Chapter 344: True Gold Fears No Fire

"Welcome back to ABC's *Noon News Focus*, I'm Laura Spencer. Next, let's focus on Hollywood."

"A financial document exposed on the internet last night has ignited public opinion today."

"This document confirms our long-standing suspicion. The lead actor of *Twilight*, 24-year-old Chinese actor Nuo Chen, received a huge pay of 120 million USD from Summit Entertainment for just the first two *Twilight* films."

"I believe everyone who knows this news now has the same thing in their minds as I do."

"That is—why? Why is there so much?"

"Before answering this question, let us first review the film career of Nuo Chen, the most eye-catching Hollywood new star in recent years, through a video."

". Okay, welcome back. We have invited Brian Miller, a senior editor of *The Hollywood Reporter*, to talk about this explosive news with us today. Hello, Brian."

"Hello, Laura."

"Brian, tell us first, were you surprised after learning this news?"

"Of course, Laura. Everyone around me is surprised."

"Why, did you not expect Chen's pay to be so high?"

"Yes, didn't expect it. Although everyone knows he is very rich and has guessed his pay in *Twilight*. But... yesterday's news came out, and everyone wanted to say, 'Wow, the mystery is solved,' but what did we see? Is Summit Entertainment crazy?"

"Brian, explain why you senior media people would be so surprised."

"Laura, you have to know, although Hollywood is full of billionaires, in fact, almost everyone reaches today's position step by step. Hollywood pay is tiered. Even Tang Mu Cruise, when filming *Risky Business* at 21, his pay was only 75,000 USD, and when filming *Top Gun* at 23, it was only 2 million USD. Until filming *Far and Away* in '92, it took nine years to get over 12 million. Although there is inflation, Chen's income is really too exaggerated."

"If I remember correctly, when Nuo Chen signed the contract for the first *Twilight*, he was only 23?"

"No, Laura, I can tell you his birthday clearly, it's February 28, 1986. And *Twilight* part one started filming in April 2010, which means he was just 22 years old at the time. This contract signed when he was 22 allowed him to earn 120 million in two years. I have to say, this is simply crazy."

"Brian, can I understand it this way: he is like a sports star in the Major League or NBA, signing a max contract as soon as he enters the professional league."

"That's right, Laura, but even LeBron James, when he just entered the NBA, signed a rookie contract of a few million USD a year. What did Chen have two years ago when he signed the *Twilight 1* contract?

He had no starring resume and no North American audience base. Except for just proving himself with Joker and winning an Oscar Best Supporting Actor. He had nothing else. To Hollywood, he is like a rookie player who just emerged from the high school league, no matter how excellent, he needs time to prove himself."

"OK. But Brian, according to many people's understanding, both sides reached the conditions based on voluntary negotiation, what's the fuss about?"

"Of course, this is some kind of free choice, and we haven't seen the contract details, so we don't know what Summit Entertainment was thinking. However, what I can tell you is that any industry insider or film company boss is very worried now."

"Worried about what, Brian?"

"Worried about a domino effect. If Nuo Chen can get such high pay in his first commercial film as a lead, how do other actors see it?

Will actors like Tang Mu Hanks and Brad Pitt feel they deserve more?

Even more terrifying is, if the dominoes fall one by one, when every young actor with a little achievement asks the production side for high pay, and this becomes a universal phenomenon, then what I can tell you is that film companies will be forced to compress core budgets like script development and special effects in order to pay. By then, what we see in the cinema will be some shoddy Hollywood garbage."

"Brian, that sounds terrible. Then, how do you think Summit Entertainment should respond to this situation? According to existing news, they have encountered difficulties again in renewing the contract with Nuo Chen. It seems Chen is still asking them for high pay. Do you think Summit Entertainment will yield to Chen's demands?"

