Chapter 1017 - Reinforcements Are Here Again, Reinforcements Are Down Again!

May 1st, Tuesday…

Pei Qian’s impression of 2012’s May Day holiday was supposed to be on the 29th, 30th, and 1th. However, in fact, it had changed from the 28th to the 2th. Obviously, there have been some subtle changes in the development of this world.

However, this was obviously a good thing for Pei Qian. He was already very unhappy with the behavior of ‘taking two days off to make up for three days off’. Many times, he would have to take three days off to make up for it. In the end, he would have to take two Saturdays. It could be said that he took three days off, but in reality, he only took one day?

It was much more reasonable to arrange for holidays like this.

What’s more, Pei Qian felt that it was a good thing for the company to have more holidays and less employees to work.

It was a rest day, but Otto Technologies’ news conference was very urgent. Thus, Jiang Yuan applied to work overtime for two hours today to discuss the details of the news conference with Boss Pei.

After some thought, Pei Qian gave Jiang Yuan five times his daily salary and agreed to his request.

It was a pity that Pei Qian could not get his own salary from the company. Otherwise, according to the standards of working overtime, Pei Qian would probably work overtime until his employees started doubting life.

All in all, he decided to watch the movie first.

Pei Qian put on his mask and strolled to a small cinema near his residence.

On one hand, it was because they were close to each other. It was more convenient for them to walk for a few minutes. On the other hand, it was not easy to buy tickets because the popular cinemas were all full.

In fact, Pei Qian was very happy to see the popularity of Greyhound. That meant that Vinci Media’s efforts had not been in vain!

They had spent money to publicize the movie, hired fake reviewers, and made use of the popularity of Mission and Choice. After putting in so much effort, it would be unacceptable if the box office on its first day did not explode.

Even Boss Pei would find it difficult to do so, let alone them.

Pei Qian arrived at the cinema. There were only a few minutes left before he entered the venue. He casually strolled around and saw a lot of publicity materials about the Greyhound in the hall.

One of the most eye-catching was a poster. In the middle of the poster was the title ‘Greyhound’ in metallic and artistic words, which divided the poster into two parts.

On the top half were two men and a woman in military uniforms. The wreckage of the starship in the sky had a long tail of flames trailing behind it. In the distance was the sunset. On the bottom half was a warship floating alone on the vast sea. In the distance was the huge shadow of the alien ship. The warship was completely shrouded.

He had to admit that the poster was quite good.

However, Pei Qian felt that the handsome man in the middle looked a little familiar when he saw the three main leads. He seemed to have seen him somewhere before.

However, his long hair had now become short.

“Lead actor: John Stanton?”

“Why does this name sound so familiar?”

Pei Qian suddenly felt that something was amiss. He quickly took out his Gou Yan application and clicked on the details page of the movie “Greyhound”. Then, he clicked into the main actor’s personal space.

As expected, this lead actor John Stanton’s last movie before “Greyhound” was Flying Star Journey!

“Why is it you again!”

Pei Qian almost fainted on the spot.

He still remembered the introduction of Flying Star Journey. It said that in order to play the role of the protagonist’s former officer, Tim, the main lead, John Stanton, worked very hard to complete harsh physical training during the filming. He completed the filming while enduring the pain and torture, and he lost a total of 25 pounds. He was a model of professionalism.

Before ‘Flying Star Journey’ was released, they had almost blown the director, Darryl, and the lead actor, John Stanton, into the sky. Pei Qian had thought that the movie would at least hit a billion yuan at the box office once it was released, right? In the end, it only earned less than three hundred million yuan in the domestic box office. The global box office was even worse.

Yet, why was this person playing in the Greyhound?

Could the director also be…

Pei Qian looked at the cast list of the Greyhound and realized that the director was no longer the same Daryl. He could not help but heave a sigh of relief.

Good, good.

He thought that he was going against this group of people!

It would not be bad news if they were to go against each other. The key was that the team from Flying Star Journey was too weak. Boss Pei could not trust them.

The director’s resume was not bad. He had filmed a few more famous movies.

Pei Qian could not help but praise John Stanton.

It looked like this brother was quite wise. He knew very well that he could not hang himself on one tree. He had to try changing a few more trees. The failure of Flying Star Journey last time was obviously the director’s fault. It should not be a big problem if he changed the director this time.

Pei Qian entered the theater full of anticipation.

…

Two hours later, Pei Qian walked out, looking confused.

What did he watch?

Logically speaking, the special effects of this movie were quite good. Especially when the battleship was drifting on the sea and the cannons were firing at the same time. The intense artillery fire and shockwaves caused layers of ripples on the sea surface. The visual effect of this scene was very shocking.

The alien armor and warship looked quite good in the movie. It looked very technological.

There was also a disaster scene where an alien spaceship crashed into Earth’s artificial satellite and fell above the city. It was also a standard disaster movie with outstanding effects.

However… except for the big scenes created by these special effects that were more memorable, what about the other parts??

The key was that the plot logic of this movie did not seem to make sense.

