Meanwhile, at Fei Huang Studio.

Zhu Xiaocai was holding a meeting in the conference room with the core members of Fei Huang Studio, along with actors they had previously collaborated with, including Cui Geng, Lu Zhiyao, Zhang Zuting, Lin Jiaqiang, and others.

Huang Sibo wasn’t there because he had gone traveling with Hu Xianbin, and they had left very peacefully… no, actually quite hastily.

Zhu Xiaocai was having a bit of trouble managing alone, but fortunately, Fei Huang Studio had been consciously cultivating the next generation of directors, so even with the person in charge gone, someone could immediately step up, preventing any mishaps.

The script for “The Successor” had been written long ago, and even the preliminary preparations had been mostly arranged.

This meeting was to make final adjustments to the script, unify their understanding, and then prepare to officially start filming.

This filming project was different from previous ones—they would be collaborating with a team from the United States. The characters in the drama would mainly be foreigners, so naturally, they needed to cast from abroad.

Therefore, Zhu Xiaocai originally hadn’t planned to find actors from China.

But Lu Zhiyao had clearly enjoyed the benefits of their previous collaboration too much and insisted on playing at least a bit part in the film—if not given a part, he refused to leave.

Zhang Zuting, Lin Jiaqiang, and others also expressed that they definitely wanted to help, even if just for a few minutes of cameo appearances.

Zhu Xiaocai found it impossible to refuse such enthusiasm, so he had to find a way to forcibly squeeze all these people in. Fortunately, they all had decent English skills and could handle the lines. Even if there were slight accent issues, it would actually make things more authentic, and worst case, they could dub the voices in post-production, so it wasn’t a big problem.

Zhu Xiaocai briefly introduced the basic content of this filming project.

“This time we’re going to film in the form of a web series, with a total of 12 episodes, each about 50 minutes to an hour long.”

“All 12 episode scripts have already been distributed to everyone, along with brief story outlines to help you better understand the story.”

“After filming is completed, the series will be released domestically. We might collaborate with a video website for exclusive broadcasting rights, with no current plans for overseas release.”

“How exactly it will be released isn’t the focus—if the quality is good, we won’t have to worry about distribution. It’s too early to think about these details now.”

“At today’s meeting, the original author Cui Geng is also present. If anyone has questions about the story, Cui Geng and our screenwriting team will try their best to answer them.”

Lin Jiaqiang was also present.

Compared to the status of Lu Zhiyao and Zhang Zuting, he clearly wasn’t quite at their level, but he had collaborated with Tenda multiple times, so he came to help with a bit part, not expecting much payment.

If he still had his previous fat appearance, he could only play a comedian, which obviously wouldn’t be suitable for a cameo in this drama. But now that he had lost weight, he could easily play any passerby without issue.

However, as he flipped through the script, he had a somewhat puzzled expression.

Would this work?

Fei Huang Studio’s filming project this time was full of questionable points, more than any previous project!

First, with such a large investment and collaboration with an American production team, they were only making a web series, not a movie.

Second, this web series was entirely in English, portraying a story taking place in a foreign country, yet had no immediate plans for overseas release, prioritizing the domestic market.

Third, looking at the theme and content, while it claimed to be a superhero genre, it actually had nothing to do with traditional superheroes. Throughout the entire series, one couldn’t find a single traditional good person, and the main protagonist was unquestionably villainous.

Finally, the original novel had already been serialized on Terminus Chinese Website, but the reception wasn’t very good, with domestic web novel readers showing low acceptance.

Would this work?

It looked destined to fail from every angle.

Lin Jiaqiang secretly glanced at Lu Zhiyao and Zhang Zuting, noticing that although they appeared determined on the surface, their small gestures revealed they didn’t have 100% confidence in this script either.

Clearly, no matter how many times miracles had happened before, people would still doubt whether the next miracle would occur.

This was human nature, especially since this time the difficulty had obviously increased compared to before.

Zhu Xiaocai had clearly realized this, which was why he called this meeting to unify their thinking. If even internal staff had doubts about whether this web series could succeed, filming would likely encounter many detours.

Since they were all old acquaintances, everyone stopped concealing their concerns and expressed their doubts honestly.

Zhang Zuting spoke first.

“This script is… quite special. But are we certain about using the web series format? As far as I know, web series are generally used for low-budget, small productions because their profit models are limited.”

“For large investments to recover costs, it’s better to make movies and earn box office revenue, especially global box office revenue.”

“Web series format, foreign theme, foreign actors, English dialogue, with subtitles needed for domestic broadcast… all these restrictions keep narrowing the audience, turning it into quite a niche format.”

