King of Hollywood-Chapter 523 - 244: Classic Hype

"We’ve heard your views on the internet, and we very much agree with you. As time goes by, the information spread online will become more and more abundant and faster. Propaganda on this platform is crucial for the company," the other party continued. "So we used this movie to make a plan, it’s an experiment, and the invested capital isn’t much."

"The promotional methods haven’t changed much from before. We inundate readers with a massive amount of information, so they can’t discern what’s true or false, right or wrong. Then we guide them, leading them to agree with us, sparking their curiosity, thereby drawing them into the movie theaters." Another added, "The advent of the internet allows information to spread more swiftly. According to the Marketing department, it spreads like a virus."

"Please continue," Adrian lifted his hand, indicating he was still listening.

Both men seemed encouraged and relaxed considerably, speaking even more smoothly.

"Our plan is to first organize people to post rumors, such as claiming on those horror story website forums that there is a story about three college students who went missing while searching for a witch."

"At the same time, set up a dedicated website to introduce their backgrounds and their family situations, as well as publish some local police investigation reports, their parents’ opinions, and arrange memorial activities on the website, as is customary."

"When the atmosphere reaches a certain level, we then report on television, starting with those odd and curious program segments, and then proceed with formal reports depending on the situation."

"Ordinary people are naturally distrustful of governments, so we can guide them to associate with the local government intentionally withholding information. Even if official representatives declare that the incident didn’t occur, nobody will believe them."

"At that time, we present the edited film, claiming it’s the footage left behind by the three deceased college students that the police found during their search. We’ve edited it and will show it in movie theaters."

Both kept speaking in turn, the rhythm clear and the sentences flowing. They quickly explained their thoughts in detail.

"Very good, thank you for the explanation. I must say, this is a nice idea," Adrian clapped his hands lightly, paused for a moment, then looked them over with interest, waiting until they started to get nervous again before saying: "Why not make it bigger, like, having the Maryland police conduct a large search?"

"Maryland... a large search?" Both of them inhaled sharply at the same time, then looked at each other, thinking they had been bold enough, but their boss was bolder still.

"Not necessarily a large search. In any case, release the news and then force the local government to clarify by searching the forest. The scale doesn’t need to be too big, and if there are difficulties, we can sponsor it through other channels. Of course, whether it’s big or not in the end is up to us," Adrian shrugged his shoulders, as if talking about something trivial.

"But... if we do that, then..." one of the men voiced some concern with a worried look.

"It’s okay, as long as everything is within the legal boundaries," Adrian spread his hands after he spoke, making the two people in front of him chuckle.

What they were discussing, once put into action, would pretty much amount to fabricating and spreading rumors. But if it came down to it, it wouldn’t qualify for a lawsuit. At most, Adrian had nudged against the boundaries more than they had. As long as the degree was right, there wouldn’t be a problem. The United States laws, especially regarding information dissemination on the internet, were surprisingly lenient. It’s simple, if the restrictions were too many, how could one use the massive amount of information to confuse and guide the public’s opinions? Unless one gained much more substantial support, no lawmaker would propose such a bill in Congress, for it would invite assaults from all media conglomerates.

"Then let’s settle on that. I’ll wait for your good news," Adrian nodded, indicating that they could leave.

Ever since he knew their ideas, his mood had been good and became even more cheerful after the talk. The movie might seem worthless now, but it had a famous name in his previous life: The Blair Witch Project!

Yes, that movie — one of the highest returning movies in history, a hype epitome at the end of the 20th century. A college student’s experimental work had turned into a classic horror film, and now it had fallen into Adrian’s hands. Ever since his rebirth, he had been impacting the world incessantly. The world had its own inertia in development, but at the same time, it caused some changes - movies that never existed in his memory yet made it to the Oscar ceremonies, or actresses who should have made headlines became adult stars instead, the same was true for this film.

The cast and director were still those college students. Adrian was very clear about this hyped paradigm, which had not changed. Obviously, they had long had plans related to the shooting. What had changed was the timing of the filming, which had been moved up and did not include participation at the Sundance Film Festival. The Sundance Film Festival took place every January in Utah, while they had finished their production in July.

But in North America, film festivals were as common as grass. If they couldn’t participate in the biggest Sundance Film Festival, other options were available, such as the Atlanta Film Festival. There were two film festivals in Atlanta, one relatively formal, simply called the Atlanta Film Festival, held every April; another more niche, similar to San Francisco’s Gay Film Festival, was the Atlanta Horror Film Festival, held every July.

Although the Atlanta Horror Film Festival wasn’t very well-known, it matched the genre of this movie perfectly. Unfortunately, like in his previous life, they won nothing at the festival. The experimental film’s traces were too strong, and the documentary style wasn’t very appealing. However, as it was before, a film company still saw the worth in their work, but this time it wasn’t the Artisan Company—it was Bossworth Film!

