After the preview screening, the word-of-mouth Jiang Yu had anticipated did explode, but not quite as he’d imagined. He’d expected a tidal wave of praise, but instead, a deluge of scathing reviews nearly crushed him.
Dreams are beautiful, but reality is cruel and shocking.
Jiang Yu barely slept that night. Like a patient on the brink of collapse desperately seeking a lifeline, he frantically scoured online reviews of “Battle City 2”, hoping to find some positive feedback.
For an exceptional film, finding criticism amidst praise is like searching for a needle in a haystack. For “Battle City 2” – unanimously panned as a disaster by industry insiders, cinephiles, and fans alike since its preview – finding a positive review among the sea of negativity was equally challenging.
The few positive reviews came from fans of the lead actors. While they gave high scores, their words were scathing, unhesitatingly criticizing the film. They claimed their idols’ performances were flawless, but the trash movie had let them down!
Jiang Yu was on the verge of tears. His emotions felt like a roller coaster, except this ride only plummeted downward, crashing into an abyss.
He stared at the handful of positive reviews for a good ten minutes before suddenly calling a troll farm leader he’d worked with before.
“Liu-ge? It’s Jiang Yu. Listen, I have a film that previewed last night. The reception wasn’t great. I was hoping you and your team could help boost the ratings on major websites.”
Brother Liu’s voice hesitated on the other end. “You mean ‘Battle City 2’?”
Before Jiang Yu could answer, Brother Liu flatly refused his request.
“If it’s that film, I can’t help you. It’s only a preview, but the verdict is in. There’s no point trying to salvage it.”
Hearing this, Jiang Yu panicked. “Aren’t you a troll farm leader? It’s just been previewed! At most, fewer than two thousand people attended. How can you say it’s unsalvageable? Why isn’t it worth trying?”
His protest only made Brother Liu snicker. “Hey, shouldn’t you be asking yourself that question instead of me?”
“What do you mean?” Jiang Yu, already on edge, exploded at the troll leader’s sarcastic tone, roaring into the phone.
The troll farm leader, a veteran in the industry who’d dealt with countless people over the years, wasn’t intimidated by Jiang Yu even at his peak, let alone now when his reputation was in tatters and his only noteworthy film faced financial ruin.
“Hah,” the troll leader snorted, dropping all pretense of politeness. “I’ve seen good films invite professional critics to previews for buzz, but never such garbage pulling the same stunt. How did you have the nerve to send invitations to critics? Didn’t you have any sense of what you were showing?”
“Anyway, find someone else for this job. Don’t come to me. I don’t have the skills to handle your porcelain.”
With that, the troll leader hung up before Jiang Yu could explode.
Staring at the disconnected call, Jiang Yu’s pent-up rage erupted. Unable to contain his fury, he hurled his phone at the floor, shouting, “Judgmental bastard! Who does he think he is?”
The phone hit the wall with a thud, scattering parts across the floor – much like Jiang Yu’s heart. Though outwardly composed, he was inwardly panic-stricken.
Slumping back into his chair, Jiang Yu reopened “Battle City 2” on his computer. Perhaps influenced by the troll leader’s words and the flood of negative reviews, he now saw flaws everywhere in the film he’d been so confident about just a day ago.
Two hours later, as the credits rolled, Jiang Yu’s head throbbed. Just then, a knock came at his office door. His secretary entered cautiously, whispering, “Mr. Jiang, Mr. Shen from Peak is waiting outside.”
Since being hounded for debt by Peak’s CEO, Jiang Yu had developed an instinctive fear of the man. That old fox was a madman when it came to money. The mere memory of those days left Jiang Yu in a cold sweat.
Before the film’s release, Jiang Yu had made lavish promises to Peak’s CEO, even insisting on the preview screening against the CEO’s wishes.
After a night of fermentation, “Battle City 2″‘s reputation was in ruins. Jiang Yu wasn’t foolish enough to misunderstand why Peak’s CEO had come.
Upon hearing the secretary’s words, Jiang Yu’s initial response was to run. It’s not that he was a coward, but rather, having gone through the dark days of being pressured for debts, all his courage had been worn down.
But before Jiang Yu could run, the tightly closed office door was pushed open again. This time, it wasn’t the secretary who entered, but a group of men dressed in black suits, wearing impassive expressions and sunglasses, looking like bodyguards.
They surrounded a man in a leopard-print shirt. When the man saw Jiang Yu, he smiled warmly and waved at him, “Xiao Jiang, long time no see, come over and sit.”
Peak’s CEO sat down on the sofa in front of Jiang Yu. He picked up an apple from the fruit platter on the table and slowly peeled it with a fruit knife. Seeing that Jiang Yu had not responded for a long time, he glanced up at him, and with a forced smile, he asked, “What’s with that expression? Are you not welcoming me?”
