Chapter 693: Viral Across the Internet: That Fatal Glance Back

The 2nd trailer is already out, so will the 3rd trailer be far behind?

As it turns out, it really is a bit far.

Director Xu chooses when to release trailers based on the discussion heat on the internet.

The interval between the release of the 1st and 2nd trailers was only three days.

This is because he discovered that the 1st trailer only drew traffic to a niche group, with heated discussions within that group, but it didn't go viral on a large scale.

That's why he quickly launched the 2nd trailer.

After the launch, he observed the market's reaction.

Unexpectedly, the general public liked this trailer even more.

This is a trailer specially edited for supporting roles, light on plot and heavy on complaints.

This trailer looks like it edited out a lot of content, but in fact, it didn't; it mostly just showed their own reactions.

As for the process of struggle, how they struggled, the information revealed is actually very little.

Director Xu just wanted netizens to dig into how a passerby can counterattack into an honor student?

When netizens are interested in a character's experience, they will contribute a movie ticket with their feet.

And once the 2nd trailer was launched, the spread speed was very rapid, expanding layer by layer, and even pushed *Counterattack* onto a top ten trending search.

Director Xu didn't buy any promotion; this trending search was pushed up by natural traffic.

Since this trailer has the potential to expand, Director Xu decided to let it fly for a while to see how many netizens it could eventually attract, and suppressed the third trailer for now.

The first trailer focused on the heroine's awakening of consciousness and self-struggle.

The second trailer focused on the friend's perspective, where friends were forced to internalize, leading to great changes in life, unknowingly completing a counterattack.

As a film with a youth campus theme, besides having a career line, family line, and friendship line, it naturally cannot lack a love line.

Of course, the description of love in youth campus themes is often very hazy and vague.

Unlike dog-blood romance dramas, against the background of struggle and inspiration, love is just a finishing touch like icing on the cake.

So this 3rd trailer focuses on romance, which is the love line between the male and female leads.

Director Xu knows that Jin Li and Gu Cheng have a huge group of CP fans, and their CP super topic on the blog is among the best, either first or second.

The number of daily check-ins is in the millions.

And the film and television edits about the two are countless.

Director Xu specially went to watch the campus drama *Assassination* that both had filmed before. It was clearly a campus drama satirizing campus bullying with a sad undertone, and there was actually no love line in the drama.

If there was love, it would only be a distorted love, a sense of manipulation trying to control the other person's life.

This is a desire for control, not love.

So in Director Xu's eyes, this is not love, but a disease.

But the audience is not.

The powerful CP fans have learned how to find sugar in glass shards; the more miserable it is, the more they want to see something sweet.

Many bloggers, after secondary editing, feel like they have edited *Assassination* into another drama.

Director Xu also specially went to take a look and suddenly realized that there are really many talents among CP fans; they could even edit this out.

At the same time, netizens also love to watch these edits, and each short video has millions or tens of millions of views.

Since then, Director Xu realized that CP fans are a huge and loyal group.

As long as you can capture the hearts of CP fans, then the secondary derivatives of film and television dramas, the related merchandise planned to be launched, and even the *Counterattack 2* that might be launched in the future...

are not a problem!

This is the power of a huge CP fan base.

Director Xu had high expectations for the last trailer, which is why he didn't release it easily.

He was worried that if it were released now, the huge CP fan base would quickly occupy the internet position, making other netizens interested in the 2nd trailer unable to see this trailer.

Because the new third trailer would spread rapidly across the entire internet and then drown out the 1st and 2nd trailers.

Out of this concern, even though many netizens were urging him to release the 3rd trailer quickly, he remained as steady as Mount Tai.

It wasn't until the heat of the 2nd trailer had fermented for a full week and the daily added discussion had declined that Director Xu released the 3rd king-bomb trailer.

And at this time, it was only 10 days away from *Counterattack* being launched in major cinemas.

*Counterattack* trailer third wave, coming!

This trailer is the shortest; others were at least two or three minutes long, but this one is only a minute and a half.

And there are many beautiful scene atmospheres in the trailer, with more scenery than characters.

But I have to say, that youthful flavor came out.

Ahem, who hasn't stared blankly at the scenery outside the window while listening to music on a bus?