Worth mentioning is that Adrian didn’t interfere at all with the process; he didn’t even know about it. If he hadn’t developed the habit of browsing the production catalogs of several companies, he might not have discovered it until after the film was released. And this was what made him happiest.

The whole process, from taking an interest in the film, negotiating for rights, to creating a marketing strategy, had been exclusively handled by those two people, Lauren Perez and Marcel Hamon! What did that indicate? It showed that the company was moving onto a positive track!

For a long time, most of the movies and TV dramas produced and invested by AC Media had more or less been related to Adrian, especially those popular, big sellers that basically bore his stamp. Hence the rumor that as long as a script caught the eye of the Miracle Director, it was sure to be popular.

This was a great honor, but also a hefty burden. His prophetic foresight was indeed useful in helping the company break through early on, but eventually, it might become an impediment. If film production relied too heavily on his vision, what would happen if one day he could no longer provide certain profitable ideas? Others might not realize this, but he was all too aware that this day would inevitably come, even though he still had a lot left in his memory bank.

So early on, Adrian always focused on nurturing talent, but due to development needs, there was never significant progress. Now, the performance of Lauren Perez and Marcel Hamon gave him hope. As long as he continued, the company would eventually escape from this situation. So after much thought, he still called the two of them over—he wanted to hear their detailed plans to ensure the film’s success and thereby further stimulate others’ enthusiasm.

"There won’t be any problems," Adrian muttered to himself as he walked over to the floor-to-ceiling windows and beheld the scenery outside after Perez and Hamon had left.

They had thought everything through thoroughly, even proposing several ideas that the original version hadn’t considered. As long as he supported them fully, with AC Media’s current strength, the sensation this film would cause could only be bigger than the original. This wasn’t ten years later; though the internet was gradually improving and had already become a booming industry, it was far from mature compared to ten years later after the bubble burst. If one thought that posting a video online could arouse people’s curiosity and make them willingly pay to watch a pseudo-documentary in theaters, that would be a fool’s idea.

This approach might reap some box office, but dreaming of tens of millions or even billions is just that, dreaming.

Adrian was quite pleased with everything related to "The Blair Witch Project" for a while, making other tasks much smoother, like preparing "The Ring" for Naomi and "The Others" for Nicole.

As mentioned before, Naomi chose the thriller route from the two that Adrian had laid out for her. Romantic comedies could make her a sensation for a moment, but not for a lifetime, and they could easily typecast her. Besides, wasn’t Julia Roberts, who had been with Adrian for quite some time, more suitable for such movies? The big-selling romantic comedies that she had starred in over recent years were supplied by Adrian, so naturally, these scripts would be reserved for Julia, not Naomi Watts.

Anyway, "Mulholland Drive" was also a thriller, and she had made a name for herself with that film. Although it hadn’t premiered in North America yet, the buzz from Cannes alone, while perhaps not enough to make everyone know her, would certainly earn her the esteem of indie film enthusiasts. There was no need to venture into a brand new film genre.

Therefore, Adrian gave Naomi the role of the mother in "The Ring." After all, she had played that part in the movie in his memory. Of course, the plot was completely relocated to the United States, and some details were fully adapted to things that Americans could accept. For this, Adrian even specially invited Suzuki Koji from Japan to serve as a script consultant for a while, to Americanize the material while retaining the essence of the original as much as possible.

At this time, Suzuki Koji did have some regrets about selling his work to Adrian, but he was still quite diligent and earnest in his work. Under Adrian’s supervision, the script met his expectations. Even without the sensation that the Japanese version of "The Ring" had caused as a foundation, achieving a good box office wasn’t too difficult a task, after all, many Americans don’t watch foreign films.

As for Nicole’s "The Others," she would receive quite favorable reviews for her performance in this movie, according to memory. Naturally, it wouldn’t be poor now, especially since Adrian had prepared thoroughly, and logically, this film was even more consistent than "The Sixth Sense." The divorce case was still at an impasse for now, but a complete resolution wasn’t far off. With Adrian hiding behind Nicole, the longer it dragged on, the more disadvantageous it would be for Cruise.

Under these circumstances, Adrian began shooting a new movie, this time with "Trinity," the woman who had been a big hit all summer as the female lead. And the name of the film was "Malena"!

"Ready?" Opening the room’s door, Adrian asked the young woman who was still having her hair styled by the hairdresser in front of the mirror.

"It’s ready, Mr. Adrian," the hairdresser said, inspecting her work carefully before letting go of the hair.

