Huayu: As a child star, I just want to be famous

Chapter 573 The Only True God (6K monthly ticket required)
Pingshi Film and Television City.

"Director Chen, the crew is currently progressing smoothly. We have already shot more than half of the content, including the exterior scenes and war scenes. There are still some literary scenes to be filmed."

Kong Sheng, the director, introduced himself to Chen Linfeng as they walked.

Originally, behind them, there was a group of people from the crew and the film and television studio, and it looked like they were inspecting.

Chen Linfeng waved his hand and let them leave, leaving only three or four core people.

Liu Qianqian asked curiously, "Have you finished filming Yue Fei's scenes?"

Speaking of the Southern Song Dynasty, she still likes Yue Fei the most.

"The war part is over, and there is also the drama between him and Emperor Zhaolie."

Although it is a Southern Song Dynasty drama, Kong Sheng does not like to call the protagonist of his drama Zhao Gou, but instead calls him by the protagonist's essential core.

Kong Sheng continued, "We heard you were coming, so we came out to greet you. Xiao Ming and his friends just had a scene that they hadn't finished yet. Oh, look, they're here."

Chen Linfeng looked up and saw that, sure enough, several actors in costumes were walking towards him.

"Director Chen, Xixi, I'm sorry, I came out to greet you late."

Chen Linfeng waved his hand, "Hey, why are we being so polite to each other?"

The few who came were all core actors, including Huang Xiaoming who played Yue Fei, Yu Hewei who played Emperor Zhaolie, and Wang Qingxiang who played Li Gang.

Several people came forward to say hello.

These actors had not yet taken off their makeup. Chen Linfeng took a look and felt that they were quite consistent with his imagination of historical figures, so he nodded with satisfaction.

Liu Qianqian looked around Huang Xiaoming and asked, "Aren't you playing Yue Fei? Why aren't you wearing armor?"

"I'm acting in a literary drama lately, why would I wear armor?"

"Isn't that what they show on TV? Military commanders wear armor every day, even when they go to court."

Huang Xiaoming said, "The one you are talking about is another drama. This drama is organized by your husband, so how can it be the same? I restored the official uniform according to the style in the ancient paintings of the Southern Song Dynasty. This is what Yue Fei wore when he was not fighting."

"Oh, that's how it is."

Liu Qianqian agreed, but couldn't help but secretly complain in her heart that Brother Xiao Ming was really good at flattering people, praising Xiaofeng so much in front of her.

Chen Linfeng grabbed her and said, "Okay, let's not stand here anymore. Let's go in and talk first."

The crew filmed in an ancient garden built in the Southern Song Dynasty style, which was converted from a plain city into a new drama.

Normally, the Southern Song Dynasty Imperial Palace is also indispensable, but there is a Song City in Yuhang City which is a similar building, so there is no need to make any unnecessary efforts.

The Song Palace is not used much in the script.

After Emperor Zhaolie understood his situation and knew the sieve-like environment of the Song Dynasty palace, he moved out of the palace for safety reasons and found another mansion to live in.

It is a bit like the Western Garden or Leopard House of the Ming Dynasty. It not only handles official business, but also has facilities such as training grounds.

Setting up a temporary political center here was a move to seize military power, get rid of the constraints of court officials, and facilitate meetings with ministers.

The scene in the script was moved out of the palace, and it was a way for Emperor Zhaolie to show off. The saying "I will not return to the palace until I have pacified the northern barbarians" was the first time he publicly set and expressed his political ambitions in the play.

Therefore, many of the literary scenes in the play were filmed in this courtyard.

"Director Chen!" "Hello, Director Chen!" "Welcome, Mr. Chen!"

After he entered, all the staff kept greeting him, regardless of whether they knew him or not.

Chen Linfeng smiled and waved, then told them to do what they were supposed to do.

"Teacher, you are here."

"Song Yi, how are you doing on the set?"

As he said this, he looked at Kong Sheng.

