Chapter 266 Learning English

Chapter 266 Learning English

Chapter 266 Learning English

When "The Man from Nowhere" finished playing and the ending song appeared along with the subtitles, there was a burst of warm applause at the premiere.

For these audiences, although "The Man from Nowhere" still has some flaws and the rhythm is a bit disconnected, it is still a good movie.

But as the clapping continued, the audience noticed something was wrong.

If the usual process were followed, the film's creators should come up to the stage at this time, express their thoughts on the movie that had just been screened, interact with the audience, and answer some questions.

However, at this moment, the main creators were sitting in the seats in the front row without moving, and no one knew what they were going to do.

Most of the audience members were confused, but a few who had watched the "Galaxy Cinematic Universe" series of movies reacted in the same way as Song Huiqiao.

It turns out that the movie isn’t over yet.

Sure enough, when the subtitles ended, the scene appeared again on the big screen.

This time it was a messy dock, and many police cars surrounded the scene.

Amid the shrill sound of police sirens, Ma Dong-seok, who was dressed in plain clothes but was tall and strong and very conspicuous in the crowd, was staring at the corpses on the ground with a frown.

"There's still one body missing here... Hmm... He's very tall, very strong, and quite skilled..."

He muttered to himself, as if trying to reconstruct what happened at that time through various traces at the scene.

A policeman suddenly came up to him and took out an evidence bag with an empty medicine bottle in it.

"Captain Li, I just found this over there."

Ma Dongxi glanced at the medicine bottle in the evidence bag, his eyes lingering on the Brilliant Pharmaceutical logo on the bottle for a moment, then he nodded and gave the order.

"Put it away first, and have someone analyze what's left inside later."

The policeman nodded and put the evidence bag containing the medicine bottle into the evidence box at the back of the car.

However, after he left, a hand outside the screen reached into the evidence box and took away the bottle of medicine directly.

The screen went black and the subtitles rolled again. The audience began to whisper because of this novel post-credits easter egg.

After all, judging from the looks of it, this "The Man from Lone Star" might have to have a sequel.

Only those who have watched other movies in the Galaxy Cinematic Universe know that this is just the basic operation of this series.

The end credits continued to roll, and this time the audience was not so confused when they saw that the creators in the front row still did not stand up.

And as the end credits came to an end, the second Easter egg of "The Man from Lone Ranger" finally began to play.

It was a blue bay with bright sunshine and rolling waves.

Among the snow-white waves, a slender figure stood on the crest of the tide, standing on a surfboard, like a swallow in the sky flying through the clouds, flexible and agile.

As the camera zoomed in, the figure of a surfer appeared clearly on the big screen. It was the heroine in Wang Hao's second film, Han Duoduo, played by Wang Zhi.

At this time, she has gotten rid of the hydrophobia that has troubled her for a long time. Even though one of her hands has been replaced with a prosthesis, she is still enjoying the joy of surfing.

As she was rushing forward, she, standing on the crest of the tide, vaguely saw something floating on the sea in the distance.

Based on past experience, she was worried that it was another shark.

However, on second thought, it didn't seem right. That cunning beast wouldn't float on the water so blatantly.

Han Duoduo approached carefully, and as the distance got closer, she realized that it was actually a transparent inflatable balloon, and there were two people, a man and a woman, inside the balloon.

That’s right, the ones floating in the sea are Zhao Hailun and Che Tae-sik who escaped from the Korean dock.

As for Zhao Hailun's sister Zhao Meixiu, no one knew what happened to them at sea, but she disappeared without a trace.

The movie scene ends here, leaving a lot of suspense.

At this point, the film’s creators in the front row finally stood up and walked to the front of the stage, began to greet everyone’s applause, and had friendly interactions with those excited fans.

After watching the movie, Wang Hao did not stay at the scene, but walked out of the cinema with Song Huiqiao.

It was already late at night, so there was no need to say what a single man and woman would do at night.

After a night's rest, Wang Hao felt refreshed the next day and received the premiere results of "The Man from Lone Star" from CJ Entertainment.

