Chapter 580: Ascending to Immortality

As they went deeper in, the crowds at Universal City grew thicker—tourists there to sightsee and check in, and parents bringing their kids to experience it.

Of course plenty of people noticed Liu Tianxian and recognized her; every now and then someone held up a phone to snap pictures of them.

There were also foreigners tagging along, tailing them the whole way—only the bodyguards in black kept them from pressing closer.

In any case, the entourage around them kept swelling; clearly, even though Liu Tianxian is Chinese, plenty of foreigners knew who she was.

The crowd around them started getting rowdy. Someone shouted, "Liu Tianxian, English!"

"That's me!" Liu Tianxian smiled, very approachable.

"Wow!" someone gasped.

"I love your Gravity—can I take a photo with you?" a young white guy raised his hand high in the crowd, looking a bit worked up—clearly a fan.

The surrounding crowd didn't press in—after all, the bodyguards were blocking them, keeping a safe distance.

"Sure!" Liu Tianxian agreed happily.

That made those people instantly excited and shouting; some clapped, and the commotion immediately drew a big crowd from around them.

As well as some media—self-media, of course.

Some even posted the news of Liu Tianxian appearing at Universal Studios online, spreading it so more people knew where she was.

Those in Los Angeles just drove over directly.

The city of Los Angeles isn't big—its population is only around four million, not even as much as one of our second-tier cities.

But the scenery is nice and it's comfortable, that's for real—otherwise so many celebrities and stars wouldn't have settled here.

"Let's take the photo over there." Liu Tianxian pointed ahead at a huge sphere, very eye-catching, made of steel rings, with a string of English letters on it.

The spot was open, the background clean—perfect, and a check-in spot for everyone who came here to sightsee.

Liu Tianxian stood with her back to the sphere, facing the camera in front of her; on her left and right stood several fans—white, black, and yellow, male and female, all young people.

Since there were so many people, they took photos in small groups, taking turns.

Donna signaled the bodyguards to protect Miss Liu—after all, she had come all the way here, nothing could go wrong.

Those bodyguards in black were on alert too.

"Does this city belong to you Universal?" Fang Hong asked curiously, watching Liu Tianxian taking photos with fans—she looked in her element, very natural.

"Yes, for fifty years now," Donna said.

"That's quite a long history."

Fang Hong said this, then asked curiously, "How did Warner get The Conjuring to show up here?"

He had licensed The Conjuring to Warner outright; which theme parks it ended up in, he didn't know—he just sat back and collected the money.

"This place is independently operated. In business there's always cooperation and competition—movies compete, does that spill over to the studio lots? Some of our film characters have ended up in Warner Bros. Studio themes too," Donna said.

Fang Hong said nothing—it was the same as how he'd cast actors from other companies in his films.

"What's your next filming plan?" Donna asked.

"Keep making sci-fi. Oh, there's a Lucy 2 coming at the end of the year—see if you're interested," Fang Hong said.

"Sure—are you directing it?" Donna knew the film.

"No, a different director. Xu Laoguai—the guy who produced Black Mask, you know him, right?" Fang Hong looked at her.

That film, though not well-known domestically, was a huge success in the United States—box office and DVD rentals pulled in tens of millions of US dollars.

Tens of millions of bucks at the turn of the century—very impressive.

And that was the result after several years' delay—meaning it wasn't even fresh anymore.

It also paved the way for Jet Li to head to the United States!

As for the setbacks Jet Li later faced in the US, that was his own business—changing to a new map, how could one not hit setbacks? At least people knew him and gave him roles; that was already pretty good.

Donna thought for a moment, then recalled that film: "That director was okay, but he only had one hit—later he fell off."

She was a bit worried—besides the Principal directing, she felt no one else was reliable, not even Lao Mouzi or Chen Daren.

Especially Lao Mouzi—he used to be very favored by international distributors; if his film existed, they bought it.

But one Three Guns silenced all the international distributors—really unreliable. Feng Kuzi was the same; The Banquet silenced Columbia Pictures.

"Don't worry, I'll keep him in line." Fang Hong also knew Xu Laoguai wasn't reliable—those big directors weren't reliable either.

Setting that aside, actually those with proper training backgrounds aren't reliable either—their minds seem to have gone rigid, boxed into formulas, no innovation left.

Later, the ones pulling in big box office were all wildcards—Jiaozi, Chen Sicheng, Guo Fan, Xu Guangtou, and so on.

As for Wu Jing and Jia Ling, no need to mention them.

It's just that the wildcards seem more willing to take risks, while those trained directors won't—always blaming the audience, blaming censorship.

The two chatted for a while; Liu Tianxian finished taking photos with the fans and did a few interviews.

The interviews didn't mention anything about going back—just shared some thoughts after Gravity's big box office.

March 8—Chinese New Year was completely over.

And on this very day, Gravity broke 3 billion in domestic box office in China, becoming the undisputed number one in the history of Chinese film. Both reputation and box office exploded; the official media praised the film as: "The finest domestic sci-fi film, unprecedented!"

The People's Daily praised Fang Hong as: "The finest film director of this era."

Even Xinhua News Agency reported: "The Principal has rewritten the history of Chinese cinema!"

That article was quite long—the gist being that the Principal's success was no accident, but earned step by step through hard work.

This praise made Fang Hong a bit embarrassed—after all, he had just had someone else direct for him. Could he say that?

