During the New Year release window, there were basically three films with any real competitive weight.
There was the sequel to a police thriller about bomb disposal experts, led by two respected veterans. There was also an ensemble production packed with familiar names, mixing seasoned actors, young idols, and beloved rising actresses in an obvious attempt to move every possible segment of the audience at once. And finally, there was that sentimental drama starring a young actress whose smile was strangely unsettling and an idol whose acting only seemed visible to his own fans.
In other words, that was the menu.
That old-school crime cinema still seemed trapped in the era of undercover thrillers. It remained obsessed with the same dark alleys, the same badges, the same drug dealers, the same criminal bosses, and the same moral conflicts between cops and criminals. The moment certain veteran faces appeared onscreen, the audience could practically piece together seventy percent of the plot before the first chase even began. Either someone was hunting an undercover agent, or someone was hunting drug traffickers, or someone was collecting protection money, or some minor variation of the same formula. One way or another, everything always circled back to the police.
To be fair, the film was not exactly bad. The problem was that the audience had already developed an almost instinctive resistance to this kind of story.
It was not hatred.
It was exhaustion.
The ensemble film had a strong cast on paper. It had big names, fresh faces, popular actors, and a lineup capable of dominating online discussion for days. The sentimental drama followed a similar logic: the veteran actor had absolutely no issue carrying his scenes, but the two younger leads... were difficult to describe without sounding cruel.
In one sentence, it could be summed up like this: performances visible only to authorized fans.
If those films had been released in the middle of a sea of absolute garbage, perhaps audiences would still have managed to find some virtues by comparison. The problem was that, in the same window, there was Death Note.
And Death Note was not merely competing at the box office.
It was exposing everything else.
Especially because the film contained scenes where Alex shared the screen with a legendary actor, the two of them clashing in silence, gaze against gaze, intention against intention, as though every pause were a blade. Naturally, countless critics began comparing those sequences to the dramatic moments delivered by the young idols in the competing films.
The result did not need to be described in detail.
It was better to leave everyone involved with at least a little dignity.
Besides, the critics had already made themselves clear enough. A professional film blogger known as Duck 1900 was one of the harshest.
"I genuinely want to know who is out there selling the idea that those two can act. That confession scene in the rain was so embarrassing I almost dug an entire apartment out of the floor with my toes."
"Do you want to know what a real scene between a man and a woman looks like? Buy a ticket to wherever Death Note is screening and watch Alex and Taylor share the screen. That is tension. That is chemistry. That is acting."
Similar comments spread across the internet at a terrifying speed.
"They gathered a bunch of famous names just to deliver that soulless mess. So many storylines, and not a single one was properly written."
"How did that drama make such an absurd amount on its opening day? Is our film market really this easy to milk?"
"Honestly, everything is bad. If you walk into a theater right now, all you can do is choose the least rotten option."
"If you want to watch a genuinely good film, buy a plane ticket and go see Death Note. You still remember that one, right?"
"That ticket is way too expensive. Am I supposed to spend almost a month's salary just to watch a movie?"
"I sincerely hope Alex makes a film that can be released properly in our main market soon. Someone needs to teach these idiots what real cinema looks like."
"When Alex charges into the film market for real, all this trash is going to be buried."
Topics like these continued spreading throughout the entertainment industry. Good films were already rare enough, and in an era where capital controlled everything and mediocrity seemed to have become a collective agreement, finding a movie that did not treat the audience like idiots was already close to a miracle.
And Alex had handed in a perfect answer.
The only pity was that the answer had not been submitted to the main market.
For a while, countless viewers, long tired of being fed bad films, began calling for Alex's return online with almost dramatic intensity, as though he were some exiled tycoon unable to come home.
But to be honest, Alex was quite pleased when he saw those comments.
At the very least, they proved that his strength had been recognized by the public.
"Alex... a lot of people online are insulting me."
The girl beside him handed over her phone with a wounded expression.
Alex glanced at the screen.
The article's headline was eye-catching: "The First Young Actress to Cross a Billion at the Box Office - and Perhaps the Least Deserving of Them All."
After reading through the whole thing, its central argument could be summarized in one sentence: her status exceeded her merit.
According to the article, the girl simply did not deserve that title. The reason she had achieved such a feat was not talent, reputation, or her own star power, but the fact that she had latched onto Alex's success.
Alex fell silent.
Because, technically...
It was not entirely wrong.
But seeing the resentful look in the girl's eyes, he would have had to be completely insane to say something that stupid out loud. At a time like this, the only correct choice was to curse along with her.