Kong Sheng replied, "Xiao Song is very attentive. We can trust him with many things. We came out to greet you just now, but it was Xiao Song who took care of the rest."

Chen Linfeng understood. Indeed, Song Yi was a very pragmatic person.

The other three from the same class have started making movies, but he is the only one willing to start with TV series. Now he has come to Kong Sheng's crew as executive director, and his mentality is indeed stable.

Since it was quite recognized, Chen Linfeng didn't ask any more questions.

His visit this time was, on the one hand, to make a cameo appearance in the play, and on the other hand, to inspect and visit the set, and to bring Sissi out to relax.

In her words, she was tired of staying at home all the time.

Come to think of it, during the few months that Chen Linfeng was filming in Europe, Xixi always stayed at home and rarely went out.

"You guys continue filming as normal. Xixi and I will just watch from the side. We'll start tomorrow."

This had been agreed upon before, Kong Sheng had no objection, nodded and directed the crew to continue working.

The stage manager found two comfortable chairs for the two of them, and they sat in the actors' lounge area and watched from a distance.

Huang Xiaoming pulled a chair and sat aside; his role for the day was over.

Chen Linfeng turned around and asked, "Aren't you also in Wu Yusen's crew filming The Crossing? How's it going over there?"

"We were halfway through filming, the first half was considered finished, and then Director Wu fell ill, so we had to stop filming." Huang Xiaoming was helpless, as he had originally planned to run between the two ends.

"What disease is it?" Liu Qianqian is always curious.

"I heard it's lymphoma."

"Ah?" Liu Qianqian was shocked. Why did it seem like so many people got sick in recent years?

A few years ago, her childhood friend also got cancer.

Fortunately, thanks to Xiaofeng's advice, I have a physical examination every six months.

She took her friend with her that time, so the disease was discovered in time and has now been cured.

Chen Linfeng didn't care too much about it. After all, the disease didn't have much impact. When he traveled through time to the future, Old Wu was still alive and well.

Huang Xiaoming learned about Wu Yusen's condition and knew that it should not be serious. The second half is expected to continue shooting at the end of this year or early next year.

This naturally made him think of what he had discussed with Zhang Ziyi and others.

Huang Xiaoming asked tentatively, "Director Chen, are you not optimistic about Director Wu's The Crossing?"

Chen Linfeng raised his eyebrows, "Why do you think so?"

Huang Xiaoming certainly couldn't say anything like he thought you were narrow-minded, so he just laughed it off and said, "It's just how I feel."

Chen Linfeng gave him a strange look and said, "Your feeling is quite accurate. I don't think much of the historical films made by those Hong Kong and Taiwan directors."

"Is "The Taiping" a historical theme?" Liu Qianqian was curious again.

"I think so," Huang Xiaoming said, "most of them are scenes from the Republic of China period. They look like historical themes."

"That's it," Liu Qianqian looked at him with pitiful eyes, "A historical film directed by a Hong Kong or Taiwan director, tsk tsk ..."

Xiaofeng had already made a judgment on this matter. When he talked to Xiaolong, Changchang and the others, he told them not to take scripts like this one, as it would be a sure death.

Huang Xiaoming was anxious, as if he wanted to prove something, "But the film The Crossing, strictly speaking, should be a disaster film, just like Titanic."

"So did you shoot the first half of the film on a boat?"

Chen Linfeng also became curious. If it was true, it would be different from the version in the previous life, and it would be hard to say whether the result would be good or bad.

"Uh, no."

Huang Xiaoming thought about his previous experiences on the crew, there was no such thing as a disaster scene.

He scratched his head vigorously, and then suddenly his eyes lit up.
"That must be in the second half!"

It's like grabbing a life-saving straw.

Chen Linfeng shook his head. Listening to the situation, isn't this the same as in his previous life?

"I don't think there will be much in the second half. It's probably just a gimmick."

It’s over.

