Listening to the doubts of the crew members present, Wang Hao, who had been standing by, suddenly burst into laughter.
"If it weren’t for the fact that this is my cousin Ice Princess’s company, no amount of money would be worth wasting words on these folks!"
"I’m actually hearing for the first time that being young is a crime," Wang Hao glanced at these people, scoffed, and said, "So what if you are older? I’ve also watched ’Dragon Fire 3’ and to be honest, calling this trash worth eighty million is still an overestimation! From the script to the visuals, there’s nothing presentable! And you call this a big production? I’m not mocking anyone; I’m just saying, with your level, even if you make another ten films, they’ll all flop!"
Damn, this young man is so arrogant!
As soon as Wang Hao uttered these words, the entire conference room exploded!
"Young man, don’t be too arrogant! I am, after all, a well-known domestic director. The movies I’ve directed before have all done quite well at the box office!"
"That’s right, any of us here is top-notch in the circle!"
"Our level? Young man, we are already at the top of our industry! You’re just a nobody, aren’t you afraid your tongue will betray you?"
The crowd banged on the table and shouted loudly, turning the whole scene into chaos.
"Enough! Stop arguing!" Bai Ze slammed his hand on the table hard, causing a loud "bang," and the water cup on the table jumped.
He looked around the room, then turned to Bai Yaning and Wang Hao, saying, "Little sister, you two sit down first."
After Bai Yaning and Wang Hao sat down, Bai Ze said, "Regardless, this movie indeed flopped, grossing only eighty million in thirteen days while our investment was one hundred fifty million. We’ve lost nearly one hundred thirty million on this film, which is a total loss. I don’t want to delve into whose fault it is; if we really pursued it, no one could bear the responsibility. But we must understand why it flopped! If we can’t figure that out, then just young fellow said, our next ten films will flop too!"
His words left everyone looking at each other, speechless.
He was right; investing one hundred fifty million but only getting back eighty million in revenue. Bearing a loss of four-fifths, no one could shoulder that responsibility.
But after all, it’s the Bai family; if it doesn’t work out, then accept the loss, we still need to have that courage. However, accepting losses is one thing, understanding the reasons is another. If we don’t figure it out, who knows how much more we might lose!
"Let’s discuss this one by one," Bai Ze looked around the room, first turning to one person, saying, "Scriptwriter Liu Qiwen, you first."
"This..." Liu Qiwen hesitated, then struggled, "Mr. Bai, I’m just a junior screenwriter, I have no decision-making power. My script was altered more than a dozen times, there’s nothing I can do about that."
Liu Qiwen finished, then shrank his neck.
"Then Director Li Bomming, you must know why it flopped, right?" Bai Ze looked towards the pot-bellied middle-aged man, saying, "You tell us, why did it flop."
"This..." Li Bomming, sweating profusely, looked around and decisively said, "Actually, Mr. Bai, I think it’s not that we weren’t good, but the audience was too trashy! What we made actually has artistic value, but the audience’s taste is so low they can’t understand it! It’s not our fault!"
This immediately won the approval of those present, and a group of people nodded together—
"Yes, yes, yes, actually it’s not that we weren’t good enough, it’s that the audience was too trashy!"
"Exactly, this bunch of viewers can’t appreciate our artistry at all! What we shot was based on the myths and legends of Heavenly People’s Republic, which was a great theme, but they just didn’t get it!"
"Yeah, when you think about it, we might have overestimated the audience’s intelligence a bit, it’s really not our fault..."
Listening to everyone’s words, Bai Ze vigorously rubbed his temples.
These guys were now all experts at shirking responsibility, but at this point, talking was useless.
Actually, for his own company, losing a hundred million wasn’t unbearable, but what really worried him was what to do next?
Just as Bai Ze was fretting, Wang Hao, who had been sitting by quietly, finally spoke up!
Damn, daring to call the audience trash? Today, both Ice Princess and I went to see the movie, does that make us trash too?
"A bunch of useless deadbeats occupying their positions," Wang Hao sat in his chair, and this time he truly spared no one’s feelings: "You have the nerve to say it’s the audience’s fault for the trash you’ve produced? Liu Qiwen, the scriptwriter, right? You have the audacity to call that thing a script? The whole movie from beginning to end was as insipid as plain water, with various twisting plot points; I almost fell asleep watching it!"
Liu Qiwen instantly flew into a rage when he heard this, "What’s wrong with my script?! This is a compilation and adaptation from the exquisite folk myths and legends of Chaoshan, for which I was invited by local cultural organizations! For this script, I read books, conducted surveys, and developed the storyline based on records from local temple inscriptions! I’ve been running around for this thing for a full three years!"
"Three years so you think you’re right?" Wang Hao snorted coldly, "Even if it took three years, this crappy script wouldn’t be worth three days! Do you even understand what a script is? Do you get what a story is?!"
