novellhall Chapter 10 Fraudulent Director Yoon Je-kyun
Chapter 10 Fraudulent Director Yoon Je-kyun
The words "wavered" instantly silenced the private room, and no one dared to speak at that moment.
Yin Jijun, sitting in the main seat, looked somewhat ashen.
He picked up the glass of sake in front of him and remained silent for a long time, as if considering how to start the conversation.
"well……"
After a long while, he let out a long sigh.
"There have been a lot of rumors about our movie lately, and you've probably all heard some of them."
The people at the table exchanged glances. Xue Jingqiu rubbed his face in frustration, while Ha Ji-won sighed silently. Still, no one responded.
Li Zhixing silently stroked the wine glass in his hand.
Although he had been on the set of "Jeon Woo-chi" for a while, "Haeundae" was his first official film role, so he couldn't possibly not pay attention to it.
Since the beginning of the month, negative rumors about "Haeundae" have been circulating in the industry.
Comments like "poor special effects" and "boring plot" are actually quite mild.
There was even an industry insider who made an extremely malicious conclusion: "This movie is not a disaster movie; the movie itself is a disaster."
Li Zhixing knew very well why there was so much malice within the industry.
To put it bluntly, in Chungmuro, a place that values sophistication, Yoon Jae-kyun, who started out with vulgar comedies like "Sex Is Zero," was expected to make a fool of himself by venturing into big-budget special effects films worth billions of dollars.
How can a third-rate commercial film director be in charge of such a large-scale project?
Seeing the director hesitate, senior actor Park Joong-hoon leaned back in his chair and looked at him calmly: "Je-jun, none of us have seen the finished film yet. Just tell me what went wrong."
Yin Jijun finally spoke up and began to tell the inside story.
"In the past few months, we have conducted more than ten blind screenings, allowing the audience to rate each scene, and then continuously adjusting the editing and pacing of the film based on the feedback."
"After several adjustments, the final film received a score of 4.12 out of 5 from the audience. In our opinion, this is already a pretty good score."
"But..." Yin Jijun's tone changed, his voice becoming bitter, "The feedback from the subsequent production report meeting for industry professionals and film critics, as well as the technical screening, was quite poor."
"After watching it, all the professionals and film critics were criticizing the CG for looking fake and complaining that the first half of the plot was too boring."
"The rumors you've been hearing lately started around that time."
"That's why the test screening was dragged out from the 6th to the 16th. I was hoping that these extra ten days could salvage the final film."
At this point, Yin Jijun's mood visibly soured.
Li Zhixing listened silently without making a sound.
Yin Jijun spent five years preparing for this film, investing all his personal wealth, and the production company is now burdened with more than 2 billion yuan in debt.
If this game is really lost, there probably won't be anyone like him on Chungmuro anymore.
Seeing the atmosphere growing increasingly heavy, Park Joong-hoon cleared his throat, adopted the air of a senior, and feigned dissatisfaction, grumbling:
"What's going on? Is it really necessary to go this far?"
"The movie hasn't even been released yet, how come our own people have already lost all their fighting spirit?"
Park Joong-hoon slammed his hand on the table: "Je-kyun, audiences will buy tickets because of the director and actors' reputations. No matter what, you are a well-known and successful director in Chungmuro."
"And then there's Kyung-gu, Ji-won, and me. We old guys have been in the film industry for so many years, we must have a group of loyal fans, right?"
"Even if it's Ye-won, although she hasn't had many works in recent years, she's still quite popular with the audience."
Park Joong-hoon's gaze then fell on Lee Ji-hyung, as if he wanted to offer a few words of praise, but he hesitated.
After a two-second pause, Park Joong-hoon forced himself to find an angle: "Although our Zhixing is a newcomer, with that kid's face, just print him on a poster and attract some young girls to buy movie tickets, isn't that a piece of cake?"
Hearing this forced praise, Li Zhixing rubbed his temples in exasperation.
"Brother Chongxun, you can actually skip my part."
"Pfft!" Jiang Yiyuan couldn't help but cover her mouth and laugh out loud.
Ha Ji-won smiled and said, "Let Ji-hsing go hand out posters on the street!"
Park Joong-hoon laughed along, concluding, "In short, with all of us combined, there's no way this movie will lose money, right?"
Everyone at the table nodded in agreement. Even if the situation got worse, it wouldn't come to the point where they couldn't even recover their losses.
However, Yin Jijun remained frowning.
"It's not that simple..." He shook his head. "Do you know what the break-even point is for this movie?"
He held up his palm, gesturing with his hand, and said in a somber tone, "We need at least 550 million viewers just to break even!"
"What?" Jiang Yiyuan exclaimed in surprise, "So many?"
Li Zhixing was also taken aback.
What does 550 million viewers mean? In the past two years, most of the box office hits that were hyped up by the media in Chungmuro have only reached two or three million viewers.
That's definitely too high a barrier to entry.
"That's only because movie ticket prices across the country increased by exactly 1,000 won last month," Yoon Je-jun said with a wry smile. "Otherwise, the number of moviegoers would have increased by at least another 500,000!"
"The production cost of our film alone is close to 140 billion won. Even if we are very careful with our budget, the subsequent publicity and distribution costs will be at least 30 billion won."