The way I imagine myself: I am melancholic and sad about my youth.

The way others see it: This person is so dull and silly.

After Jin Xiaoli decided to work hard, she decided to seek help from another neighbor.

This neighbor had a good relationship with her parents, but their son was too excellent. He was the same age as Jin Xiaoli, and they went to the same school, but they were always in different classes.

The reason is simple.

The neighbor's son was always assigned to the honor class, while Jin Xiaoli was naturally free and loose, easily distracted by other things, so her grades were always in the middle and lower reaches.

By high school, because learning was strenuous, her grades suddenly dropped to the bottom.

When she was a child, she played well with an older brother from another neighbor's house. That brother was much older than Gu Zimo, and his grades were also average.

Poor student to poor student, there was not so much distance.

Who knew that this brother only got into a junior college and would become so degenerate.

So Jin Xiaoli didn't want to become like that, so she plucked up the courage to seek help from Gu Zimo.

At first, she was worried that Gu Zimo would ignore her and wouldn't want to talk to a poor student, so she visited as a neighbor and then had more contact with him in daily life.

Later, after more contact, Jin Xiaoli found that Gu Zimo was a person with a hard mouth but a soft heart.

On the surface, he was very cold and didn't speak, and once he spoke, he could choke people to death, but in fact, he was very kind and soft-hearted; he would feed the stray cats near the school every day.

Knowing Gu Zimo's soft side, Jin Xiaoli felt it was time, so she asked if he could teach her to study, and there would be a great reward after success.

Gu Zimo: "Why not reward me now?"

Jin Xiaoli said embarrassedly: "I didn't tell my parents, so I have no money. If I can get into a pretty good university, I will go out to work when I'm on vacation, and I will give you half of the money I earn."

Gu Zimo thought for a moment and agreed.

The trailer played to this point, and it was already nearly a minute.

The last ten seconds were all scenes of Gu Zimo supervising Jin Xiaoli.

[Jin Xiaoli, get up!]

[Jin Xiaoli, copy this question ten times!]

[Jin Xiaoli, you can't go out to play today; you have to copy all the wrong questions]

[Jin Xiaoli...]

[Jin Xiaoli...]

[Jin Xiaoli...]

The screen suddenly turned dark.

Netizens seeing this all thought the trailer was over.

If some people hadn't specially checked the progress bar and found there were still three or four seconds left, they might have chosen to click the X and leave.

It was precisely because some netizens found that the progress bar hadn't reached the end that they specially sent bullet comments to remind others not to close it, as there was more below.

Netizens suppressed their temper and waited.

After three seconds, the screen suddenly turned bright.

Gu Zimo was wearing a high school uniform, sitting in a seat by the window in the classroom, and the sunlight outside spilled in through the mottled leaves, casting spots of flowing light on him.

Gu Zimo suddenly sensed something, turned his head to look over, and smiled lightly.

"Jin Xiaoli, come here."

Just this last glance back, this background, this outfit, this atmosphere, instantly went viral across the internet.

Many netizens took screenshots of Gu Cheng's final glance back and smile as their screensavers.

[Ah, must go watch; I have never seen such a clean and refreshing boy!]

[I have to say, this is what I imagine a campus male god should look like]

[Gu Cheng in *Assassination* was unruly and arrogant. Gu Cheng in *Counterattack* is cold and noble, cool and gentle!]

[Ah ah ah, as expected of a man who can be in a boy group, I feel like I discovered Gu Cheng's appearance for the first time; I liked Yan Xingdong's type more before!]

[The four people in March Sky are all very good, handsome in their own ways, but Gu Cheng's appearance and temperament are top-notch. Since he started his personal business, he has received the most film and television scripts!]

[What a great face, what a photogenic face!]

Director Xu logged into his blog and saw netizens praising Gu Cheng's appearance, and couldn't help but smile with relief.

This is the lethality he wanted.

The 1st and 2nd trailers were actually not very difficult to edit.

Only the 3rd trailer really stumped him.

He initially wanted to focus on Jin Li, after all, *Counterattack* still needed her to carry the drama.

But while browsing the videos made by CP fans, he found that the duration of Gu Cheng's appearance was far higher than Jin Li's.

So he felt that even among CP fans, netizens have preferences.