Not bad, the number of moviegoers that night was about 230,000.

Unlike other places in the world, due to various issues such as taxation, theaters in South Korea choose to count the number of moviegoers when it comes to movie performance.

The advantage of this is that it can allow popular 2D movies and low-budget movies with lower ticket prices to top the rankings. The disadvantage is that calculating the box office results based on the number of moviegoers will result in large errors, leading to inaccurate movie box office data.

However, even without detailed data, just looking at the results and comparing them with the past few years, it is enough to judge that "The Man from Lonely Planet" is extremely popular among movie fans, and it is likely to become the champion of the Korean film rankings this year.

Wang Hao's judgment was very accurate. After its release, "The Man from Lone Star" was very popular in South Korea for its sharp and fierce action scenes and tear-jerking heartwarming plots.

In particular, the "uncle" played by Won Bin in the drama has received unanimous praise from movie fans. Many media reviews even called this film the Korean version of "Léon: The Professional", comparing Won Bin with Jean Reno, a well-known Hollywood actor.

Not only that, the film is also being released simultaneously in China and North America.

Although this is just a Korean movie shot by an unknown Korean director, with the help of the name of the "Galaxy Cinematic Universe", "The Man from Nowhere" has also achieved good results in other countries.

Taking advantage of this hot trend, CJ Entertainment has also stepped up its promotion of the movie.

South Korea's national treasure director Park Chan-wook even praised the film, saying that the action scenes in "The Man from Lone Ranger" will undoubtedly leave a glorious page in the history of Korean films.

Just as the performance of "The Man from Nowhere" was rising steadily, the international economic situation was further deteriorating.

On October 10, the U.S. Congress approved the $3 billion Treasury Stabilization Program (TARP).

On October 10, the National Bank of Iceland, one of Iceland's three largest banks, went bankrupt.

...Bad news can be heard almost every day. Even though Wang Hao has returned to China, he can still clearly feel the financial cold wave sweeping the world.

Fortunately, this has little impact on Wang Hao and his Galaxy Pictures.

Even because of the economic downturn, many crews were unable to start work and work was unstable, causing more behind-the-scenes practitioners in the film and television industry to sign their agency contracts with Wang Hao's Xingdou Culture Co., Ltd.

In addition to its headquarters in Beijing, Xingdou Culture now has a branch in Hengdian. The number of contracted employees, including directors, actors and behind-the-scenes workers, has exceeded 3,000 and is still growing steadily.

When Wang Hao returned to China this time, the first thing he paid attention to was Xingdou Culture.

As soon as he arrived at the company, he called Zhuang Xueping, the current head of Xingdou Culture, and learned about the current situation of the agency through her.

According to Zhuang Xueping, relying on the weapon of "project packaging", Xingdou Culture has now basically monopolized the behind-the-scenes work of the film and television industry around Shangjing. Except for a few larger film and television companies that still have their own behind-the-scenes staff, other retail investors have basically been recruited by Xingdou Culture.

This also means that if movies, TV series and advertising MVs that want to start filming in Beijing want to turn to Xingdou Culture.

The one that cooperated most deeply with them was not anyone else, but CCTV-6.

Xingdou Culture has become the designated partner of the film channel, and all the TV movies shot by the Six Princesses this year used their people.

Some of these projects were even monopolized by people from Xingdou Culture, from directors to production managers.

Thanks to this situation, with the support of Xingdou Culture behind the scenes, the salaries of these signed behind-the-scenes practitioners have generally increased by about 10% compared to last year, and the situation of salary arrears has never happened again.

This has greatly increased the reputation of Xingdou Culture among behind-the-scenes personnel in the film and television industry. Many behind-the-scenes students from schools such as Beijing Film Academy and Central Academy of Drama chose to sign contracts with Xingdou Culture right after graduation.

Wang Hao was also very satisfied when he looked at the information submitted by Zhuang Xueping.

"Boss Wang, after the branch in Hengdian is opened, we don't plan to open any more branches in the future."

Zhuang Xueping looked at Wang Hao, who nodded with satisfaction, and told him about the company's follow-up plans.