"Don't know, this is indeed a thorny problem. Summit Entertainment's biggest concern now should be Nuo Chen's huge fan base. His 24 million followers on FB are not just numbers; they are a super capital pool that can brush out 100 million USD in pre-sale box office for *Twilight 2* in a week. But if they yield, they may face huge financial risks."

"Actually, judging from the current public opinion, it seems that most Americans feel Chen got too much. Do you think this sentiment will affect Summit Entertainment's decision-making?"

"Of course it will. If the public doesn't stand on Chen's side, I believe this will give Summit Entertainment more negotiating chips, and even the courage to change actors."

"Change actors?"

"Change actors, although the possibility is not high."

"Then my niece will be very sad."

"Hahahaha, I believe everyone at the poker table now hopes not to go to that step, because the loss is huge for any party."

"Who do you think will yield in the end?"

"I believe public opinion will put Chen in a passive position, forcing him to re-evaluate his asking price."

"Thank you very much for your analysis, Brian. Audience friends, later we will connect with the Actors Guild representative to continue discussing—"

The TV screen flashed and went out.

Chen Nuo threw the remote control onto the bed, "Let's go, check out."

Liu Yifei said worriedly: "Really not going to care?"

"Not going to care."

"But it's not just him saying that. On Twitter, and your FB account, there are so many people talking about this now. If you don't speak, will it..."

Liu Yifei didn't finish, her face full of hesitation.

Chen Nuo understood what she meant.

After the TMZ news was reported, overnight and this morning, the two tags about him on Twitter, one #120MillionPay# and one #GreedyVampire#, topped the Twitter trend list around 9:00 AM today, and one ranked in the top ten.

His 120 million pay news became a huge storm, not only causing major North American media to scramble to report it. Under his FB account with 27 million followers, thousands of comments appeared, most of which were malicious.

He could imagine that Vancouver was now like a cake stained with honey; it was estimated that it wouldn't be long before reporters swarming like ants would make every step he took out of the door incomparably difficult.

This level of public opinion storm, wrapped in double layers from the internet to reality, was comparable to the end of the world for the vast majority of people.

After all, humans are social animals. Living in the world, it is impossible not to touch the internet, not to see news newspapers, and not to be influenced by others.

Over time, the ears are filled with one's own negative news. Mild depression, severe self-termination, are all normal.

So, the word "wait" is easy to say.

Not many people can really do it.

Unless, there is a wall that separates him from this world.

"It's okay, don't think too much. Let's go, go home."

May 23, 2010.

Chen Nuo officially returned from the other side of the wall to this side.

The storm outside the wall turned into a gentle breeze and drizzle at home, or even no rain.

The domestic media waiting for him at the airport asked all kinds of questions.

The question they asked him most was whether he had marriage plans with Liu Yifei.

Regarding the pay that was raging abroad, these big and small media reporters didn't even mention it. At most, they asked about his thoughts on the Forbes list lowering his income so much.

Really, these are two worlds.

Chen Nuo estimated that those executives at Summit Entertainment, like Will Stenson, had "Hollywood-centrism" in their brains for a lifetime, so they thought they could wrap public opinion to threaten him, and even make him make mistakes in a hurry.

Hehe, dream on.

The racists or rednecks on Twitter brushed the words criticizing him onto the trend list.

But on domestic Weibo, the top search on Sina yesterday was "US Secretary of State Hillary visits Shanghai World Expo," the second was "China Pavilion daily passenger flow exceeds 500,000," the third was "*Ip Man 2* box office breaks 200 million," and the fourth was "Wang Fei announces comeback tour."

The topic about his pay ranked eighth.

Of course, it doesn't need to be avoided that this was indeed Sina's people helping him lower the heat, otherwise the topic "Chinese actor pay ceiling" should have been at least in the top five.

This is the benefit of investing in Sina Weibo.

Why lower it?

That is naturally the Chinese concept of not revealing wealth, and after internal evaluation by Huanxin, they felt it was better not to attract too much attention.

Under this entry, the most-liked reports were also positive.