Yin Jijun took a deep breath and finally revealed the fatal news that shook CJ's top management: "Actually, CJ Entertainment, the investor, has recently been holding internal meetings to discuss whether or not to reduce our publicity and distribution expenses."
"What?"
"This won't do!"
This time, even Sol Kyung-gu and Park Joong-hoon were shocked.
Everyone here knows perfectly well how important the marketing and distribution costs of a film are.
Without the money to put up posters, buy trailers, or arrange for the main cast to appear on variety shows to boost their popularity, the box office performance in the opening weekend will be absolutely disastrous.
If the first week's data collapses, theater managers will ruthlessly cut screenings the next day.
The fact that CJ is considering reducing its marketing and distribution budget means that the higher-ups have lost confidence in the film and believe that investing a huge amount of money in marketing and distribution would be a waste.
This is tantamount to a death sentence for a blockbuster film that was hoping to recoup its costs during the summer season!
The private room fell silent once again.
Li Zhixing thought for a moment, then suddenly looked up and asked, "Brother Jijun, I remember we've already sold quite a few of the overseas rights to our film, haven't we?"
Hearing this, Yin Jijun nodded: "Yes, pre-sales have been completed in 24 countries and regions so far."
Li Zhixing breathed a sigh of relief: "Since overseas pre-sales are so good, there will definitely be more buyers contacting us after the movie is officially released. The copyright fee alone is a considerable income. Taking all that into account, we shouldn't lose money, right?"
Looking at Li Zhixing, who was still calculating the accounts, Yin Jijun shook his head helplessly.
"Zhixing, that's not how capital is calculated."
Yin Jijun said earnestly, "Investors put up tens of billions of real money to make movies in order to make money, never in order to 'break even' or 'not lose money'."
"Some young directors in Chungmuro are too naive. They think that as long as they pass the break-even point, they have won."
"If you approach making commercial films with the mindset of 'as long as we break even, we'll be fine,' you'll definitely be abandoned by investors."
After hearing Yin Jijun's blunt and cruel words, Li Zhixing nodded thoughtfully.
Seeing that everyone at the table looked gloomy like him, Yin Jijun realized he shouldn't continue. He picked up his wine glass and tapped it lightly on the table.
"Alright, alright, I called everyone here today mainly to have a good get-together and relax before the preview screening, but I've ruined the atmosphere."
He forced himself to stay alert, raised his glass, and said, "Come on, let's not talk about those troubles tonight, let's have another drink!"
Everyone understood each other perfectly and tacitly changed the subject.
After a few drinks, the atmosphere in the private room warmed up again.
Yin Jijun's cheeks were flushed red; he was clearly intoxicated.
Not only did his face turn red, but his eyes also began to redden, and his voice was clearly trembling with sobs.
He put his arm around Xue Jingqiu's shoulder, who was sitting next to him, and patted him hard.
"Brother Jingqiu..." Yin Jijun sniffed, tears welling up in his eyes, "What can I do? My total investment is only a little over 10 billion. What level are Hollywood disaster movies?"
"Back then, 'The Day After Tomorrow' cost 150 billion! And '2012,' which is coming out in a few months, I heard it cost over 200 billion! How the hell can you compare?!"
Seeing this, Lee Ji-haeng helplessly rubbed his forehead and exchanged a wry smile with Ha Ji-won beside him.
Again.
Director Yoon Jae-kyun has a quirk: whenever he drinks too much, he becomes sentimental and bursts into tears.
On set, he would often wipe away tears while telling people about the hardships of making movies and raising investment.
The production team was already used to it.
Moreover, when Yoon Je-kyun gets drunk and pours out his troubles, he usually only pulls along another guy who is equally emotional and prone to tears.
That was Xue Jingqiu.
Despite his tough-guy image on screen and his rugged, fierce face, Sol Kyung-gu is actually a crybaby in private. He can even cry his eyes out while watching animal documentaries alone at home.
As expected, after Yoon Je-jun's tearful complaint, Seol Kyung-gu's eyes also reddened.
He patted Yin Jijun's back hard with his other hand, his voice choked with emotion: "Jijun, I understand! I know everything! Don't worry, with all the hard work you've put in, this film will definitely not flop, it will be a huge hit!"
The two middle-aged men, whose combined age was nearly one hundred, hugged each other and wiped away their tears.
Yin Jijun cried and felt more and more aggrieved:
"Dude, you have no idea how venomous those film critics are! Damn it! They say things like a low-brow commercial film director dares to dream of being a master?"
"The worst part was that some jerk said he came to see the movie expecting disaster special effects, but I forced them to watch 90 minutes of heartwarming stories about ordinary people, with the special effects only appearing in the last 30 minutes!"
"He actually accused me of committing fraud! He called this movie a 'fraudulent film'!"
"Damn it! Do you think I don't want to cram the whole movie with special effects? Do you think I don't want to? The problem is, are these bastards even going to pay me?!"
"Scam?"
Li Zhixing's hand holding the wine glass suddenly froze in mid-air. The word "fraud" instantly opened his mind, and his slightly furrowed brows gradually relaxed.
Amidst the astonished gazes of everyone, Li Zhixing slammed his wine glass on the table with a loud bang and blurted out, "That's right! Isn't this fraud?"
"Hey! Li Zhixing!"
......