"Very good," Adrian nodded, gesturing for her to leave. After closing the door, he went behind the young woman, resting his hands on the chair’s back, admiring the person in the mirror with a sigh, "Truly captivating."

Monica let out a light laugh, stood up, and did a twirl in front of him, then held her little purse in front of her lower abdomen with both hands, her lips slightly upturned, "Really?"

"Of course, the curves are absolutely flawless, naturally perfect, enough to make every man’s heart race," Adrian lavished her liberally with compliments.

Indeed, dressed in a white, thin, flowing dress with a loosely hung black tie around her neck, straps of black high heels wrapped around her ankle, the garters of her flesh-colored stockings teasingly visible in the slits, clutching an exquisite handbag, her black hair curled and falling down her back, even with only a touch of makeup, the retro charm that was so different from the cool aura she exuded in a black leather bodysuit could not be restrained. It was utterly enchanting.

"The best of all?" Monica immediately asked.

"Of course," Adrian nodded.

"Really?" Monica raised her slender eyebrows.

"If you dare ask such a question again..." Adrian stepped up to her, his threat clear on his face, "then don’t blame me for being rude, I’ll just have them make a new set of costumes for you, redo your makeup and hairstyle."

Monica’s eyes danced with laughter, and she reached out to cup his face, giving him a gentle kiss on the lips, "Whenever you want, you can have it."

After watching Monica for a moment with narrowed eyes, Adrian let out a derisive laugh, "Wait and see!"

Then, the two of them arrived on set together where the crew had already begun the final preparations.

"This is different from ’The Matrix’; I need you to immerse yourself completely, to feel this woman’s plight and then convey it with body language, understand? Often, body language can express even stronger emotions," Adrian explained to Monica as he made his final remarks, "Just relax, and when I say action, forget everything around you. You are Marina, the Marina whose husband has gone to war and vanished without a trace, the Marina who is fantasized about by different men every day, the Marina who is cursed by women every day, the Marina who is driven to the brink of survival!"

After ’The Matrix’ was released, apart from Neo and Morpheus, Trinity was the character that left the strongest impression, even more so than Agent Smith and the traitor Seaver. This wasn’t to say that Monica’s acting was better than that of Weaving and Christopher, but her image was simply too striking.

Fused with his past life’s memories and lessons, the look that Adrian tasked the stylist to design for her was incredibly alluring. There was no need to mention the prideful figure revealed by the tight leather outfit; online, a large number of discussions revolved around Trinity’s figure, and not one man didn’t think "that’s too sexy." The mature and stunning aura she had cultivated while modeling was present too, and in ’The Matrix’, it was somewhat typecasting. Plus, Adrian specifically asked Yuan Heping to design more body-revealing actions for her. The higher popularity she garnered compared to the original Trinity was, therefore, within reason.

Thus, along with a number of box-office hits she had starred in over the past few years, Monica’s standing in Hollywood was solid, and her salary had risen to around 7 million—a figure quite remarkable for a European actress in Hollywood who doesn’t speak English natively—so Adrian immediately began arranging this movie because it was the one film that Monica could currently use to lay claim to an Oscar statuette!

In memory, there weren’t many great films attributed to her, or rather, not many that could achieve Oscar recognition, and after much consideration, the choice narrowed down to ’Malena’. On the surface, the movie tells the story of a naive Italian boy’s emotional coming-of-age, but what it really portrays is human nature, especially that sequence towards the end. Imbued with shocking power, it shows envious women pulling Marina, who couldn’t afford to sleep with the Germans, out of her house, tearing her clothes, cutting her hair, beating, and insulting her—a vehement summary of the story underlined throughout the previous few minutes, emphasizing how enchanting Marina was, how many men desired her, and how many women hated her.

Though an Italian movie, it was relatively Monica’s best shot compared to her other films. While she had some noteworthy roles, they weren’t quite there acting-wise, as the icy aura left over from her modeling days wasn’t so easily shed. This issue had somewhat affected her performances in her past movies.

Time waits for no one. Giuseppe Tornatore’s ’The Legend of 1900’ was reportedly about to be released. Who knew if he had already begun contemplating this screenplay? Even though Adrian managed to drum up some notoriety for the script using his usual tactics, predicting the future still wasn’t something he could do. Hence, it was only logical to start filming now.

Moreover, Monica had her advantages. If the emotions conveyed by her facial expressions weren’t intense enough, then she could speak with her body’s language. Just a few years prior, Holly Hunter had clinched the title of Best Actress with the portrayal of a mute woman whose nimble sign language became an important avenue for expressing and conveying emotions. The character of Marina could naturally do the same.

(To Be Continued. If you like this work, please come to Qidian.com to cast your votes and monthly tickets, your support is my greatest motivation.)

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