Chapter 511: Disney: Hmm? It's quite auspicious

Originally she wasn't very interested, but since everyone was saying so, she had no choice but to give it a try.

After all, Zhou Yi had the "record" of the film "Hero" in China; at the time, the verdict on him was that it was a pity he was paired with such a terrible film.

Although she didn't understand pure music, she knew how to argue with people online—

With reviews pouring in like a tide, how could she, as a fan, not check it out and then brag to others?

"Like this, it's very simple. Zhou Yi's songs should all have MP3s made; just search the song title on Baidu MP3 to download, then import it into Qianqian Jingtting."

Li Jiafeng, dialing up the internet at his girlfriend's house with practiced ease, quickly imported "He's a Pirate" into the player—then he was the first to start shaking his leg to the music's extremely strong rhythm.

While shaking his leg, he didn't forget to go online to see what the deal was with this song—

"Does anyone want to say what level this song is at? My ears are numb; I just feel the rhythm is quite strong, makes me want to shake my leg, that's it."

"From the perspective of classical music, this song doesn't even make it through the threshold."

"I'm dizzy, this song isn't classical music, okay? Does your classical music look like this? What kind of big tail wolf are you pretending to be? Which faction's hater has snuck in?"

"..."

What followed was an endless battle between fans and haters.

Li Jiafeng, finding nothing of value in his usual fan forum, turned to Tianya, preparing to see what insights the brothers there had, only to discover that most posts here were also saying they couldn't see the movie and didn't know how it was.

"Don't rush, don't rush. Those who can't wait can wait for the pirated discs leaking from Hong Kong and Taiwan; this film releases in Taiwan on August 9, and in Hong Kong on August 21. The mainland still needs some procedures and scheduling arrangements; currently, the most optimistic estimate is November to see it in theaters."

"What about the soundtrack? What the hell is Warner doing?! They only know how to drag Zhou Yi down! Don't they know I'd buy discs for Zhou Yi?!"

"To be honest, the soundtrack is also released by Disney; they are a giant too. This slice of cake won't be given to Warner; if you want to blame someone, blame Rock and EMI."

"..."

Since Rock's performance declined year by year after entering the new century, and the contract for Rock Records to distribute Disney's CDs and cassettes in the mainland and Taiwan, which was originally handled by them, expired at the beginning of 2003, neither side had the intention to renew;

EMI also ended its agency business for distributing Disney Records in Hong Kong and Macau at the beginning of the year.

This directly resulted in Disney being unable to release the soundtrack records in the domestic market simultaneously.

As for the medium-to-large-scale pirate merchants capable of recording, they were currently rushing to sell albums like "Warner Love Stories II" and others that could make them huge profits, having no time to attend to a piece of pure music.

Therefore, the crowd could only watch the overseas news brought over by those who climbed the Great Firewall to satisfy their cravings—

Due to Zhou Yi's involvement, when Disney initially promoted the film "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl," they spared no effort to hype up him, who had already returned to China, again and again.

Making money isn't shameful.

This project was something certain factions within Disney had gritted their teeth to produce; it was not only a huge investment exceeding one hundred million US dollars, but during filming, various conflicts arose regarding reducing the investment or modifying the plot and character settings.

Disney's current CEO, Michael Eisner, had even publicly blasted that the captain played by Depp would ruin the film; before it even released, a bunch of negative news had already been generated, the internal strife looking just like Warner's, putting the ship in danger of hitting a reef and sinking before it even set sail.

You have to know that before Disney's "Pirates of the Caribbean," the last company daring to invest nearly one hundred million US dollars in a pirate movie was called Carolco Pictures—

They invested over ninety million US dollars to film the pirate movie "Cutthroat Island," but the final box office revenue was less than ten million, directly causing the company to go bankrupt and close, with classic film copyrights under it like "First Blood" and "The Terminator" being carved up and acquired.

Precisely because of this, amidst internal troubles and external threats, Disney's pre-release promotion for the film, besides the main cast, also pulled Zhou Yi over to be the face, 连带 bringing his song "Pirates," which he originally wrote for Xiao Yaxuan, to frequently appear on European and American news.

In short, one sentence—every bit of hype-able heat was hyped up.

Under this high-intensity bombardment, naturally, that statement Zhou Yi made when visiting New York University in the past was dug up again to be "interrogated"—

After all, that result was something Disney itself wouldn't have dared to dream of; their initial thought was that making a little money and building the reputation of the peripherals would be a victory, and losing a little bit was acceptable, since this thing was mainly to advertise their own theme parks.

As for the goals Zhou Yi set with "empty mouth and white teeth," most were taken by many media outlets that disliked Zhou Yi as "evidence"; inside Disney, no one took it seriously at all.

Selling around four hundred and sixty million US dollars globally would be enough to burn high incense; five hundred million US dollars belonged to the level of dreaming; didn't you see even Disney's current CEO himself didn't look favorably on it, yet you want over six hundred million?

That would only happen if God manifested.

How many years has it been since Carolco Pictures died?

The corpse of "Cutthroat Island" isn't even cold yet!

"Spike doesn't understand movies" was even shouted out publicly.

While the heat continued to rise, the movie also released.

Then, an accident that no one expected was born—

On the first day of "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl," a large number of Zhou Yi's fans, mixed with fans of the male lead Depp, flooded into the cinemas, supporting a quite beautiful opening day box office.

After that, it became unstoppable.

The film released on July 9; one week later, the box office had already reached a staggering 46.6 million US dollars.

The high quality of the film made audiences across the US shout with satisfaction, and the approval rate for the theme song "He's a Pirate" written by Zhou Yi was no longer limited to the small circle of people who had seen the premiere—

Within this week, it directly resounded across major cinemas nationwide, harvesting one by one those attracted by Captain Jack's exclusive BGM!

"China's Guo Tianwang strikes again! Helping the pirates set sail!"

"Disney bet right! Spike's myth continues!"

"Depp: Spike is the most talented musician I have ever seen"

"Disney executive Luo Bote Iger praises Spike's creative ability!"

"Pirates March, another classic work by Spike!"

"..."

Compared to Asia and Europe, which had not yet been affected by this pirate storm, the speed at which domestic US media reported related news was simply crazy.

One was a film that even Disney's current CEO himself didn't look favorably on and even publicly predicted would fail; the other was Zhou Yi, who had never before undertaken the work of writing theme songs for major productions. No one expected the combination of the two to directly create a classic work that swept the globe.

Yes, sweeping the globe.

In one week, all box office trend analyses regarding this film and all discussions about "Pirates March" were enough to confirm that the perfect match between Disney and Zhou Yi had created a classic worthy of being recorded in film history.

"This is simply incredible; who could have thought that before this, Spike had never undertaken the work of writing theme songs for major film productions."

"The "He's a Pirate" he wrote fits the movie perfectly; right now, every time I close my eyes, I see the image of Captain Jack stepping out to this music!"

"Audio-visual art, audio-visual art, this is the perfect combination of audio-visual art!"

"I heard he is holding a world tour; why hasn't Warner arranged US dates yet!"

"..."

A film, with Warner's deliberate interference, saw Disney, having turned the tables overnight, happily return the favor by helping boost Zhou Yi's reputation and discussion volume.

Luo Bote Iger, a Disney executive who highly appreciated Zhou Yi in multiple news reports, leveraged the success of "Pirates of the Caribbean" to gain even more internal influence, and did not forget to publicly express his gratitude to Depp, to Zhou Yi, and others.

(End of this chapter)