Seeing that Director Chen really showed his pessimism about the movie, combined with the theorem he summarized that Director Chen is narrow-minded, it seems that this movie is really going to be a failure.

Huang Xiaoming looked bleak, and he was already thinking about how to make up for the mistake of starring in such a bad movie.

"boom!"

A sound.

Huang Xiaoming looked not far away and heard the sound of Yu Hewei smashing a cup during the filming.

After Emperor Zhaolie traveled through time, he lost his temper many times.

The role played by Yu Hewei is completely different from his previous performance as Cao Cao in "The New Three Kingdoms".

Of course, he is completely different from Liu Bei in his previous life. Instead, he has a bit of the feeling of Shi Qiang in the TV series "The Three-Body Problem", and at most adds a bit of ancient temperament.

I also have a bad temper.

After all, he was facing a bunch of insects in the Southern Song Dynasty court, so it was inevitable to get angry.

How can we do politics well with this bunch of insects?
Huang Xiaoming felt a little hope in his heart. Is this drama possible?

Then he rejected it in his heart.

Although it is a script written by Director Chen, it is unlikely that such a historical drama will be a big hit.

The biggest reason why he was willing to take on this role was for Chen Linfeng's sake, and secondly because he knew that Long Lin's historical dramas would be of very high quality, which would increase the actor's status and the profundity of his acting skills.

As for how popular the drama would be, he had never really thought about it.

After all, there hasn’t been a truly popular historical drama in all these years since "The Glory of the Tang Dynasty".

Besides, "The Glory of the Tang Dynasty" is not a historical drama, but it does have some humorous and comedic elements.

This respect is similar to "The Biography of Emperor Zhaolie of the Southern Song Dynasty", in which Liu Bei travels back in time to become Zhao Gou. Only Director Chen would dare to write the script this way.

Think about "The Qin Empire" and "The Tang Empire", they seem like ancient times.

In fact, the current situation of the TV drama industry is very different from that in the first decade of this century.

Nowadays, the popular genres are fantasy dramas or ancient costume romance dramas with palace fighting elements.

Historical dramas and martial arts dramas have long been the tears of the times.

In fact, what the industry currently knows is that convener Chen Linfeng wrote a book called "Biography of the Southern Song Dynasty", but no more specific name was announced to the public.

At first, some people tried to check the script filing system of the radio and television department, but they couldn't find it.

After asking, I found out that this drama is actually a web drama.

The management of online dramas at this time was not strict, or it could be said that it was very relaxed.

There is no need to submit the script for filing to the radio and television department. The video broadcasting platform is only responsible for content review and filing.

But there is no need to read the script, the name alone shows that it is a historical drama.

Or is it the Southern Song Dynasty? Uh, are there any good story themes in this dynasty?

Even Yue Fei, that was a complete tragedy. As we all know, the public generally does not like to watch tragedies, especially TV dramas.

Even if it's the Battle of Diaoyucheng directed by Zhang Yimou, it won't work. If the movie is shorter, it can avoid it, but if the TV series is longer, it still has to film the scene of the fall of Diaoyucheng.

Isn't that still a tragedy.

Think about this, and then no one cares too much. Many people think that this should be a script specially written by Director Chen to satisfy his personal preferences.

Almost everyone knows that Director Chen likes history.

His guest appearance in the drama seems to further prove this point.

Even many fans think that this drama is a work of love.

Ever since the news of the filming started, I don't know how it became like this.

Colleagues in the TV drama production industry all breathed a sigh of relief. The pressure that Xiao Chen brought to them back then has not subsided to this day.

Historical dramas are good, but they can’t compete with them for the market, not to mention that I heard they are web dramas broadcast on Internet platforms.

This is better.

Neither Longlin nor Qilin Company went out of their way to refute the rumors.

There is promotion only when there is suppression.

Nowadays, any film or television work involving Chen Linfeng is taken seriously.

Although to some extent, this is a good thing.