Some people love to watch male actors fall in love, while others love to watch female actors fall in love.

In the huge group of "Vitamins," Director Xu, relying on his keen intuition and analysis of each character's duration, believed that Vitamins would prefer to see Gu Cheng in a dominant position.

So, he edited a version of the love line with Gu Cheng as the main focus.

The result is what everyone knows.

If the second trailer made *Counterattack* break the circle, then the third trailer, with Gu Cheng's final glance back and smile, made *Counterattack* go viral across the entire internet.

Whether they were interested in *Counterattack* or not, whether they were Gu Cheng's fans, or Gu Cheng's anti-fans, or March Sky's anti-fans...

all saw this photo.

This is a face-value game!

If Gu Cheng didn't have this appearance, he really wouldn't be able to hold up this wave of sudden viral popularity.

But he just happened to have this appearance, and Director Xu also filmed this trailer very beautifully, especially the final glance back and smile, which made many people's hearts beat faster.

So, Gu Cheng caught this wave of traffic, and *Counterattack* also soared to the sky with the help of this wave of traffic.

After the first two trailers were released, *Counterattack*'s pre-sale box office reached third place among all films released in the summer season.

Although the gap with the second place is not large, it cannot be opened.

And it is a world of difference from the first place.

As a result, Gu Cheng's divine photo went viral, and needless to say, *Counterattack*'s pre-sales soared directly, breaking the peak on the second day and skyrocketing to first place.

But the gap between the two is not very large.

The crew that was originally ranked first was suddenly pushed to second, feeling a bit confused, but they also reacted quickly and exerted force.

That drama used an all-star cast, and precisely because the cast was strong, it could lead the pre-sales.

Now that it was suppressed, the crew immediately found the male and female leads to start a live broadcast to pull up the heat.

The crew originally thought that the second day's pre-sales would surpass *Counterattack*.

But who would have thought that the second day's pre-sale data would be released, and the gap between the two sides would be even larger.

Now, let alone surpassing, the gap is so large that it cannot be surpassed at all, unless the crew wants to make a big scoop.

But in a hurry, how to prepare a big scoop?

The crew couldn't possibly deliberately expose the star's negative news; that would have heat, but the film's reputation couldn't be guaranteed, and perhaps it wouldn't be able to be released.

As for Director Xu, seeing *Counterattack*'s pre-sale data skyrocket to first place and stabilize this data, he laughed from ear to ear.

Sigh, a miscalculation.

He should have asked Dawn Entertainment for marketing fees at the beginning.

Even if he spent tens of millions, he might not be able to market this effect!

Just when everyone was paying attention to *Counterattack*'s pre-sale results, two days before the film's release, Director Xu quietly borrowed the media's hand to release a wave of fierce material.

This time, the protagonist was changed to Jin Li.

He wanted all netizens to know that for this film, Jin Li did not hesitate to make a resource exchange with One Billion Media, allowing *Counterattack* to obtain simultaneous distribution channels in dozens of Southeast Asian countries.

So the day *Counterattack* was launched can be said to be a global simultaneous release.

This time, even Hong Kong was not left out; it was released simultaneously!

Because this was a scoop borrowed from the mouth of big media, the news spread very quickly, but not all the news was revealed.

There was still a lot of key information that needed netizens to guess.

And at this time, "interested people," "industry insiders," and "I have a friend" would appear on the stage, and through the revelations of insiders, let netizens know to what extent Jin Li had done for this film.

[Breaking news! Jin Li made a resource exchange of film and television dramas with One Billion Media; she agreed to film a TV drama invested by One Billion Media in exchange for *Counterattack*'s distribution abroad!]

Netizens followed up one after another—

[One Billion Media? That company that produces terrible films?]

[I always feel Jin Li's sacrifice this time is a bit big...]

[Jin Li actually fought to this point for *Counterattack*; I really want to know how this film was filmed now; it should be filmed very well, otherwise there's no need to fight so hard]

[Jin Li really likes every one of her dramas; as long as she films it, the promotion is very dedicated. This time she was even willing to get overseas distribution channels for *Counterattack*; the investors should really give her a red envelope]

[Am I the only one worried that Jin Li will film a terrible movie? One Billion Media's dramas in recent years are unwatchable (covering face)]