Chapter 378: Old Master Wants to Start a Studio, the New Weibo King and Qu

Yan Li also bought a ticket for "Three Musketeers: The Movie."

He knew the film would be terrible, but since he hadn’t seen the final product, he was curious just how bad it could be.

So Yan Li quietly went to one of his own cinema’s screening rooms and watched a show.

Let’s put it this way: Yan Li endured seventy minutes, couldn’t take it anymore, and left before the ending.

Afterwards, Yan Li specifically posted photos of the movie ticket and his actual viewing experience on Weibo, along with a caption.

【I went to see "Three Musketeers: The Movie" specifically. Didn’t finish it. As expected, it’s a trash film—even worse than I thought.】

【To be fair, I think I was a bit unfair to Boss Zhang; you can’t blame everything on him. This movie is a complete, Quanfangweikuibai -style disaster.】

【But what I still don’t understand is: how did Boss Zhang have the confidence to release this trash in the New Year slot, and how did he dare accuse theaters of giving it too few screenings?】

【Let me reiterate: society isn’t your mom, the earth doesn’t revolve around you. Just because you think shit smells good doesn’t mean everyone else will like it.】

【I suddenly feel a bit sad—giving up work to argue with a fool.】

【...】

This comment was too harsh—it equated watching "Three Musketeers: The Movie" with eating shit, causing some viewers who wanted to see just how bad it was to hesitate.

Curiosity and seeking out shit to eat are two different things; unintentionally, this also hurt the film’s potential box office.

Compared to "Three Musketeers: The Movie," which was trashed, "The Battle of Red Cliffs" received decent reviews during the same release period.

"Three Musketeers: The Movie" scored 4.2 on Weibo—unbelievably low, even lower than "The Promise," which had 5.

Of course, "The Promise"’s score benefited somewhat from the sex tape scandal; combined with Director Chen’s infamous prophecy, many netizens gave it some goodwill points.

"Three Musketeers: The Movie"’s 4.2 hasn’t yet reached the level of Weibo’s worst-rated film, but it’s just one step away.

Weibo scores are hard to get high or low because so many people vote.

No matter how bad a movie is, someone always likes it—or thinks it’s not that bad—and gives it three stars, while the studio sometimes does damage control.

So far, no movie on Weibo has ever dropped below 3 stars.

If "Three Musketeers: The Movie" keeps falling and hits 3 stars, it might actually win the dubious honor of Weibo’s worst-rated film.

"The Battle of Red Cliffs" scored 7.1—not exceptionally high, but not bad either.

According to critics, "The Battle of Red Cliffs" is a highly mature commercial blockbuster.

It boasts a stellar cast, smooth plot, well-developed characters, strong themes and vision, delivering both Rexue and tear-jerking moments, leaving viewers with lasting resonance.

No pretentious gimmicks, no artificial expressions, no melodramatic shocks—the most accurate description is 【clear】: a film that everyone understands.

This statement carries a certain pessimism toward today’s film market, but it’s undeniably honest.

Just this year’s New Year slot: "Three Musketeers: The Movie" is a total disaster, "Mulan" is mediocre and off-topic, "Fengyun 2" is nothing but special effects.

Compared to the sudden phenomenon of "2012" and "Avatar," which hasn’t even premiered yet but is already being raved about in North America and globally, domestic films’ performance is truly heartbreaking.

At this moment, "The Battle of Red Cliffs" is one of the few sources of comfort—and even surprise—for audiences.

Many successful films owe their success not just to quality, but to a variety of other factors, no doubt.

"The Battle of Red Cliffs" benefited from a weak lineup of competing films, gaining a significant advantage in timing, and then in location.

As "Three Musketeers: The Movie"’s reputation collapsed, major theaters began adjusting their showtimes.

Some theaters still gave "Three Musketeers: The Movie" a chance, since Boss Zhang, Xiao Shenyang, Sun Honglei, and others still had drawing power.

Even trash films have a market: "The Promise" and "Red Cliff" were just as bad, yet still ranked among the top box office hits, even winning the annual champion.

So if it were only about poor reviews, "Three Musketeers: The Movie"’s box office would suffer, but not collapse.

But don’t forget: "Three Musketeers: The Movie" isn’t just facing market problems—it has two major enemies.

Yan Li’s online rant helped "The Battle of Red Cliffs" crush "Three Musketeers: The Movie," Weibo amplified the narrative, and Boss Zhang was thoroughly humiliated—Yan Li finally got his revenge.

He felt satisfied, but Han Sanye was still seething.

As mentioned earlier, being called a bully didn’t affect Yan Li much, but the nickname "Mountain Demon" was deadly to Han Sanye.

If Yan Li hadn’t stepped forward and drawn most of the fire, and if that nickname had gone viral, Han Sanye would’ve been ruined.

Even now, it’s had some impact on him.

China Film Group has been active these past two years, Han Sanye’s fame is high, and he’s genuinely helped the industry—but he’s also made mistakes, and many are watching him closely; Han has even heard rumors that people are reporting him to higher-ups.

All this has made Han Sanye furious enough to grind his teeth.

He dares not directly confront Yan Li now, but Yan Li’s campaign to trash "Three Musketeers: The Movie" has turned its reputation into ruins, making the public deeply resent the film—giving Han Sanye room to maneuver.