“Can we really recover the costs this way?”

For actors like Zhang Zuting and Lu Zhiyao, whether this drama could recover its costs wasn’t terribly important, since they received fixed payments. If the drama became popular, it would increase their fame; if not, there wouldn’t be much loss for them.

But they were concerned that if this project failed, it might impact Fei Huang Studio, both financially and psychologically.

What if because of this failure, Fei Huang Studio lost its unfettered imagination and adventurous spirit that had defined its previous work, leading to a decline in the quality of future productions? Wouldn’t that be a shame?

So, it was necessary to raise these concerns.

Zhu Xiaocai replied: “Uncle Zhang, all these questions you raised are specifically what Mr. Pei requested.”

“Actually, at the beginning, I had the same thoughts and felt that the success rate would be low with this approach. But after careful consideration, I realized this drama must be filmed this way!”

“First, this type of story must be filmed abroad, just like ‘Struggle’ was before. We must choose a foreign setting as the background, otherwise it won’t have the right feel.”

“Second, the amount of information contained in this script is enormous, with many key scenes. If we split it into movies, we’d need at least three parts, and that would still cause the loss of crucial information.”

“Even if we successfully divided it, watching each film separately would miss the point—the entire story would be fragmented. It must be in series format to present the complete core to the audience authentically.”

“As for why we’re prioritizing domestic release… it’s because only domestic viewers, from an outsider’s perspective, can better understand its deeper meaning.”

“It’s not that foreign audiences definitely wouldn’t understand, but rather that we want to prioritize domestic viewers.”

“Considering all these points, we can only make this choice. Although this lowers our chances of success, I believe that since Mr. Pei has approved this script, as long as we film it earnestly, it will definitely stand out!”

Lu Zhiyao couldn’t help asking: “What exactly is the core of this story? I don’t think I quite understand. I read the story outline and only know it’s about a despicable villain carrying out a series of plans and ultimately succeeding.”

Zhu Xiaocai answered: “According to my personal understanding… this story should be viewed in conjunction with reality-themed works like ‘Beautiful Tomorrow’ and ‘Struggle.'”

“As for what its specific meaning is… let’s have the original author explain.”

With that, he looked at Cui Geng.

This situation was different from before. Previous scripts were mainly based on Mr. Pei’s ideas. How those ideas were interpreted depended on Huang Sibo and Zhu Xiaocai’s creativity.

But this script was entirely Cui Geng’s original creation, with Mr. Pei not involved, so the final interpretative authority naturally rested with the original author.

It was precisely because the author wasn’t Mr. Pei that everyone wasn’t particularly confident in this script.

Cui Geng cleared his throat and said: “Actually, my story was inspired by Mr. Pei.”

“To summarize briefly, ‘Beautiful Tomorrow,’ ‘Struggle,’ and ‘The Successor’ share commonalities in some aspects, all having certain allegorical functions regarding reality.”

“‘Struggle’ and ‘Beautiful Tomorrow’ are connected. If the society in ‘Struggle’ develops for several more decades, with technology making several more leaps and breakthroughs, and the entire social structure becomes more extreme, it would transform into the social structure depicted in ‘Beautiful Tomorrow.'”

“‘The Successor’ is more like a story happening in a parallel universe. The premise of this story is based on an assumption—what if we lived in a world where ‘superheroes rely on faith, while supervillains rely on mutation’? How would the story develop?”

“Just like the concerns and distrust about social structures expressed in ‘Beautiful Tomorrow,’ I was surprised to discover that the story in ‘The Successor’ is equally filled with such concerns and distrust.”

“This core is completely consistent.”

“In fact, the theme of this story was selected by Mr. Pei for me. At first, I completely didn’t understand Mr. Pei’s intention and felt that the superhero genre was actually a theme that couldn’t produce anything substantial.”

“But Mr. Pei enlightened me. He said three things: ‘Superhero themes can also be written for domestic readers,’ ‘It’s not necessary to make domestic readers like these superheroes,’ and ‘It’s perfectly fine to write these superheroes as half-dead.'”

“I thought for a long time and finally understood. Mr. Pei wanted me to use our own cultural perspective to overturn the popular superhero genre, to observe Western stories through a Chinese cultural lens, to deconstruct them, to tear apart the perfect exterior of these works and completely expose what’s inside!”

“Just like ‘Struggle,’ the significance of ‘The Successor’ is to deconstruct the false ‘ideal state’ built in Western cultural works, using a somewhat absurd form to showcase certain social problems.”

“By stepping outside the circle of reality, many issues become easier to see clearly.”