Saying that his huge pay caused quite a bit of controversy abroad, breaking the Hollywood pay barrier, and "light of the Chinese" and other words, making people blush.

Besides that, on Tencent and Sohu Weibo where no one helped him, no one scolded him. It was nothing more than moral kidnapping that he earned so much money but didn't donate to Hope Primary Schools.

It wasn't that he had unified the world, but that it might not be easy to find an angle to scold him.

He wasn't like others, lowering his pay to film in Hollywood, just to raise his domestic status. No matter how much he earned, he earned Americans' money. How do you let the trolls spray?

Comparing the two, it stimulated many people's desire to create.

"Brother Nuo single-handedly plucked 120 million knives from Hollywood! Some people act in roles that humiliate China while blowing 'international coffee'."

I don't know who this is talking about, but it was popular for a while on Tencent Weibo, where the international style is the main focus, led by Mr. Jet Li.

The comments on NetEase Weibo were much more normal. Although the traffic was the lowest, the words were the best to hear.

"Converted to RMB, it's almost 1 billion. Others go to Hollywood to pay tuition, Brother Nuo goes to Hollywood to collect USD!"

"No wonder Summit's former CEO was forced to resign."

"Personally, I think it's not too much for Brother Nuo to take."

"Value for money, without Nuo Nuo, can garbage movies like *Twilight* sell so much box office?"

Such words emerged one after another.

Under these circumstances, after Chen Nuo returned to Beijing, he rested in Ziyu Villa for a day, and on the morning of May 24, 2010, he sat in the Huanxin Company conference room to prepare for a meeting.

Except for Qi Yuntian, who was played hard by someone, and had been on a plane for more than ten hours without adjusting to the jet lag, his face still didn't look good.

Everyone else in the company felt quite relaxed and had no pressure.

The first topic of the meeting was undoubtedly the follow-up negotiation problem with Summit Entertainment.

"... Just now Mr. Chen said, let us 'wait a bit.' It simply enlightened me; this idea is really too good, making me feel that the night I lost sleep yesterday was completely in vain. Next, I will write a report based on this, let everyone in the company learn and understand Mr. Chen's spirit together, so as to be united..."

Today's meeting wasn't chaired by Qi Yuntian, but by Li Jing.

Having been the general manager for more than a year, Li Jing sat in the main seat of the bright conference room on the 21st floor of Chaowai SOHO, serious and talking eloquently, very much like a strong woman.

Chen Nuo coughed lightly. Li Jing immediately changed the subject, "I said waiting is good, not nonsense, but from a short-term perspective, this matter has no substantial impact on us. As long as we avoid those public opinion storms and paparazzi during this period, we can even treat this matter as non-existent. Peacefully wait for the tide to pass."

"From the perspective of internal public opinion monitoring, although there are many discussions in the comment section of Mr. Chen's FB account, the core part of the fans still stands on Mr. Chen's side, and there is no large-scale fan loss."

"Instead, fans are worried about whether *Twilight 3*, which has just been filmed, will be affected by this storm, thereby delaying its release."

"Besides that, in this storm, the sponsors haven't wavered either. Everyone, please look, this is the latest poster released by Harry Winston early this morning, after the public opinion broke out."

Saying that, she asked the secretary to distribute a color-printed A4 document to everyone in the conference room.

This was a screenshot of the official Harry Winston website.

Most of the picture was occupied by a photo of a man, with black, white, and gray as the main color tone, creating a low-key and mysterious texture.

The man was wearing a crisp suit, his posture was upright, his face was hidden in the shadows, his outline was looming, setting off his deep and unfathomable temperament.

Only the huge diamond brooch on his chest broke the overall darkness, shining brightly in the dim light.

In the lower right corner of the photo, a line of black-bottomed white characters was printed low-key and eye-catchingly:

truevaluewithstandsallpressure.

Liu Xiaoli stared at this line of English for a long time,

By the time she came back to her senses, Li Jing had already continued.