Jiang Yu was so intimidated by his gaze that his legs turned weak, and his voice involuntarily trembled slightly as he forced out a smile, “H-How could it be? Shen-ge visiting me makes me so happy; how could I not welcome you.”
Peak’s boss smiled at him and resumed peeling the apple, his voice sounding casual with a hint of indifference, “Xiao Jiang, I have been good to you, right?”
“When you acquired the rights to ‘Battle City 2,’ you publicly announced such a high price, scaring off many companies in the industry wanting to collaborate with you. There was a saying going around at the time.”
“They said, you young man have lofty ambitions. Do you know why no one continued to bid at that time? Was it because your price was too high?”
Peak’s boss paused his apple peeling, looked up at him, and said softly, “No.”
“When you snatched the rights to ‘Battle City 2,’ you already made many people in the industry dislike you. And then you announced such a high price. Those old folks in the industry want to teach you a lesson, to discipline you.”
“‘Battle City 2’ is a good IP, but is this an IP that anyone can handle? Perhaps your brother Jiang Tingyuan can handle it, but what are you, trying to swallow this IP alone? Let this IP shatter in your hands.”
Once the apple was peeled, the long peel broke apart just before the end and fell to the ground.
Peak’s boss threw the peeled apple along with the peel into the trash can without any sentiment, adjusted his non-existent cuffs, and looked at Jiang Yu, saying, “Everyone was waiting to see you fail back then. Only I… gave you a chance.”
“I took on so much risk for you, investing real money, and what did I get in return? You won’t let my money go to waste, right?”
After these words, Jiang Yu’s head was covered with fine cold sweat, trickling down slowly, flowing into his eyes along his eyelashes, stinging his eyes. However, he dared not even lift his hand to wipe it away.
The words were so blunt, it was like he was almost forcing Jiang Yu to agree to take on all the losses caused by this movie. Of course, Jiang Yu was unwilling.
“I’m sorry, Shen-ge, I really… ”
“I didn’t come here today to listen to your explanations. I came here for an answer.”
Before Jiang Yu could finish his remaining words, Peak’s boss lifted his hand to silence him, cutting off all his future words from coming out.
“I… I understand.” Jiang Yu ultimately did not utter any words of resistance because he knew clearly that today, besides agreeing to Peak’s boss’s demands, he had no other choice.
Satisfied with Jiang Yu’s response, Peak’s boss left, leaving Jiang Yu slumped on the sofa, staring blankly at the ceiling, motionless for a long time.
In the following days, Jiang Yu was constantly hoping for a miracle. What did it matter if the word of mouth was bad? In this day and age, a good movie might not necessarily draw audiences, while despite being scorned, a bad movie would attract attention as long as people were willing to criticize, leading to a continuous stream of discussions.
Topics always meant a certain amount of box office success. Nowadays, Jiang Yu no longer held the same expectations for the movie “Battle City 2”; he simply hoped that the movie could recoup the capital he had invested in it, nothing more.
One thing for sure was that controversies did generate buzz, and buzz could indeed be converted into box office revenue.
Since the release of “Battle City 2,” there had been an abundance of critical reviews, even the author of “Battle City 2” came forward to denounce the film in a lengthy 2,000-word article.
Needless to say, the fans, who had accumulated a good reputation from the previous installment, almost all turned their backs, with a massive exodus of fans and some even turning into haters, completing the transformation from fans to critics.
It was calculated that in the first week of “Battle City 2” being shown, it was trending on hot searches more than 30 times, with three or four hot search topics appearing on Weibo’s hot search list every day.
This attracted many viewers to the theaters, wanting to see just how bad the movie could be and to what extent.
Due to the enthusiasm of the audience, the film’s box office showed a brief surge. The first-week box office of “Battle City 2” was 100 million, and then… there was no “then.”
Subsequently, until the movie had to be pulled from theaters prematurely due to poor box office and word of mouth, on the night it was taken down at exactly midnight, how much total box office had “Battle City 2” brought in?
133 million. That was the final total box office figure for this movie.
For a low-budget film, this number might actually be considered quite decent. However, for a movie like “Battle City 2,” which had an investment of nearly four hundred million from start to finish, it could no longer be simply described as “losing money.”
This was almost like a loss beyond what one’s parents could bear, wiping out everything down to their underpants.
The day when the final box office figures were released, those who had dreamt big dreams because of this movie, Jiang Yu, Peak, Yu Qiuze, Liu Yunlan…
All their dreams shattered upon seeing that heart-wrenching number.
Raine: If you have been reading Between Misunderstandings, I have already mentioned that I have been lethargic for the past few weeks. I thought it was just some kind of slump after the end of KMCF. Well, I just got back from the doctor, and it turns out it’s health-related. With that, I will have all my projects updated sporadically. I will try to keep the schedule of daily updates but please excuse me if I miss any days. Thank you for understanding.
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