time.

Xiao Wang was quite bewildered, cursing: "Shit — the United States banning Gravity? Does Principal have that big of a face? He really knows how to put gold on his own face."

"Unless this film insults America, the United States wouldn't ban a single film of his. He even came up with a 'technology is too awesome' excuse — fooling those ignorant masses might still work." Big Wang also raised his voice.

They were genuinely shocked by Principal's shameless tactic — actually dragging the United States in to hype his film, and fully exploiting the patriotic enthusiasm of the Chinese people.

The United States couldn't really say anything either, because Principal's level was currently too low — stooping to argue with him would be beneath them.

To even come up with a publicity stunt like this — with a brain like that, why is Principal hanging around playing in the entertainment industry with them? He should go play with Jack Ma and Tony Ma!

With that kind of talent for hype, what couldn't he succeed at?

"Then what do we do — expose his lie?" Xiao Wang was quite furious, having been put at a disadvantage by Principal again.

"Probably won't do much good. Principal chose this time slot to blow it up precisely to not give the audience time to react — the momentum is already built." Big Wang said.

Detonating public opinion at this time was to make people assume first and foremost that this film had been banned by the United States, thereby exploiting people's patriotic enthusiasm.

It was precisely to not give the audience time to realize that this was fake news.

But even if they did realize, it probably wouldn't matter — once the audience watched Gravity, they probably wouldn't feel like watching other films anymore, simply because the other films were too terrible.

This was an open scheme. It didn't obstruct them in any way, didn't trash their films — it was unsolvable. Yu Fatty was also helpless. During a roadshow, when the media asked him, he said: "Someone is deliberately spreading false information — a very shameless tactic, doing anything for box office, deceiving the public."

He directly said Principal was shameless, that the public had been fooled by him. But weren't those terrible films of theirs also a form of deception?

Each one scams harder than Fang Hong—at least Fang Hong's films are well-produced and high quality.

Their films are unbearably terrible, made just to milk money for the sake of milking money.

No matter how these people debunk the rumors, it's useless; the buzz for Gravity keeps surging.

Just as Fang Hong said, debunking rumors wears you out!

Just as the internet was in an uproar over competing film buzz from all sides, on the first day of the Lunar New Year, all the major films officially hit theaters.

No surprise—Gravity's box office left the rest in the dust. The patriotism card still sells well, let alone when you drag in a big villain like the United States to play it.

This year Rabbit Tickets rolled out a real-time box office display feature, which taps into the National Film Special Fund Office's box office data, not the individual cinema chains' data.

The National Film Special Fund Office is the official data statistics agency for China's film industry, responsible for collecting and releasing nationwide film box office data.

With the application and promotion of technology, Big Data will gradually eliminate box-office theft in the future, because stealing box office revenue is essentially tax evasion.

The latest novel debuts here!

On the real-time box office display, Gravity's numbers were jumping up incredibly fast, breaking a hundred million by noon.

If it can break a hundred million by morning, then three hundred million for the whole day is probably in the cards.

Other films like Dragon Blade, Zhong Kui: Demon Hunter, From Vegas to Macau 2, and so on had less-than-ideal box office numbers.

Apart from Dragon Blade being slightly better, the other films barely scraped past ten million—all the audience was sucked away by Gravity.

But this is only the morning; the total box office for the first day won't be visible until the second day.

And on this very day, Pengpai News published an article saying that Gravity being banned was fake news.

The article listed a large amount of evidence, showing that a search of the US Department of Commerce Bureau of Industry and Security website for content related to "Gravity" turned up no information about the film being banned.

In other words, these two departments had never issued any information regarding "Gravity."

And according to a post on Facebook by Universal Pictures, the Chinese-language film overseas distribution platform, the film Gravity was released normally in the United States, Canada, and other places on February 19, the first day of the Lunar New Year.

The release date was synchronized with the domestic one, and it had not been banned.

On US ticketing sites like showtimes and amctheatres, ticketing information related to Gravity could also be found, and some theater chains supported advance screenings.

The big screen at Niuyue Shidai Guangchang in the United States had also shown clips of Gravity in recent days.

So there is no evidence whatsoever that the film's release in the United States was blocked.

Pengpai News posted all the evidence one by one, directly slapping the face of the online rumor that Gravity was "banned" as false.

Because of the Great Firewall, collecting this evidence wasn't easy—it probably took some effort.

In an instant, all the news outlets pivoted again.

"Did the US Department of Commerce ban the film Gravity on 'national security' grounds? Fake!"

"Did the US ban Gravity for security reasons? Fake news—don't believe it!"

"Debunking! The online rumor that the US banned Gravity is false news!"

"Was Gravity banned by the US? Media verification says it's untrue; Fang Long and Fatty Yu hint the Principal spread the rumor."

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These news headlines basically cited the Pengpai News article, which noted the source—the first to discover and verify it.

That's just how domestic media is—too lazy to verify the truth, they grab any rumor they hear and run with it.

Gathering information, sending reporters—all that costs money and energy. Just copying and using it directly, how convenient is that!

This incident sent Gravity's buzz through the roof once more; even General Manager Xiao Wang couldn't help chiming in: "I'd advise the Principal to focus on making good films. Resorting to crooked tricks and rumors gets you nowhere."

He called him out by name directly—he really couldn't hold back. Poor box office likely means losing money, and Fang Long's film investments don't come cheap.

Seeing them clash, the media got excited too, running the headline: "General Manager Xiao Wang says the Principal resorts to crooked tricks!"

But it was all for nothing—Gravity still exploded, because audiences found this film astonishingly good, while the others were astonishingly bad.

While the internet was busy debunking rumors, Liu Tianxian, Fang Hong, and Guo Fan appeared at Huaxing Guoji Yingcheng.

A "Watch Gravity with Liu Tianxian" event was held here, inviting over a thousand of Liu Tianxian's fans along with media friends to watch the film with her.

It was free—essentially Liu Tianxian treating everyone, though you had to pay your own way there, which was about the cost of a movie ticket, not cheap.

This made big fans from all over the country express deep regret and envy—they lived too far away to come.

"Ahhhhh!"

When Liu Tianxian appeared at the cinema entrance wearing a khaki trench coat, dressed fashionably and handsomely, the fans on site screamed nonstop.

Since they were all true fans, seeing Liu Tianxian in person naturally made each and every one of them uncontrollably excited.

This wasn't a premiere, so there was no need for such a big production—just some security to keep the fans at a distance.

Liu Tianxian waved to her fans, then took questions from the media together with Fang Hong and Guo Fan.

They put on this whole show in the first place to debunk the rumors!

"May I ask the Principal and Tianxian—as the director and lead of this film, is the online rumor that Gravity was banned by the United States false?" the reporter asked.

"It's false, purely an outside rumor. Such fake news not only harms Gravity's interests, wastes public opinion resources, but also undermines fairness in the film industry. We've always let our work speak for itself and never engage in any of that empty nonsense." Fang Hong said it without blushing.

Liu Tianxian couldn't help but glance at him, silently watching him shamelessly spew nonsense.

"Then who's spreading the rumor? Do you know?" the reporter asked.

"Who could know? If I said it was General Manager Xiao Wang and Fatty Yu, would you believe it? You definitely wouldn't. But whoever it is, Jade Rabbit will take legal action so the demons and monsters have nowhere to hide."

Fang Hong also named General Manager Xiao Wang and Fatty Yu as the rumor-spreaders—the other side called him crooked, so he called them demons and monsters.

This is a textbook case of talking to himself and turning the tables.

The rumor about the ban couldn't be traced in the first place; where the information came from was impossible to verify, so he could say whatever he wanted.

(End of chapter)