Chapter 19: Like Borrowing the East Wind

In Zou Wenhuai's view, Jiang Heng is definitely going to have terrible luck this time.

After all, in this world, fairness and justice are spoken for the weak; more often, it's strength that is respected.

Such is the case in Hollywood; the 1994 animated film The Lion King was suspected of being too similar to the 1965 animated series The Jungle Emperor, but Disney flatly denied it.

And the copyright holder of The Jungle Emperor, Tezuka Productions, also did not file a lawsuit, claiming its own company was too weak to oppose Disney.

Jiang Heng, an independent filmmaker without any background, how could he possibly oppose the Hollywood giant Huàna Brothers Company!

However, the next day, Zou Wenhuai suddenly saw many newspaper front pages publishing a shocking piece of news.

"Huàna Company claims Jiang Heng stole their script, rushed out The Matrix, demanding he hand over the publishing rights and all profits, and compensate Huàna Company one hundred million US dollars!"

After flipping through several copies, all had such reports, making Zou Wenhuai cough repeatedly in anger.

The door was pushed open; Cai Yongchang and Liang Ze arrived together, each holding a newspaper.

"Not good, he actually used Huàna's lawyer's letter to stir things up; now the buzz has been snatched away!" Cai Yongchang said anxiously.

Liang Ze said slowly: "This is too strange; the audience will surely be curious what's going on; we've really miscalculated now!"

Zou Wenhuai also thought so, but what he felt more was anger.

As the overlord of the Xianggang film circle, his days of lofty superiority have lasted too long, to the point he cannot comprehend the audacity of small-time figures.

In his mind rose just one thought: How dare he, how dare he?

"Think of a way, suppress this heat?"

Zou Wenhuai also thought it unlikely, but for the moment he had no better solution.

Liang Ze said: "It's hard; TVB has already sent a reporting team to interview, and as for the major newspapers, they've all reported this!"

Cai Yongchang said with a bitter face: "The major newspapers are relatively objective, but those street tabloids are pure fabrication. Some say Jiang Heng slept with a beautiful woman visiting Hong Kong, who is actually the daughter of a senior Huàna executive!"

After hearing that, Zou Wenhuai only felt a headache; what the hell is this, the writing is too enticing.

He dares to bet that this tabloid will definitely sell out today.

"These paparazzi have no bottom line at all!" Zou Wenhuai said angrily, slamming the table.

Cai Yongchang continued, "Nowadays, the plagiarism incident of The Matrix is Hong Kong's biggest gossip; it will surely draw many viewers into theaters, so we must think of a solution."

"Otherwise, we could hype up the gossip about A Long and the two female leads?" Liang Ze probed.

Zou Wenhuai gave a wry smile: "At this point, there's no time left."

The unspoken words were: A Long's gossip is already so plentiful it's no longer news.

But at this time there's still no good solution; we can only have staff handle it, better than nothing!

Yet on that day, the 16th, in front of the theaters of the Xinbao and Jinsheng cinema chains, lines actually formed, and more than half of those audience members came for Jiang Heng's The Matrix.

The Xianggang film circle had never had a successful sci-fi film before, and the audience wasn't interested in this genre either.

And although The Matrix grossed over 100 million in mainland China, to them it was just average; they didn't think a high mainland box office meant a good film.

Yet Huàna Company's lawyer's letter and its related content did stir the curiosity of the Xianggang audience.

Stealing Hollywood's script, filming it ahead of time, and doing it superbly—said to have made Huàna Company's executives' faces turn green—this content was truly novel to the Xianggang audience.

Never having heard of such a thing, they wanted to go see what kind of film it was.

Upon entering the theater and taking a look, wow, what a great bunch!

The young leads were handsome and beautiful, the action scenes were splendid, the special effects exploded, the story was also very novel, and for a time praise poured in.

On the 17th, Jiang Heng, staying at home, successively received box office data from the Jinsheng and Xinbao cinema chains, completely crushing Stephen Chow's A Lucky Dragon; as for whether it surpassed Who Am I?, that remained unknown, since they didn't know the situation at the Jiahe cinema chain.

But Jiang Heng knew that in history, Who Am I? had earned 38.8 million in Hong Kong, and he estimated that The Matrix's opening day box office in Hong Kong was not higher than that.

Thus calculated, The Matrix likely secured the 1998 Xianggang Spring Festival box office championship, as good as settled.

With such results, naturally they needed to heavily promote it.

Immediately they called all major media to report The Matrix's opening day box office results.

The media naturally gladly reported this, pushing The Matrix's heat to a new height.

And all of this thoroughly annoyed the Huàna Company entourage.

Silvers had already led the Wachowski brothers and others from Shanghai to Xianggang; seeing crowds gathering in front of the Jinsheng and Xinbao theaters, he was furious, wishing to blow up the theaters, for this is all our money!

"Immediately, at once, file an appeal; we must make him go bankrupt!" Silvers said, unable to contain his anger.

But Chief Lawyer Petroch frowned, speaking solemnly: "Litigation is not a good option; we would find it hard to prove he stole the script!"

Silvers fell silent upon hearing that; he also knew this was difficult to handle.

If you want to sue someone for murder, robbery, or fraud, you must provide factual evidence—time, place, people, event—exactly what happened!

But Huàna's side themselves haven't figured out what's going on at all; they're completely in the fog!

"We've done the copyright registration; he shouldn't have, right?" Silvers asked.

Petroch nodded: "I've checked; Jiang Heng has not conducted any script copyright registration here in Xianggang, whereas we registered on March 15, 1997!"

Silvers said: "Then from this angle, we must sue him into bankruptcy anyway!"

"Well, for now that's all we can do. Besides, although we couldn't find his script copyright registration record in Xianggang, we cannot rule out the possibility that he registered in mainland China!"

"Can we find it?" Silvers asked anxiously, thinking of an unfavorable possibility.

"I can only say it's difficult; you also know this is a backward country, their office systems aren't nationwide networked!"

Upon hearing that, Silvers instantly felt his head swell enormously.

"Is there really no good way?"

"For now we can only check bit by bit!"

"Alright, hoping to resolve it as soon as possible; otherwise the company's losses would be too great!"

Silvers let out a sigh, saying, because he discovered that Jiang Heng's The Matrix was truly of very high quality, even better than what they had initially expected.

If they could obtain the film's full copyright, they could directly release it in North America and Europe, believing they would get decent box office results.

Just as they were pleased, Silvers' face suddenly changed, as he thought of a terrifying possibility.

The other few Hollywood companies wouldn't even notice this film; they'd want to take it for distribution!

Please collect, please recommend!

(End of chapter)