The director starts by learning from the abilities of renowned directors.

Chapter 98 A Huge Victory!

Shen Qing's speech caused a huge stir, and for a time it seemed that all the media were discussing the matter. At this time, Shen Qing, the person involved, finally ended her roadshow and returned to Beijing.

Yang Mi called immediately afterward.

"You know what? I'm becoming more and more envious of you."

"What do you envy about me?"

"It's so great to be a big director. You can just yell at anyone you don't like, unlike us small actors who have to put on a smiling face even when we're wronged."

"Who wronged you? Tell me, and I'll help you get revenge."

"No, isn't that how all actors are? I'm considered lucky. 'The Shallows' made me famous, and everyone's been very polite to me. Besides, what profession doesn't involve any grievances?! By the way, I had a great time on set, and I even made two good friends. Could you consider them for suitable roles in the future?"

L6

"Let me guess, are you talking about Liu Shishi and Tang Yan? No problem."

"We're about to wrap up filming, and I'm really going to miss them—I'm not going to say anything more, the assistant director is calling for us to start filming."

Shen Qing discovered that Yang Mi was the kind of person who got happier the busier she was.

After filming "Chinese Paladin 3" wrapped up, she immediately went to film "Overheard", and after filming "Overheard" wrapped up, she immediately went back to the "Dream of the Red Chamber" crew.

Despite the high intensity of the work, she enjoys it every day.

In her words, the scariest thing is not having any roles or projects to work on. If you have roles, what's a little hard work? You want to be famous but you're afraid of being tired. There's no such thing as wanting only the benefits and not the drawbacks in this world.

Fan Bingbing has been in Beijing recently, and after Shen Qing returned to Beijing, she simply moved into Shen Qing's house.

The phrase "unrivaled in popularity" perfectly describes her right now.

"My Love from the Star" not only made her a sensation, but also completely reversed her public image.

Her studio co-invested in the big-budget film "Gravity" with a host of big-name companies such as Warner Bros., Legendary Pictures, China Film Group, Enlight Media, Berna Films, and Magic Pictures, thus upgrading her to a capital firm and gaining the "Fan Ye" persona.

There were also shocking statements such as, "Depth isn't something you can fake; only a grandson can fake it."

Each of these factors contributed to her fame, and when combined, they created a synergistic effect greater than the sum of its parts.

Another example is Li Jiaxin, who was once known as the most beautiful woman in Hong Kong, and married Xu Jinheng, the grandson of a shipping magnate.

When pressed by the media about her attitude towards marrying into a wealthy family, Fan Bingbing, guided by Shen Qing, responded assertively: "I don't need to marry into a wealthy family; I am the wealthy family!"

Fan Bingbing's persona was thus firmly established.

Fan Bingbing said that her agent, Yang Tianzhen, admires Shen Qing immensely.

"Fan Ye, Fan Haomen—your titles are getting more and more domineering."

"Shen Qing said with a smile, teasingly."

Fan Bingbing smiled and said, "That's just what the fans like to say, they just call me that for fun. Don't take it seriously. In the eyes of real people in the industry, I'm just a little maid."

"The influence of 'My Fair Princess' is indeed huge. Even after so many years, I still can't shake off the label of Jin Suo," Shen Qing sighed.

"No, that's not it. After 'My Love from the Star,' everyone calls me Song Lan. It's been a long time since anyone called me Jin Suo." Fan Bingbing looked at Shen Qing with her big, watery eyes and continued, "Who in the industry doesn't know that I'm your little maid, Director Shen?"

Shen Qing was surprised by this answer and waved her hand, saying, "I have never treated you like a maid."

"What if it's voluntary on my part?" Fan Bingbing looked at Shen Qing with a smile.

Shen Qing said, "Even if it's voluntary, it won't work. That kind of thing doesn't work in modern society anymore."

Fan Bingbing said, "A maid has to let the master do as he pleases, and a girlfriend has to spend time and effort to coax her boyfriend. You should think carefully about which one you choose."

After he finished speaking, he looked at Shen Qing with a leisurely expression.

"It's not a bad thing to role-play occasionally," Shen Qing added, trying to salvage the situation.

December 3rd, around 11 AM.

Chen Zhixi arrived at Shen Qing's office on time, just like the previous two days. After giving a brief work report, she plopped down on the sofa and did something casually.

Shen Qing continued with her own work, and the two did not disturb each other.

Chen Zhixi only left the sofa and moved closer to Shen Qing when Shen Qing's phone vibrated.

"Are they here?"

"They're here!"

Shen Qing opened the text message on her phone, read it, and handed it to Chen Zhixi, smiling, "Yesterday's box office was actually 3100 million! The domestic film market is getting better and better."

Chen Zhixi took the phone, and after reading the text message, she showed a look of surprise and said with a smile, "It really broke 200 million! We were both hoping to break 200 million in eight days, but it only took six days in fact."

She looked at Shen Qing and laughed, "It's clearly you who's amazing, but you insist on attributing the success to the improvement of the domestic film market."

-

In the past few days, the daily box office of "The Photo Studio" has remained above 3000 million yuan. Chen Zhixi enjoys the process of looking at the previous day's box office data with Shen Qing every day.

