America: Starting with the acquisition of MGM...

Chapter 47, Section 49: The Shark Is Flying (Please continue reading)

December 15th marks just 10 days until Christmas, a time of intense Christmas battles.

Even after a month in theaters, "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" continues to generate buzz, with daily box office revenue still rising by millions, a testament to the enduring appeal of this franchise.

In just a few days, "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" will be released, and on Christmas Day, December 25th, Spielberg's "Catch Me If You Can" will also be released.

With these two monsters attacking from both sides, other movies are bound to suffer heavy losses, so unless absolutely necessary, no movie wants to be released during this period.

While movie fans across North America were eagerly anticipating "The Lord of the Rings," hundreds of cinemas in major cities such as Los Angeles, New York, and Houston changed their advertising displays.

A brand new poster appeared, showing a tornado sweeping across the city. Strangely, several shark heads emerged from the tornado, signaling the quiet release of "Sharknado".

For a film with a budget of only $150 million, it's impossible to promote it before its release; the promotional costs alone would exceed that amount.

In the evening in Los Angeles, high school student White brought two friends to the movie theater near his home, where his sister worked and could watch movies for free.

She walked to the counter and knocked on the window; "Carol, give me three tickets."

A curly-haired girl popped out from behind, complaining somewhat discontentedly, "White, you're coming too often. I'm going to get caught if this keeps up."

"How could that be? So many people come and go from the movie theater every day. Don't worry, no one will notice, and it's only three tickets."

"No, not many people are watching these days, it's easy to get caught. I don't want to lose my job over a few coins. If you want to watch, go ask Mom for the money!"

White immediately made a face and quietly pointed to a spot not far behind him: "Please, sister, you don't want me to lose face in front of my friends, do you? I already boasted to them."

"At worst, I'll just pay you back once I get my allowance. Hurry up, while no one's around."

Carole remained unwilling: "But you've already seen all the recent movies, let's wait until The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King is released before we talk about it."

"No, don't try to fool me. I saw the new poster for that movie called 'Sharknado.' Hurry up, my dear sister."

"Carol, what are you doing?" a loud shout rang out from afar.

"It's nothing, Mr. Frosta."

"Alright, grab the money and get out of here, my boss is coming to inspect!"

"Wait, there's also popcorn and cola."

"Here you go, hurry up and get out of here!"

Inside the cinema, there were only eight or nine people sitting in the seats. It was a movie with no fame, no publicity, and no big stars. The only one who was somewhat famous among young people was Ryan Reynolds.

This setup is already quite attractive if it can draw eight or nine people; in other time slots, it might only draw two or three.

"I have a feeling this is going to be a disaster movie," White told his friends.

As a shark logo flies by, the AK Films logo appears, and the film officially begins.

On the vast ocean, a fishing boat was sailing. The captain and his partner were discussing their shark hunting business. A few minutes later, the once bright sky suddenly became overcast, and one after another, extremely plastic-looking sharks leaped out of the water and wrecked the fishing boat.

The very beginning made the audience frown.

"White, I have a bad feeling. Why is this boat so small? How dare two people go shark hunting? And that shark was so crude."

The scene then shifts to the beach, where a group of young and strong men are once again dazzled by the sight of bikini-clad beauties. The director really knows what he's doing.

However, a shark tornado soon appeared and began to land on the beach, with one shark suddenly plunging into the bar where the main characters were hiding.

Then, a blond man with long, wavy hair grabbed a billiard cue and killed the shark with a single blow. His terrifying arm strength stunned the audience.

"What the hell!"

"Did you see that? She actually killed the shark!"

"You've got the wrong idea, it's the sharks that are flying!"

As the movie continues, the shark tornado intensifies and begins to attack the city, with surprisingly low-budget special effects constantly bombarding the audience's senses.

The male protagonist and his men began to escape. Seawater poured in from the sky, and the car sped along the highway. At first glance, it seemed like nothing had changed, but then a rubber strip suddenly appeared on the car window.

A murmur of doubt arose from the audience: "An automatic car wash? Is that the rain effect?"

The seawater brought by the shark tornado gradually submerged the city, but in reality, it didn't even cover the wheels. Even in such shallow water, a large number of sharks were still swimming rapidly and attacking pedestrians. The fake blood was so realistic that it was unbearable to look at.

Gradually, even the sewers and drainpipes started spewing sharks out—yes, they were spraying them out, and even small sharks were flowing out of the faucets.

The movie ended with this extremely absurd plot and special effects.

The movie finally came to a close when Ryan Reynolds raised his chainsaw high, leaped over ten meters into the air like Superman, and cleaved the last shark in two.

What constitutes a truly terrible international film?

At this moment, the few spectators collectively leaned back, took a deep breath, frowned, and squinted to ease their tormented nerves.

Moments later, the screening room was filled with gasps, breaths, exclamations, and curses.

"My eyes! My eyes!"

Why would a movie like this be shown on the big screen?

"Tell me who the director is, I want to kill him!"

"White, watching this movie felt like eating durian and a can of herring, with a stinky sock that hasn't been washed for three months sitting next to me."

To everyone's surprise, White's eyes lit up as if he had found a treasure: "I like it!"

"What! Are you crazy?"

"Of course not! I'm going to recommend this movie to Jennifer, to Ben, to Havis, I'm going to recommend it to everyone! I can't be the only one who's blind!"

The two friends thought it made a lot of sense: "I'm going to post it on the forum so everyone can see this terrible movie!"

On its opening day, Sharkshot only grossed a little over $100 million, not even close to the box office success of Harry Potter.

But at the same time, discussions about it have emerged online.

Eric certainly wouldn't spend big money, but he doesn't care about small sums of a few hundred thousand, so Bermahadi has already hired a large number of online trolls in advance.

On the first day of the movie's release, I posted on forums with high daily active users, and also posted reviews and recommendations on Yahoo, Movies, BOM, and IMDB.

In this day and age, using online trolls for propaganda is still a rare method; television, magazines, and newspapers are the mainstream.

That evening, Eric opened the largest local forum in Los Angeles, scrolled around casually, and found three posts about "Sharknado" on one page.

"The best film of the year is here—Sharknado!"

"I've never seen a movie like this before; it's even more amazing than Harry Potter!"

"Sharknado, a masterpiece worthy of being recorded in film history!"

After scanning the content, Eric couldn't immediately tell whether it was praise or criticism. He could only marvel at how trustworthy online trolls are these days, not resorting to copy-pasting.

(End of this chapter)