But this always happens. The audience raises their expectations too high in advance, so the sense of surprise is insufficient, which actually affects the viewing experience.

Therefore, most of them adopted an indifferent approach to the tacit pessimism of their peers, and even the rumors that Director Chen was not serious about film and television dramas and had started to play around.

I have to say, sometimes boomerangs work better.

……

It was truly a cameo appearance, as Chen Linfeng and Liu Qianqian had very few roles.

Chen Linfeng plays a young scholar named Lu You who witnessed Yue Fei's capture of the old capital near the end of the play and brought back the good news.

Liu Qianqian plays Lu You's good friend Tang Wan.

Both of them just showed up, and at most Chen Linfeng cheered in surprise, which was enough.

Afterwards, without staying in Pingshi for long, the two returned to their hometown in Dengfeng and planned to stay there for a while.

In mid-October, a new game "Lord of Mysteries" was released.

Although the author did not participate much in the publicity, it actually does not have much impact on him today.

The entire series has become more and more famous from last year to now.

Warner did its best to promote it, regarding it as another fantasy classic that would sweep the world after Harry Potter.

In fact, it almost did.

It wasn’t very obvious in the first part, but in the second part, the world view of the entire series unfolded and the plot suddenly became attractive.

Especially the plot description in the work is very Victorian in style.

Moreover, it is Emily Ken's Cthulhu theme, combined with the writing style of Chinese online novels.

The three largest markets: Europe, North America and China are all included.

The entire K culture even became popular around the world because of it.

To this end, Warner even spent nearly 400 million to buy a 30-second halftime advertisement at the Super Bowl earlier this year.

It is purely for the purpose of further increasing the popularity and commercial value of the novel series.

By the middle of this year, sales of both novels had exceeded 20 million copies, and the numbers are still rising at a very fast pace.

This is also the reason why Warner is willing to spend a lot of money on publicity, because the bulk of the profits belong to him.

If the content of the third part can continue the excitement and readability of the second part, this series will truly come alive.

It's not impossible to become the next Harry Potter.

Warner attached great importance to the release of the third part and began large-scale promotion from the moment it learned that Chen Linfeng was about to finish writing it.

Search engines, social media promotion, and promotion in various newspapers and magazines were all used.

Not only that, there are also celebrities recommending books.

JK Rowling said that Chen Linfeng's new book, like his "Harry Potter", has built a new fantasy world.

There is a subtle sense of acknowledging that the two are on par with each other.

Previously, there was only media marketing, and there was no response from the person himself.

Stephen King praised Chen's imagination and believed that Lord of the Mysteries exceeded his expectations.

Based on Howard's works, this work further broadens the boundaries of Cthulhu culture, making it more popular and even having the potential to become one of the future popular cultures, just like cyberpunk or the magic of the Harry Potter world.

In addition, the United States' leader also publicly stated that he liked "Lord of Mysteries" very much, and even urged reporters to update the series on the spot.

“I remember that Chen usually published only one book a year, which was too slow and unbearable, but he wrote so well, and as a fan of his books, I could only put up with it.

But it’s already this year and you still haven’t published your new book. This is a bit too much. Hurry up and write it and publish it. It would be best if you could mail a copy directly to me.”

Although Lucian has always been a friendly person, these words are still shocking.

Chen Linfeng didn't know whether this was just a show for the sake of money, or whether it had some political purpose.

You can only treat it as true and reply on social platforms.

"Thank you for your interest. I will mail a copy to Mr. President first."

He spoke very little, showing off his cool demeanor when facing fans urging him to update his works.

This incident happened not long ago, and the domestic literary circle was very excited, with a strange sense of pride.

There are also some voices on the Internet saying that this shows the unpretentious demeanor of the leader of the other side, and that this is the excellent leader that the country has chosen.

The fields of physical books and novels and film and television are actually quite separate. Although both are entertainment culture, there is not much overlap between the two.

But best-selling books that have passed a certain bottleneck are completely different.

