Brother Dao Took the Entertainment Industry by Storm, Fans Beg Me Not to Kill Anymore

Chapter 986: Domestic and International Box Office Hits

"Is the estimate only 4.6 billion?"

Upon hearing such good news, Xiao He instinctively blurted out questions about the box office performance of "Time and Space Standoff".

Generally speaking, the estimated values ​​are already relatively high.

Is it a bit too meager that their film "Time Standoff" only had such a small box office during the Spring Festival?

Xiao He thought it could reach at least 5 billion.

Liu Rulan was amused by Xiao He's Versailles-like question and replied without any politeness: "Don't you see what the box office market is like now? Last year, we had 'The Phantom Thieves 2'. Zhuang Hongyi is such a great commercial director. The Phantom Thieves series made him the top-grossing film of the year. This year, our domestic science fiction film can make other people choose to watch it during the Spring Festival. That's already very impressive."

"Moreover, we've been talking about the domestic box office market all along. The publicity and popularity of 'Time War' abroad is now no less than that of several Hollywood blockbusters, and its popularity overseas is also quite high, something that few films in previous Spring Festival seasons have been able to achieve. If the overseas release goes smoothly, then the box office value may be on par with that in China."

Actually, even Liu Rulan found it a bit strange.

It's true that some Chinese films are popular overseas, but it's not easy. After all, the situation there is very complex, with a lot of capital controlling the power of "correct topics," and different theaters in different regions have different rules. So it's quite difficult to promote a film in many regions, and you have to spend a lot of money.

However, Xiao He is quite peculiar; many of his films and television series are successfully exported overseas and are very popular. The overseas commercial value of many of his works is even on par with that in China.

Liu Rulan dares to say that nowadays, even many overseas fans have heard of Xiao He's name and can accurately recognize his appearance and name his representative works and roles.

Although due to the influence of idol culture, some people may still mistake Xiao He for an actor from South Korea, there is no doubt that Xiao He is very influential abroad.

Shu Han also looked back at Xiao He with a complicated expression. He estimated in his mind the time Xiao He had spent and the achievements he had made along the way, and couldn't help but shake his head and sigh in admiration: "You have already surpassed many people. And this is only a few works. It makes people envious."

Xiao He's rapid rise to stardom is something even a veteran actor like himself, who has been in the industry for so many years, is envious of.

"Yes, speaking of overseas—"

Xiao He stroked his chin thoughtfully, "Are the overseas film releases going smoothly?"

There are generally two models for domestically produced films exported overseas. One model is to finish the domestic screening before exporting overseas, and the other is to have the films released simultaneously or nearly simultaneously at home and abroad.

The former model is quite common in the industry, while the latter is generally only dared to be released by films with high budgets, top-notch production capabilities, absolute confidence, and a global market positioning.

And without a doubt, given the extensive online promotion of "Time Standoff" recently, it's clear that the production team opted for a simultaneous global release.

However, Linghui Entertainment has always had some doubts after the "plagiarism incident".

After all, the topic of "plagiarism" first spread from overseas. Although Viker decisively deleted his account and ran away after the matter was exposed, without any thought of making a last-ditch effort, everyone knows that he was just a tool abandoned by the person behind the scenes.

Viker isn't the main character; he's just a clown joker.

The most important thing is the people behind the scenes.

Upon hearing Xiao He's question, Liu Rulan's expression turned serious, and she said earnestly, "The Shield Screen that you asked us to pay close attention to has not made any further moves since then, nor has it made any further attempts to sabotage 'Time Confrontation.' The overseas theater schedules have been successfully negotiated, and everything is perfectly normal."

Even before the Spring Festival, Xiao He had already used his methods to investigate and find the ultimate mastermind behind everything—the source of it all, the American Shield Screen Films.

However, after the investigation, neither Xiao He, Liu Rulan, nor anyone else could quite understand their reasons for doing so.

Linghui Entertainment's main focus is currently on the domestic entertainment industry, and the overseas release of "Time and Space Standoff" did not directly conflict with other films under Shield Screen Pictures.

The only possible connection is that Shield Screen previously collaborated with a South Korean company to produce a movie called "Twelve Evils".

Yes, that's the script that inspired Xiao He's previous stage play, "Twelve Mirrors".

At the time, Xiao He and his group had a brief conflict with the lead actor in "The Twelve Evils," but they later had no further dealings with each other. One was based in Hollywood, USA, and the other in China, so there was no direct conflict of interest between them.

Later, around the end of last year, the movie version of "The Twelve Evils" was officially released on Christmas Day.

The plot itself already had a touch of a locked-room mystery feel, so setting it during the snowy season was quite fitting.

However, the final release results seem to be less than ideal.

Xiao He didn't pay much attention to the release of foreign films, but he did take a look during his investigation and found that the film version of this work had unsurprisingly flopped.

Firstly, the quality of films there is already quite high, and many of their creative models have drawbacks. Furthermore, the production of this film coincided with the largest wave of strikes in the country, so the final quality of the film was rather average. If we had to nitpick, the set design and special effects were inferior to many domestic films, and there were many things to criticize.

Secondly, the casting was not good. The protagonist of "Twelve Evils" has a split personality, which requires the actor to play multiple roles. However, the actor named Han Zaiyu's acting skills were not able to keep up with the charm of the character in the script, and the performance was more like that of a mental patient.

—Uh, although it was supposed to be a role for a mentally ill person, well, anyway, the effect was just so-so.

So after "Twelve Evils" flopped, Shield Screen abandoned Han Jae-woo, and their original plan to leverage Han Jae-woo's fame to further penetrate the Southeast Asian market was temporarily shelved.

Of course, the failure of one movie is nothing to them. A large company like theirs can produce more than ten or twenty works a year. The failure of a relatively big-budget film like "The Twelve Evils" is only a slight pain, not enough to damage their foundation.

Moreover, the failure of "The Twelve Evil Surnames" had nothing to do with Xiao He and his group.

So Xiao He really didn't understand what exactly Shield Curtain, this big and powerful company, was targeting him with.

"Really not even a sound?"

Xiao He had some doubts.

"So what were they doing, making such a big fuss? Just messing with us?"