Luckily he hadn't made many films and didn't touch art films; he handed stuff like that off to others, otherwise he'd be exposed and his reputation wouldn't hold—same as Lao Mouzi and them.

Art films are very hard to make—they need deep thought content, so Fang Hong wouldn't touch them; he didn't think he had that kind of intellectual depth.

Simply put, an art film is the vehicle for the director's ideas—it requires the director to focus on deep exploration of character emotion.

In plain terms, it's the director jerking off—completely ignoring the audience's feelings.

So Fang Hong didn't make them. Having a team that could realize the images in his head was already good enough—as long as the film had a thematic idea, the characters had motivation, and there was "love," that was fine.

With mainstream media backing it up, the buzz around Gravity was about to blow through the roof, but the market capacity was right here — it could only carry so much box office.

And the media gave Liu Tianxian a new title: 7-Billion Box Office Queen!

Someone tallied up all the box office of every film Liu Tianxian had co-starred in with Jade Rabbit since 2010.

Those Years: 130 million; Lost in Love 33 Days: 347 million; Bad Genius: 362 million; Lucy: 1.901 billion; Now You See Me 1: 1.014 billion; A Bouquet of Love: 1.418 billion.

Add the current Gravity's 3 billion!

Altogether that's 7.172 billion! That's only by domestic box office standards — if you added all the overseas earnings, she'd be the Ten-Billion Queen.

One person carrying 7 billion at the box office, in an era where even breaking 1 billion is hard — she is unquestionably the worthy Box Office Queen, the most bankable film actress.

Some people also call her: Liu Seven-Billion!

Whether compared with actresses of the same type, or with those veteran film figures like Liu Tianwang, Fa Ge — she leaves them all far behind.

No one is saying she's a box office poison, no one is saying they'll absolutely refuse to watch any film with her in it, no one is saying her acting is terrible.

Liu Tianxian has completely reversed the audience's impression of her making bad films; completely reversed the audience's skeptical impression of her films; completely reversed the audience's prejudice against her acting.

Of course, there are still people now spraying that her acting is terrible, that she performs like garbage.

But that can no longer obstruct her image in the audience's hearts — she is the box office guarantee, the representative of good films, of course under the condition of collaborating with Jade Rabbit.

A few years ago, the audience had already summed up the pattern: Liu Tianxian collaborating with others equals trash, collaborating with Jade Rabbit equals god-tier.

Back then, Liu Tianxian had one bad film a year, leaving the audience both loving and hating her.

Fortunately, this phenomenon is ending — even if Liu Tianxian puts out one film a year, the audience is willing to wait, as long as she doesn't make a bad one.

What they don't know is that Liu Tianxian also endured for six years, finally stewing through all those bad films.

The process was very hard for her too, and she was once at a loss.

Fortunately she made it through — Gravity, along with the several films before it, laid the foundation for her.

As long as she doesn't mess up, and keeps working hard with Fang Hong, she will surely have her place in the history of Chinese cinema, and in this film circle, there will be her position too.

Rather than like in her past life, persisting for over ten years, only to have no choice but to return to the television circle in low spirits.

Of course, this was also her own persistence and choice — back then Fang Hong let her choose TV dramas, she didn't choose, insisted on the film path, and that's how today came to be.

If she had chosen television back then, she wouldn't have had the energy to polish films.

"Your current fame and influence, the Film Bureau has seen it with their own eyes, the higher-ups have seen it too — you've created value. Push a little harder, and who knows, you might be able to sit in meetings with the leaders just like me." Fang Hong chatted with Liu Tianxian on the plane.

"Really? What are your meetings like?" Liu Tianxian asked.

"When the time comes I'll take you along, you just sit next to me, and the two of us will take notes together." Fang Hong said.

"Take notes? How come I've never seen you have any notes?" Liu Tianxian was puzzled — this man's things she basically had to flip through and check.

Even his underwear she'd flip through and check, to see if there were any holes — she'd never seen this man have any notes recording anything.

"This is where I have to tell you the trick — when the leader speaks, we just have to pretend below and move our pens, let the leader see your attitude." Fang Hong made a writing gesture.

"Aren't you just fooling people?" Liu Tianxian gave him a smack.

"Not fooling anyone — I reckon even the leader himself doesn't know what he's saying, he's just reading from a script. Every word sounds nice, but strung together, it's beyond what mortals like us can understand." Fang Hong said.

"Hahaha!" Liu Tianxian laughed out loud.

"Make a few more god-tier films, and you'll reach the heights of Fang Long and Jet Li, surpass Gong Huang and Man Shen, shatter the void, ascend to immortality." Fang Hong raised his hand.

He made Liu Tianxian chuckle again and again — she knew that in the past Fang Long often accompanied leaders to international exchanges, and attended state banquets of other countries' heads of state; Gong Huang could even accompany the France leader — their status was extremely high.

It's not that you don't know — once they stop making films, that status doesn't just vanish, it's not like that.

"It's just that there aren't any awards." Liu Tianxian said regretfully.

"Awards, those will come in time — you've already accumulated some small awards now, all you're missing is the big ones." Fang Hong said.

Liu Tianxian would pick up some inconspicuous small awards every year, like the Golden Screen Award, the Golden Crane Award, and so on — who knows what those things are.

(End of chapter)