"... 20 million USD plus 15% share, is it a lot?"

Li Jing pressed the remote control in her hand, the PPT projection on the wall flickered, and the red laser pointer circled the numbers on the table.

"Before *Twilight 2* was released, within 48 hours of Mr. Chen posting set photos on FB, the North American pre-sale of *Twilight 2* soared by more than 11 million USD. What is this concept?"

"I really don't understand what the people at Summit Entertainment are thinking? But if there is an insider, they will never do such a stupid thing. Will Stenson thinks we are begging them? In fact, the whole *Twilight* is rubbing against Mr. Chen's traffic..."

Chen Nuo coughed again, "Sister Jing, let's talk about the matter, don't talk about this traffic or that traffic."

Li Jing said: "Okay, Mr. Chen. Since Summit Entertainment doesn't eat the toast and wants to eat the punishment, causing such a situation, then we will accompany them to the end."

"Next, my idea is, Mr. Chen and Mr. Qi, you sit in the country. And I will take people to the US to communicate with the legal team and deal with Warner and the others."

"As far as I know, according to Article 7 of the US *Uniform Trade Secrets Act*, if the contract leak source can be traced back to the other party, the confidentiality clause will automatically expire."

"The best situation is that we find the first-hand source from TMZ through Warner and trace it back to the relevant personnel of Summit Entertainment. Once this happens, we can not only legally clarify the contract and wash away the dirty water on Mr. Chen, but also countersue Summit for infringing on trade secrets."

"Even if there is no way to trace the source directly, as long as we can prove that the contract leak is true, I think we can also apply to the court to disclose part of the contract content to alleviate public opinion pressure..." 【

"Even if there is no way to trace the source directly, as long as we can prove that the contract leak is true, I think we can also apply to the court to disclose part of the contract content to alleviate the pressure of public opinion..."

"Regardless of how much time it takes to do this, whether it's one month, two months, or a year or two..."

"In short, in the face of evil forces using such crooked ways to force us to bow our heads, under Chen Zong's leadership, we will never compromise!"

Before Liu Xiaoli came, she actually thought about persuading Chen Nuo, thinking it would be better to just let the big issue become small and the small issue disappear.

Since they had already earned so much, it wouldn't matter if they conceded a little on the last installment and took a small loss. If they really pushed the other side too far and the fourth installment didn't get filmed in the end, the loss would outweigh the gain.

Therefore, hearing Li Jing's such firm stance, she subconsciously opened her mouth to speak.

But immediately, the corner of her eye caught that English sentence on the A4 paper again.

That sentence was like some kind of spell, instantly sticking her mouth shut and stifling the words that were about to blurt out.

"True value withstands all pressure."

Translated literally into Chinese: True value can withstand all pressure.

The idiomatic translation is: True gold fears no fire.

Since Liu Xiaoli didn't speak, after Chen Zong set the tone, Li Jing settled on the strategic policy of waiting to see what happens while preparing in secret.

The meeting proceeded to the next topic without any obstacles.

The casting of the "dancer" in the movie "No Man's Land," which the company and China Film Group were co-investing in.

The story of "No Man's Land" is about a greedy lawyer who goes to Kekexili to defend the boss of a poaching gang. Later, on the way back, he first encounters extortion at a shady shop, then is hunted by the poaching gang, experiences life-threatening situations all the way, and finally dies.

Among them, "Jiaojiao" is a dancer who was trafficked to No Man's Land by two brothers in the shady shop; her daily work is dancing and drinking with customers in a dilapidated RV.

In the end, she embarks on the run and being hunted with the lawyer, becoming the only major character in the movie to survive.

This character's screen time in the movie is not much, but it is very important.

Originally, Fan Fan Binbing was a perfect candidate, but after Fan Fan Binbing suddenly asked for leave, the Huanxin company was suddenly a bit panicked.

In this month, they urgently assembled a team, selected a circle of people in the country who still had availability, and finally listed a name list.