"How do I not understand?" Liu Qiwen shouted, his face red, "What’s wrong with my story, huh? How can you say it’s no good?!"
The others looked at Wang Hao and exclaimed loudly, "Yeah! How can it be no good?!"
Li Bomming even slammed the table hard and said, "Kid, you can eat more but don’t talk nonsense! I think the script looks pretty good, so why wouldn’t it work?!"
Bai Ze frowned as he watched the chaos but changed his mind upon catching Yaning’s eye, who subtly shook her head.
There must be something up!
He knew what kind of person his sister was, but it was obvious that at this moment, she had a lot of trust in this young man. It seemed that this young man must have some real skills.
Thinking this, Bai Ze smacked the table forcefully and declared, "Enough with the racket, let the young brother finish talking!"
The conference room quieted down quickly.
"I knew you wouldn’t agree," Wang Hao adjusted his clothes, then walked to the front of the conference room to the whiteboard, picked up a marker, and drew a circle, writing "Character" inside it, "Let’s talk about characters first. What kind of mess is this antagonist you’ve created? Who sets up an antagonist like that?!"
Liu Qiwen protested loudly, "What’s wrong with my antagonist? Doesn’t it have artistic value?"
"Pah!" Wang Hao spat harshly, "The antagonist’s mother is a Snake Demon servant of The Queen Mother of the West, who fell in love with General Bai She and got pregnant. When The Queen Mother found out, she soaked the servant in a pool of realgar water for three days, and though General Bai She tried to save her, he was slain by heavenly soldiers. Eventually, upon persuasion, The Queen Mother forgave the servant who, in her agony with scales fallen off, was demoted to suffer on earth — The Queen Mother is the real antagonist here! If you were the audience, what would you think about this? Do you even understand that the common people naturally sympathize with the underdog?"
"What’s wrong with that?" Liu Qiwen argued defiantly, "This is art, do you understand art? How else can we show the film’s artistic value if not for such a twisted background?"
"Art, my foot! I knew this concept was unreasonable and it would affect the box office!" Wang Hao raged, "If you want to ’play’ art, go do it on your own, don’t risk other people’s investments here! We’re not running a charity, losing over a hundred million for your ’artistic feelings’, right?!"
Liu Qiwen was completely at a loss now, "I..."
"That’s a point," Bai Ze nodded, "The setup of this antagonist has indeed significant issues. Such antagonists can’t evoke hatred from viewers, and naturally, they also wouldn’t want to see the protagonist defeat him, right?"
"Exactly," Wang Hao grabbed a glass of water and continued, "This main villain’s setting has serious problems, and the biggest issue is that this hateful Queen Mother — what happens to her in the end of the film? She just disappears! After this plot is introduced, she never appears again! The entire crux of the film is that the great villain turns into a demon that endangers living beings because of what The Queen Mother did to his mother, and then this major evil figure never shows up! What’s going on?"
Hearing Wang Hao saying this, Liu Qiwen felt aggrieved, "I couldn’t help it, The Queen Mother was originally in it, but Director Li took it out... Moreover, a film with an investment of 150 million had a total script budget of just two million, divided among several people! If this isn’t right, I have to change it, if that isn’t right, I still have to change it. What can I do? It’s rather helpless!"
This time Li Bomming objected from the sidelines, huffing, "I thought this character was problematic, so I removed it!"
"Don’t think just because you’re the director you can do whatever you want!" Wang Hao now directed his anger at Li Bomming, "So what if you’re the director? Does being powerful mean you can randomly alter the script, huh? It’s because you guys, these arrogant directors, always have to meddle with everything, is it not? Is it to prove how great you are if you don’t change it, huh? Keep changing it! Go ahead, keep going! See where that gets you?"
Actually, when it comes to scriptwriters, Wang Hao didn’t usually have much of a complaint.
After all, whether a story is slightly better or worse doesn’t make that much of a difference — like adaptations of novels into films or TV shows, if the original novel is of decent quality, even if the scriptwriter is a fool, as long as the plot doesn’t veer off too much, the script won’t be too far off.
But the problem doesn’t end at the scriptwriter — there’s also the director!
The director is generally the most celebrated person in a production team. If he just followed the script, then it wouldn’t showcase his own abilities, right? It wouldn’t prove his greatness, right?
That’s why in a production team, the scriptwriter usually has a very low status; a good script receiving dozens of changes is considered lucky.
How many great works have been utterly ruined once they’re adapted for the screen in the past?
That’s the reason. If the director doesn’t make changes, how would he make a name for himself? If the reputation is good, it’s the director’s credit; if it’s bad, it’s because of your crappy script!
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Sorry for being late—just got home and rushed out a Chapter~