The two of them witnessed "The Photo Studio" breaking one box office record after another, which gave her a great sense of satisfaction.

Therefore, at this time every day, regardless of whether she actually had something to report, she would always arrive at Shen Qing's office on time.

"I can't believe it really only took six days. It looks like breaking 400 million in the end should be no problem at all."

Chen Zhixi's voice was filled with excitement.

If it grosses over 200 million in six days, the total box office should definitely exceed 400 million.

"It's only four hundred million, stay calm," Shen Qing said with a smile.

"I can't stay calm. There isn't even a single film in China that has grossed over 400 million yuan yet."

As Chen Zhixi spoke, she secretly observed Shen Qing, wanting to see if Shen Qing was just pretending to be calm.

The first film in the country to break 400 million yuan—what an honor! Yet Shen Qing was able to remain so calm.

"The domestic market is developing too fast. In just a few years, even 40 billion yuan in box office revenue may not be enough to win the championship."

Thinking about the future film market, Shen Qing silently removed sci-fi blockbusters such as "Interstellar," "The Martian," and "Inception" from his recent plans.

Given the current state of the domestic market, even if these films were made ahead of time, and even if they were of high quality, it would be difficult for them to break 1 billion yuan at the box office. The total market size is what it is. However, if they were to be released in the future, they would likely have a box office of 4 billion, 5 billion or even more.

Now that the copyright has been secured, there's no need to rush. Let's save the best works for the best era.

So what are you filming recently?

"The Unknown" has been in preparation for a long time, even before "Gravity" was in the works. This movie will definitely be filmed first.

Wan Qian is so obedient, we should give her some encouragement.

Apart from replacing Ren Suxi's role with Wan Qian, the rest of the cast of this movie retained the original cast as much as possible.

The filming location will still be Duyun City in Guizhou Province. We'll set off in a few days, and it should take less than a month to finish filming.

What happened after "The Unknown"? What did they film next?

Shen Qing thought it might be time to make a film called "The Original Code".

This movie has received good reviews, but it doesn't have many big scenes, so its potential isn't very high. This is a good time to release it.

Perhaps we could combine the worldviews of "Source Code" with those of the 2021 film "Out of Control".

In the ending of *Source Code*, Captain Goodwin receives an email from the protagonist, Stevens: "If you received this email, it means that *Source Code* is better than you and the Doctor expected. You thought you were recreating the events of the past eight minutes, but that's not the case. You've created a whole new world. Goodwin, if I'm not mistaken, somewhere in the world of *Source Code*, you'll find Captain Stevens waiting for a mission. Promise to assist him, and also do me a favor: tell him everything will be alright."

The Goodwin who appears at the end is actually a Goodwin from a source code world.

The movie "Out of Control" tells the story of the NPC "Guy" who awakens free will after stealing the player's glasses. He goes on an adventure with the female protagonist Millie and eventually defeats the villainous game company boss.

The movie has a good plot and performed reasonably well at the box office. Like "Source Code," it also involves a virtual world.

Shen Qing felt that the worldviews of the two films could be completely unified.

Furthermore, the original "Out of Control" had a major flaw: the female protagonist Millie spent most of her time adventuring with the NPC Guy, but in the end, she chose the real-world programmer "Keyboard".

The reason why "Guy" awakened free will was entirely because the "keyboard" wrote his "love code" for Millie into "Guy's" program.

Shen Qing didn't know how others viewed this ending, but he certainly didn't like it.

What if we set the protagonist Millie's identity as the daughter of Goodwin, the one who received the email at the end of "Source Code"?

The female protagonist of "Out of Control" first plays a minor role in "Source Code," and then the minor role becomes the female protagonist.

The female protagonist and the NPC male protagonist team up to defeat the villain, which then puts the female protagonist in a dilemma. She falls in love with the NPC male protagonist, but she can't really be with a game NPC, can she?

So she confided in her mother, Goodwin, who then produced the email she had received years ago. The email revealed that the so-called real world might also be the world of source code, and that the game the NPC protagonist was in was developed from source code technology.

In other words, to some extent, the female protagonist and the NPC male protagonist are actually the same.

Everyone's world may be virtual, or it may be a parallel world.

"Last year's total box office was only over 40 billion yuan, so I can't imagine what it would be like for a single movie to gross 40 billion yuan."

Chen Zhixi's remark brought Shen Qing's thoughts back to reality.

"Let's work together to make our movie the first one to break 40 billion or even 50 billion at the box office."

"High five!"

Chen Zhixi suddenly became very interested.

"High five!"

Shen Qing naturally wouldn't spoil the fun.

The next day, Shen Qing received definite news: the controversy that had been brewing ever since his outburst had finally come to a conclusion. It was highly likely that Lu's movie, which he had been preparing for four years, would not be released.

It's hard to say whether it will be released in the future. Maybe it will be released sometime, but based on the information we have now, it's unlikely to be released for at least five years.

Shen Qing thought it would only affect the other party's box office at most, but she didn't expect it to be completely wiped out by criticism.

That was a big win!