Chen Nuo took a look; inside were Zhang Xinyu, Yu Nan, and several familiar names.

He knew about this matter before, so he couldn't help but ask: "Let Ning Hao decide this himself, what does it have to do with us?"

Li Jing smiled bitterly: "Director Ning has already started filming in Gansu, he is too busy and doesn't have time to fly back to BJ. For such an important matter, I don't dare to let the casting director decide."

Chen Nuo said "Oh," and asked: "Then what do you plan to do?"

"Chen Zong, can you help?"

Chen Nuo was annoyed now whenever he heard the name Fan Fan Binbing, and was just about to refuse.

But before he had time to reply, the phone in his pocket suddenly rang.

Picking it up and seeing the name on the phone screen, he was stunned, and then a hint of a smile appeared.

Everyone suddenly stopped their voices.

Liu Xiaoli's heart rose.

A warning bell rang in her mind instantly.

Who is it?

Now she pays more attention to women who might appear around Chen Nuo than before.

Liu Yifei was sleeping at home today to adjust to the time difference, but when she helped pack the luggage last night, she had seen everything that should and shouldn't be seen.

Those scattered little clothes in the suitcase were not just the set she took her to buy when they were in Berlin.

When she helped put them into the wardrobe, she took them out one by one. Even though Liu Ayi was someone who had seen the world, she was still a little secretly terrified.

But from some aspects, she also felt relieved, thinking it was considered normal.

At the beginning, she was really taken aback. She thought she understood why this guy Chen Nuo wanted to cheat.

So for the sake of Xixi's lifelong happiness, she put aside her pride, found a nearby lingerie store, and went to pick out a set with Liu Yifei.

At the same time, she taught her a few things.

Moreover, this time Liu Yifei went to Canada, she didn't follow along.

Why?

Wasn't it just to leave some space for the young people to be dissolute?

Now it seems the effect is not bad.

Then, who is the one calling now?

Smiling so flirtatiously, it's probably another vixen.

They didn't even hide it, which shows the weight of her status in the man's heart.

Liu Xiaoli was pricking up her ears for Xixi, wanting to hear clearly.

But she heard Chen Nuo suddenly use a Korean greeting: "Yeoboseyo."

After that, Chen Nuo listened more and spoke less.

However, the speaker effect of the iPhone 3GS was too loud, and the woman on the other end of the phone was too excited, so half of the conference room could hear what the woman on the other side was saying in a tone of crying and laughing.

Chen Nuo responded intermittently, and after talking for a while, he hung up the phone.

Afterwards, no one in the conference room asked, and he didn't take the initiative to say who it was.

However, everyone, including Liu Xiaoli, could see that compared to a moment ago, Chen Nuo's mood was clearly better.

Including Li Jing asking him to help pick people and try out scenes, he agreed immediately.

This time, the Huanxin company's senior shareholder meeting ended at about 11:30, and by the time Liu Xiaoli returned home, it was already 12:00 noon.

But the door to Liu Yifei's bedroom was still closed, and after thinking about it, she didn't go to knock on the door.

After resting for a while, she opened the computer, and Liu Xiaoli prepared to see what those people were saying on Twitter on the foreign web.

She had already forgotten about that phone call, her mind full of the Twilight contract.

After all, that was related to hundreds of millions in company revenue, and even accounted for more than 80% of Huanxin company's total annual income.

She wasn't heartless, so how could she let it go just like that.

Opening the computer, she just opened the browser.

She saw a half-page news story with a picture on the navigation page.

In the photo was a woman in her 30s, full of smiles, holding a paper scroll and a prize box, facing the camera.

The accompanying text below was:

The 63rd Cannes Film Festival closed at 7:00 AM Beijing time. Korean actress Jeon Do-yeon won the new Cannes Best Actress award for "The Housemaid." Her acceptance speech specifically mentioned our country's actor Chen Nuo....

(End of chapter)