Pei Qian took out his cell phone and searched for the reviews of Greyhound online.

“It’s a classic American-style patriotism educational film. There are many special effects but they can’t cover up the stupid plot. There’s nothing else to talk about other than the special effects.”

“Alien, can you bring some highly-intelligent soldiers and high-quality weapons with you to invade? Is it your nature to be broken by a sniper rifle?”

“There are too many points to complain about, but it’s reasonable. After all, this film is to promote the navy. Most military fans only want to watch the battleship drift and the sixteen-inch cannon fire on the big screen. It doesn’t matter who it hits.”

“Those who complain about the plot don’t understand movies! The aliens obviously came to Earth with a friendly purpose. They are all passive counterattacks…”

“I think if most people don’t understand the plot of a movie, it should be the director’s problem. They were filming all sorts of nonsense that had nothing to do with the main storyline for at least half an hour. Wouldn’t it be better to take some time to introduce the basic settings?”

“Why are many military fans saying that this movie is good? The label of this movie clearly has a ‘sci-fi’! I also came to watch it because of the sci-fi theme, but in the end, this is it? An extraterrestrial spacecraft that can travel in space has actually been sunk by a warship that humans have already retired. Isn’t this really making me laugh?”

“To be honest, I didn’t think that Mission and Choice’s plot was that good before. At that time, I also thought that watching movies like Mission and Choice would just be watching special effects. It didn’t matter if the plot was a little stiff. In the end, after watching Greyhound, I realized that there was nothing but special effects… Mission and Choice’s plot is much better than it…”

“There’s also the actor’s acting skills. I thought that John Stanton was also a veteran Hollywood superstar, but why is his acting like this? Did this protagonist have a screw loose in his head in the movie? He ordered his subordinates to attack the alien warship and kill a boatload of people with an egg hitting a rock. He even had to rely on his subordinates to strangle him to wake him up. Is this the professionalism of a soldier? I don’t know if it’s the script or the actor’s problem. Compared to Captain Qin Yi, this is simply an insult to soldiers…”

“So, is the movie bringing down the actors or are the actors making the movie bad? John Stanton had Flying Star Journey before and then Greyhound now. Both of them were heavyweight blockbusters, but both of them had failed at the box office. Greyhound’s box office might look better than Flying Star Journey, but it would probably still lose everything. The main actor, John Stanton, would probably have a hard time…”

“We have to talk about Lu Zhiyao, who is also known as the ‘toxicity in the box office’. Look at how he failed to produce one movie after another when he was filming the previous ones. It looks like no one can bring him along. However, didn’t he turn that around once Boss Pei made his move? That’s why I think the director is the bigger scapegoat.”

“Indeed, ‘Mission and Choice’ is a complete crushing comparison! I didn’t expect a domestic sci-fi film to be able to crush foreign blockbusters. Let’s not talk about it. I’ll bring my friends to watch ‘Mission and Choice’ again during the holidays!”

“The key is that previously, the publicity for Greyhound was trying to bring down Mission and Choice crazily. They said that ‘Mission and Choice’ was afraid that was why they would change the release date. That’s hilarious!”

“That’s right. How can the performance of ‘Greyhound’ make Boss Pei admit defeat? Are you kidding me? Boss Pei crashed head on with ”Fantasy Battle Remake” half a month in advance. What has that got to do with you?”

Pei Qian was speechless as he read the audience’s comments about the movie.

Who would have thought that the Greyhound that Boss Pei had placed high hopes on would fail like Flying Star Journey!

Until now, several film review websites had been reviewing “Greyhound” at around six to seven points. Many military fans might have given the movie a good score but it could not save its reputation that was on the verge of collapse in the popularity of passers-by.

Gou Yan application’s estimated domestic box office was less than 300 million yuan. This movie might have yet to be released in the Northern American Region but based on the current situation, even the domestic box office was going to fail. The Northern American Region would definitely not be much better.

The investment in this movie would most likely go down the drain.

What was worse was that this movie seemed to be benefitting Mission and Choice, just like Flying Star Journey previously!

Originally, Greyhound had spent a lot of resources to publicize it domestically. What’s more, it had secretly bound the two movies to it in order to bring down Mission and Choice. However, Greyhound’s performance was so bad that audiences could only choose to watch Mission and Choice since there were no strong competitors in the May 1st slot !

‘Mission and Choice’ might have been screening for half a month but it was still the May 1st holiday. Many people who did not have time to watch movies would enter the cinema. The audience for the movie had become much bigger. Many passers-by who had not paid attention before were attracted to it.

In other words, Mission and Choice would definitely be like Tomorrow is Beautiful during the May 1st slot. It would be able to push Gou Yan application’s estimated box office to a higher level!

Pei Qian felt hopeless.

“I understand now. You’re not here to save me at all. You’re here to mess with me on purpose, right?!”

“This main lead, John Stanton, will be blacklisted forever! I would be a dog If I were to clash with your film again!”

“You didn’t hesitate to ruin your acting career to mess with me. What a huge grudge!”

Pei Qian threw the ticket stub angrily into the rubbish bin.