May 1st, Tuesday.
In Pei Qian’s memory, the 2012 May Day holiday should have been on the 29th, 30th, and 1st, but it had actually changed to a continuous break from the 28th to the 2nd. Clearly, this world’s development had undergone some subtle changes.
For Pei Qian, this was certainly a good thing. He had always been very annoyed by those “shift two days to make a three-day holiday” arrangements. Many times, they would forcibly cobble together a three-day holiday, but end up using two Saturdays—so it was called a three-day holiday, but in reality, only one day off?
The current holiday arrangement was much more reasonable.
Besides, for Pei Qian, more holidays meant employees worked fewer days, which was a great thing for the company.
Today was a rest day, but the OTTO Technology team was urgently preparing for their product launch event. Jiang Yuan had temporarily requested to work overtime for two hours today to discuss the details of the launch with Mr. Pei.
After some thought, Pei Qian approved his request and offered him five times the daily salary for today.
The only pity was that Pei Qian himself couldn’t draw a salary from the company. Otherwise, with such overtime pay standards, Pei Qian would likely work so much overtime that his employees would question their life choices.
Anyway, he should go see a movie first.
Pei Qian put on his mask and strolled to a small cinema near his residence.
On one hand, it was close by, just a few minutes’ walk, which was convenient. On the other hand, the popular showtimes at several major cinemas were completely sold out, making tickets hard to buy.
Actually, seeing the explosive popularity of “Sea Rage” made Pei Qian quite happy. It proved that all of Fanqi Media’s efforts hadn’t been in vain!
They had spent money on promotions, hired internet commenters to create buzz, and piggybacked on the popularity of “Mission and Choice.” After so much effort, if the box office didn’t explode on the first day of release, it would be truly inexcusable.
Not only would they find it unbearable, but Mr. Pei would find it difficult to bear as well.
Arriving at the cinema and collecting his ticket, Pei Qian still had a few minutes before entering the theater. He wandered around a bit and saw many promotional materials for “Sea Rage” in the lobby.
The most eye-catching was a poster with the four metallic-looking artistic characters for “Sea Rage” in the center, dividing the poster into upper and lower parts.
The upper half showed two men and one woman in military uniforms. In the sky, debris from an alien spacecraft trailed long flames as it fell, with a sunset in the distance. The lower half showed a lone warship floating on the vast sea, with the massive shadow of an alien spacecraft looming in the distance, completely enveloping the warship.
It had to be said, the poster was quite well done.
However, when Pei Qian looked at the three lead actors, he felt that the handsome man in the middle looked somewhat familiar, as if he had seen him somewhere before.
Except previously he had long hair, and now he had short hair.
“Lead actor: John Stanton?”
“Why does this name sound familiar?”
Pei Qian suddenly felt something was off. He quickly took out his phone, opened the DogEye app, clicked on the movie details page for “Sea Rage,” and then clicked into the lead actor’s personal page.
Sure enough, this lead actor John Stanton’s previous film before “Sea Rage” was none other than “Journey to the Flying Star”!
“It’s you again?!”
Pei Qian nearly fainted on the spot.
He still remembered the introduction for “Journey to the Flying Star,” which said that the lead actor John Stanton had worked incredibly hard to play the role of former military officer Tim. During filming, he had completed rigorous physical training, endured pain to complete the shooting, and even lost a full 25 pounds—truly exemplifying professional dedication.
Before “Journey to the Flying Star” was released, they had praised director Daryl and lead actor John Stanton to the skies. Pei Qian had thought the film would gross at least ten billion in box office returns. But in the end, it made less than 300 million domestically, and the global box office was a complete loss.
And now “Sea Rage” was also starring this same person?
Then the director couldn’t be…
Pei Qian checked the cast and crew list for “Sea Rage” and found that the director was no longer Daryl. He couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief.
That’s good, that’s good.
He had thought he was up against the same group again!
Even if he was going up against them, it wouldn’t necessarily be bad news. The key issue was that the previous “Journey to the Flying Star” team had been far too ineffective, making it hard for Mr. Pei to trust them.
The current director’s resume seemed decent enough; he had directed several fairly well-known films.
Pei Qian couldn’t help but give lead actor John Stanton a thumbs up.
It seemed this guy was quite wise, clearly knowing that he couldn’t hang himself on just one tree and needed to try several. Last time, “Journey to the Flying Star’s” failure was obviously the director’s fault. This time, with a different director, things should be fine.
Pei Qian entered the theater full of anticipation.
…
Two hours later, Pei Qian walked out with a completely bewildered expression.
What on earth did I just watch?
By all rights, the film’s special effects were truly excellent. Especially the scenes of the battleship drifting on the sea and firing all guns at once—the intense artillery fire rising up, the shock waves creating ripples and waves on the sea surface—the visual effect of this scene was extremely impressive.
The armor of the aliens and the design of the warships in the film also looked quite good, with a strong sense of advanced technology.
There was also a disaster scene where an alien spacecraft crashed into an Earth satellite and then fell above a city—a standard blockbuster disaster scene with outstanding effects.
But… apart from these impressive big scenes created by special effects, what about the other parts?
The key issue was that the plot logic of this film somehow didn’t seem very coherent?