What's more, as a screenwriter, director and actor, Chen Linfeng is also very famous in North America and Europe.

His fans have great trust in Chen's ability to write stories.

In the past two years, Warner's overwhelming publicity has further promoted the transformation of his fan base into a reader base.

After "Joker", movie fans have almost reached unconditional belief in him, feeling quite similar to Nolan's group of fans.

All these factors have raised the expectations of movie fans, book fans, and the general public for the new book.

On the first day of its release, the third volume of "Lord of Mysteries" set a record for Chen Linfeng's novel career.

520 million novels in a single day!

It is indeed far inferior to the last Harry Potter book, but this is only the third one.

Even Chen Linfeng was shocked by such a result.

The previous first-day performance of two to three million was already exaggerated, but this one can actually be even higher.

Sister Mei's voice was hoarse when she reported the results to him.

"Xiaofeng, we succeeded. This will be the new 'Harry Potter', the real one."

"Yes, that's right." Chen Linfeng's voice was also filled with excitement.

No matter how much the media exaggerates, Chen Linfeng and JK Rowling are on the same level.

But they know in their hearts that there is still a long way to go.

Ten novels with a circulation of tens of millions are not as good as one novel with a circulation of hundreds of millions.

Just like ten movies with a box office of $2 million cannot compare to the bonus that "Titanic" brings to the director himself.

It can be slightly worse and then made up by quantity, but there cannot be a clear difference in level.

And now, "Lord of Mysteries" really has this hope.

When Chen Linfeng stopped participating in promotions in order to stay at home with Xixi, hope came.

This made him wonder if someone was playing a trick on him, or if it was the child, who was still in the embryonic state, that brought him good luck.

The good news that exceeded his expectations made him start to become a little superstitious.

Chen Linfeng was like this, and the global media was in an uproar.

"The first-day sales of Chen Linfeng's new book Lord of Mysteries exceeded 520 million, which is the highest sales record since Harry Potter."

-"The Times"

"The first world-class best-selling novel of the new century has appeared (if you count Harry Potter as a work from the last century), a new fantasy classic that is no less famous than Harry Potter."

——The Asahi Shimbun

"Everyone thought that a Harry Potter-like miracle would never happen again, but Chen thought, 'No, I can create a miracle'.

Then, he really created a miracle.

At a time when the amount of physical book reading is decreasing year by year, a single-day sales volume of 520 million is an astronomical figure.”

--"New York Times"

"From 200 million to 300 million, and then to 520 million, Mr. Qilin has been breaking through himself."

——The Yomiuri Shimbun

"The publishing industry around the world has ushered in new hope, telling us in real time that as long as the work is good enough, readers will buy it."

——Chosun Ilbo

The domestic media were even more excited. Literary newspapers and magazines had some opinions on Chen Linfeng's attitude towards the Nobel Prize and Mo Yan's approach.

I don't care anymore now.

That’s over 500 million sales in a single day.

In the current domestic publishing industry, any author who sells more than 50 books will be called a best-selling author.

In fact, the huge increase in sales this time for Chen Linfeng was not helped much by the domestic market, and the sales were basically the same as the previous two films.

The increase is basically overseas, with breakthroughs achieved in Europe, the United States, Southeast Asia, South America and other regions.

But even this is pretty outrageous.

It is like a dream to be able to sell hundreds of thousands of copies in China in a single day.

Apart from Chen Linfeng's novels, who buys books to read nowadays? Most people just read online novels.

Only he, every time he publishes a new book, the old Dengs born in the 70s and 80s get so excited as if they were having a team building event.

As a result, a lot of people in the online literature circle asked for leave. What's worse, some didn't even bother to make up reasons and just said they wanted to buy Qilin's new book.

Even if you pretend to go collecting folk songs.

Even many online readers have already psychologically anticipated this.

It is no exaggeration to say that Chen Linfeng is the only true god and the last savior of China's physical book industry today.

(End of this chapter)