"Oh, why?" Wang Hao put down the documents in his hand and looked at her.

"Having a Hengdian branch covering the southern part of the country is enough. It is not very cost-effective to open branches in film and television bases in other places.

And boss, you said before that the future is the era of the Internet. Our official website is doing well now. The company plans to increase investment in this area and continue to upgrade and improve it, making it a professional website dedicated to serving production companies and film and television practitioners."

After hearing Zhuang Xueping's remarks, Wang Hao also expressed his approval.

"Yes, your idea is very good. A website that provides services for film and television projects and practitioners may not have a large market prospect, but it is highly professional and will probably soon take the lead and become a powerful supplement to the company's business."

Zhuang Xueping was very happy to get the recognition from her boss. At least now, the starting capital for operating the website was finally secured.

You should know that although Xingdou Culture has signed contracts with many people, the commission rate for each contracted person is only 10%.

Other income, including personnel training and assessment, is barely enough for the company to maintain daily operations. If it wants to upgrade the website, it will have to seek help from the head office.

Wang Hao had no objection to this and readily approved the money for Zhuang Xueping.

But after saying all these things, Wang Hao also told Zhuang Xueping something new.

“After I go back, I will promote it to the contracted personnel in the company. Our Galaxy Pictures has reached a strategic partnership with Sony Pictures and Columbia Pictures in Hollywood. In the future, the company will participate in the shooting and production of many Hollywood movies.

This requires a lot of behind-the-scenes workers who are proficient in English and can communicate with Hollywood actors and staff.

In the future, whoever has good English and high skills will be able to join those Hollywood crews, earn higher salaries, and add more impressive projects to their resumes.”

"Working in Hollywood?!"

Zhuang Xueping was also shocked by Wang Hao's words.

She was just the person in charge of Xingdou Culture, although she knew that Wang Hao was a well-known director and that his movies had been popular in North America.

But she was not aware of her boss's movements, so naturally she didn't know what Wang Hao did when he went to Hollywood this time.

For those working in the Chinese film and television industry today, Hollywood movies are synonymous with high-end.

Anyone who can make it there, whether an actor or a behind-the-scenes worker, can be said to be a leader in the industry.

Examples include actors like Jackie Chan, Chow Yun-fat, and Li Lianjie, directors like Ang Lee and John Woo, and Yuen Woo-ping behind the scenes.

Now Wang Hao actually said that Galaxy Pictures can arrange people to join the Hollywood crew. This is like one person's success will bring prosperity to the whole family. How can this not be surprising?

“Not to work in Hollywood.”

Wang Hao knew that the other party had misunderstood, so he explained:
"We will take advantage of low labor costs and guide Hollywood film companies, including Sony Pictures, to shoot and produce their projects in China, just like we did with the film 'Taken'.

Of course, the prerequisites for the successful implementation of this plan are that the relevant supporting facilities are in place, and that we can provide experienced behind-the-scenes practitioners who are familiar with the Hollywood film industrialization process and can communicate proficiently in English. "

Only then did Zhuang Xueping understand what Wang Hao meant.

However, even if she was not arranging personnel to work in Hollywood, she was very excited about Wang Hao's plan to introduce Hollywood film projects.

After all, it is a project introduced by their own company, so naturally they will give priority to the contracted personnel of Xingdou Culture, and this will also become another powerful tool for Xingdou Culture to recruit those behind-the-scenes workers.

It is even possible that they can try to recruit one or two directors and actors who look down on Star Culture.

After all, in this day and age, which actor doesn't want to act in a Hollywood movie, and which director doesn't want to say that he has directed a Hollywood blockbuster?

"Don't worry, Mr. Wang. I will definitely pass on this message. At the same time, I will also organize English training activities for those who signed the contract. I will do my best to improve the English level of those staff members and ensure that they will not fall behind when the time comes."

Wang Hao nodded.

"Well, OK, as long as you know it, go and make the arrangements. You can also communicate with the Beijing Film Academy and the Central Academy of Drama.

After all, compared to people in society, it is easier for students on campus to learn English.”

(End of this chapter)