Pei Qian took out his phone and searched for reviews of “Sea Rage” online.
“Typical American patriotic education film. Piled on lots of special effects but still couldn’t cover up the stupid plot. Nothing worth discussing except the special effects.”
“Aliens, if you’re going to invade, couldn’t you bring some high-intelligence military personnel and high-standard weapons? Is breaking a spaceship window with a sniper rifle something humans would do?”
“There are too many issues to even begin critiquing, but it’s also reasonable, since this film was made to promote the Navy. Most military fans just want to see battleships drifting and 16-inch giant cannons firing on the big screen; it doesn’t matter who they’re shooting at.”
“Those criticizing the plot just didn’t understand the film! The aliens obviously came to Earth with friendly intentions; they were only retaliating passively…”
“I think if most people don’t understand a film’s plot, that’s the director’s problem. The first half-hour was spent filming all sorts of random content unrelated to the main storyline. Wouldn’t it have been better to use some of that time to introduce the basic setting more?”
“Why do many military fans say this film is good? The tags clearly include ‘sci-fi’! I came to watch it for the sci-fi theme, and this is what I get? An alien spacecraft capable of interstellar travel gets sunk by a retired human battleship? Are you joking?”
“Honestly, I didn’t think the plot of ‘Mission and Choice’ was that great before. I thought for films like ‘Mission and Choice,’ you just watch for the special effects, and it doesn’t matter if the plot is a bit stiff. But after watching ‘Sea Rage,’ I realize this is what ‘nothing but special effects’ really means… The plot of ‘Mission and Choice’ is so much better…”
“And then there’s the actors’ performances. I thought John Stanton was a veteran Hollywood superstar, but this is what he delivers? The protagonist in the film has a brain malfunction and orders his subordinates to attack the alien warship, futilely causing the death of an entire ship’s crew, and he only comes to his senses when his subordinate grabs him by the throat and shouts at him. Is this the professional quality of a military officer? I don’t know if it’s the script’s problem or the actor’s problem, but compared to Captain Qin Yi, this is simply an insult to military personnel…”
“So, does the film bring down the actor, or does the actor bring down the film? John Stanton had ‘Journey to the Flying Star’ before and ‘Sea Rage’ after, both major blockbusters, and both box office failures. The box office for ‘Sea Rage’ looks like it will be slightly better than ‘Journey to the Flying Star,’ but it will still likely lose money. Lead actor John Stanton is probably in trouble…”
“This brings us to Lu Zhiyao, who was also labeled ‘box office poison.’ When he filmed his earlier movies, each one flopped, and it seemed no one could carry him. But once Mr. Pei stepped in, look what happened! So I think the director bears more responsibility.”
“Indeed, comparing them, ‘Mission and Choice’ completely outclasses it! I never thought there would be a day when domestic sci-fi films would crush foreign blockbusters. I’m going to take my friends to watch ‘Mission and Choice’ again during the holiday!”
“The key is that ‘Sea Rage’ heavily leveraged ‘Mission and Choice’ in its domestic marketing, claiming that ‘Mission and Choice’ changed its release date because they were afraid of them. It’s absolutely hilarious!”
“Exactly! With ‘Sea Rage’s’ performance, how could they make Mr. Pei back down? Are they joking? Mr. Pei moved up the release date by half a month to clash with ‘Fantasy War Remake.’ What does that have to do with ‘Sea Rage’?”
Reading the audience’s comments about the film, Pei Qian was speechless.
Who could have imagined that “Sea Rage,” which Mr. Pei had placed such high hopes on, would crash and burn just like “Journey to the Flying Star”!
So far, “Sea Rage” was hovering around 6-7 points on several review websites. Although many military enthusiasts had given the film decent scores, it couldn’t salvage its nearly collapsing reputation among general audiences.
The DogEye app estimated domestic box office at less than 300 million. Although the film hadn’t been released in North America yet, given its current performance, with even the domestic box office flopping, the North American results certainly wouldn’t be any better.
The investment in this film would likely all go down the drain.
Even worse, this film seemed to have followed the same path as “Journey to the Flying Star,” ending up promoting “Mission and Choice” instead!
Previously, “Sea Rage” had spent significant resources on promotion in China and had subtly linked the two films together to piggyback on “Mission and Choice.” But now, coinciding with the May Day holiday period and with “Sea Rage” performing so poorly, in the absence of other strong competitors, audiences could only choose to watch “Mission and Choice”!
Although “Mission and Choice” had been showing for half a month, it was now the May Day holiday, and many people who normally didn’t have time to see movies would go to the theaters. The viewing audience had suddenly expanded, attracting many previously uninterested casual viewers.
In other words, “Mission and Choice” would definitely experience a counter-trend surge during the May Day period, just like “Beautiful Tomorrow” did before, pushing the DogEye app’s estimated box office even higher!
Pei Qian felt somewhat devoid of hope for life.
“I understand now. You’re not reinforcements at all; you’re deliberately trying to sabotage me, aren’t you?”
“This lead actor, John Stanton, is blacklisted forever! If I ever compete with another film you’re in, I’ll be a dog!”
“Willing to ruin your own acting career just to get at me—what kind of grudge is this?!”
Pei Qian angrily threw his movie ticket stub into the trash bin.