A bad movie doesn’t make money, the public criticizes it, and it damages the industry’s image—plenty of valid reasons to cut showtimes.

Cut showtimes, and the movie makes even less money—then cut them again.

It’s all market behavior, nothing to do with revenge. After all, you made a bad movie.

Plus, the showtimes cut from "Three Musketeers: The Movie" are directly reallocated to "The Battle of Red Cliffs"—China Film Group is one of its producers; higher box office means solid political achievements.

So starting the next day, "Three Musketeers: The Movie"’s showtimes began to drop; after two consecutive days of cuts, its reputation fully erupted, and showtimes were halved.

In contrast, "The Battle of Red Cliffs"’s showtimes kept rising; two films that had only a few million yuan difference on opening day quickly pulled far apart in box office.

"The Battle of Red Cliffs" broke 100 million yuan in four days, 200 million in seven; "Three Musketeers: The Movie"’s box office hadn’t even reached 120 million.

At this rate, the gap between them will only grow wider.

At this point, the momentum was fully established—the market and audience were all against him. Even if Boss Zhang stormed out screaming, no one believed him anymore.

Moreover, Boss Zhang didn’t have much energy left to scream.

Yan Li’s plan was both overt and covert: he attacked "Three Musketeers: The Movie" head-on while simultaneously exposing Boss Zhang’s dirty secrets to annoy him.

In the past, Yan Li leaked dirt anonymously, then stoked the fire to strike his rivals.

That way, it was safer, allowed him to create confusion, and kept room for retreat.

But this time, Yan Li had personally jumped into the fray, clearly targeting Boss Zhang—so many hidden tactics were no longer necessary.

Meanwhile, because Boss Zhang’s conduct was so abysmal, he had enemies everywhere; Yan Li didn’t need to leak secretly—he just followed the system’s suggestions and found suitable partners.

This time, Yan Li found a former executive from New Vision, who had deep grievances with Boss Zhang but had endured them for various reasons.

Now, Yan Li promised him benefits and pledged to be his backer, allowing him to seek revenge without fear; the executive hesitated briefly, then charged forward bravely.

This direct attack from a former colleague was far more credible than any obscure leak; everyone pulled up their little stools, waiting for the big revelations.

And the New Vision executive didn’t disappoint—he exposed plenty of dark secrets about Boss Zhang.

Including past movie promotion tricks, his conflicts with Boss Zhang, Old Master, and related stars, as well as management issues, and so on.

In short, Boss Zhang is a despicable, unethical, shameless man.

Boss Zhang naturally protested and leaked dirt about the executive, but the impact was far weaker; people were far more interested in his conflicts with Old Master and the stars than in the executive’s personal grudges.

More crucially, Yan Li was still behind the scenes steering the narrative, keeping Boss Zhang under constant negative spotlight.

When the wall falls, everyone pushes; as Boss Zhang’s situation deteriorated, other disgruntled parties also leaked information, including some actors he’d worked with, who publicly voiced their dissatisfaction.

For example, Fatty and Gong Li, who had a bitter experience on "House of Flying Daggers," made subtle digs and complaints during interviews.

But for Boss Zhang, the most troubling issue was Old Master’s intense dissatisfaction—and Yan Li’s actual attempt to poach Old Master.

Yan Li understood: if "Three Musketeers: The Movie" flopped, it would cripple Boss Zhang—his personal reputation and New Vision would plummet, leaving him severely weakened.

But if Old Master broke ties with Boss Zhang, that would be the ultimate move to take off half his life.

This wasn’t impossible!

There had long been tensions between the two Zhangs, merely concealed and suppressed for various reasons.

With "Three Musketeers: The Movie," Boss Zhang’s reputation was in ruins, and Old Master also suffered—he lost fame and alienated many people.

Though he didn’t directly offend anyone, everyone hated Boss Zhang; associating with him made you hated too.

Combined with accumulated grievances from past films, everything finally exploded—Old Master, rarely so angry, lashed out at Boss Zhang.

Even in interviews, he openly stated that during filming, he faced interference, that the film lacked cultural value, and was a product of commercial coercion.

Remember, this was during the film’s release—when the director himself said this, it was like shooting himself in the temple.

This clearly showed how deeply Old Master resented Boss Zhang—he was willing to publicly denounce him and slap his face.

Faced with this, Boss Zhang’s first reaction wasn’t to soothe Old Master—he blamed Old Master for shifting blame to the media.

This move even stunned Yan Li!

Yan Li used the system to understand Boss Zhang’s psychology: the man genuinely believed Old Master owed his success entirely to him.

He thought he himself was blameless; Yan Li was the villain, Old Master was naive, and netizens were blind to the truth.

Seeing this, Yan Li understood why Boss Zhang kept pulling such bizarre stunts.

He’d been spoiled by sycophants for so long, trapped in his own information bubble, until he became arrogant to the point of stupidity.

This isn’t rare—don’t put too much of a filter on successful people; they get drunk on power, lose reason, get deceived, and even deceive themselves.

There are too many examples of entrepreneurs, leaders, bigwigs—even emperors, ministers, and generals in history books—who destroyed themselves through their own folly.

Every time Yan Li saw such examples, he was grateful he had the system; otherwise, he might have fallen victim too.

But right now, Yan Li wasn’t acting foolishly—his enemy was. So he seized the opportunity to strike.

So Yan Li began plotting to poach Old Master.