It was like when a girl complained to you about her ex-boyfriend. You should never start a rational analysis about who was right and who was wrong. Your only job was to agree, curse the guy with her, and, depending on your luck, become the next candidate in line. If your luck was even better, you could skip a few steps.
Either way, there was no loss.
"Uuuh..."
It was easy to say that anyone who could not withstand criticism should not enter the entertainment industry. Just as it was easy to say that anyone afraid of being cursed by readers should not write books. But the girl was still a fifteen-year-old teenager, barely in high school. Being attacked that brutally by so many people at once would obviously hurt.
Seeing this, Alex immediately offered his shoulder.
"What are you looking at?"
Noticing Chalamet's strange gaze from the front passenger seat, Alex snapped so sharply that the young man immediately turned his head back around, almost twisting his neck in the process.
On the third day of promotion, Alex received a call from Reagan.
The question was simple: could they increase the intensity of the campaign even further?
Alex went numb.
At most, he treated people like pack animals. These capitalists, apparently, were already treating everyone like robots.
Reagan also gave him the reason.
The studio hoped the film could recover its full cost within three days.
Because...
The pirated version had already appeared.
That was right. The film had only been out for two days, and pirated copies were already circulating.
Of course, it was not a clean high-definition version. It was the shaky kind recorded on a phone inside a theater, full of heads passing in front of the camera and muffled audio. But there was not much anyone could do about that. This kind of thing depended almost entirely on the audience's conscience. You could not exactly demand every viewer hand over their phone before entering the theater.
Recovering the entire cost in three days was a little difficult.
After all, compared with the first part, the second half of Death Note had far grander scenes. Car chases, helicopters, complex action sequences... all of that had burned real money.
So Alex and his team took...
Three and a half days.
Well, perhaps that sounded a little arrogant.
But Death Note really had created a miracle.
After Bleach ended, not only audiences from Alex's own country, but viewers all over the world were waiting for his next work. Naturally, Death Note, released right after it, carried enormous expectations. On top of that, many fans went to see it several times with an almost devotional mindset: the more they watched, the more money they put into Alex's hands, and the more money he had, the better his future productions would be.
That was how the miracle of recovering the investment in less than four days was born.
"Alex, I can't do this anymore. Let me rest for a bit."
That night at the hotel, Taylor complained without the slightest attempt at elegance.
There was nothing strange about it. She was simply exhausted from the promotional marathon. The moment she returned to the room, she collapsed onto the sofa as though she had lost a war.
In just four days, she had lost nearly a kilogram.
Looking at her own legs, which even seemed a little slimmer now, Taylor felt the urge to remind Alex that those legs were insured for two hundred million dollars. They were precious. Extremely precious.
But when she thought about how Alex's film would most likely break into monstrous box-office territory, she suddenly felt that perhaps her legs were not quite that expensive after all.
"Want me to help?"
Alex rubbed his hands together with an expression far too helpful to be completely innocent.
"Huh?"
Before Taylor could understand, Alex had already sat down and placed those two million-dollar legs over his knees. Then he began massaging them with an almost professional seriousness.
For a moment, Taylor nearly failed to resist the urge to kick him in the face.
But she held back.
After all, facing a man only a few years older than her, yet already capable of influencing the film and television industry of the world's most populous country and now shaking the global market as well, it was truly difficult for any woman to remain completely indifferent.
If it was with this man...
Taylor would not mind trying an international romance.
Of course, she had heard about Alex's reputation as an incorrigible playboy. Not just in his own country. Overseas, too, there were enough rumors to fill a gossip column every month.
If they were going to date, Taylor would absolutely make him cut ties with those two little bitches.
Otherwise...
Her next album would have an entire song dedicated to insulting him as the title track.
"Mm..."
Perhaps Alex's technique was simply too good. Without realizing it, Taylor closed her eyes, and sounds that should not have escaped began slipping from between her lips. From that angle, Alex could also vaguely glimpse a dangerous shadow beneath the folds of her clothing, as though the forbidden forest were slowly revealing itself.
Alex felt his self-control begin to waver.
Knock, knock!
"Alex! Phone!"
At that moment, Nadia's voice rang from outside the door.
Although she would not remain his assistant for much longer either.
Alex stood and walked toward the door.
Taylor, on the other hand, darkened.
How could that short little assistant have so little awareness?
Well... considering Nadia was around one meter seventy, Taylor, at one meter eighty, did indeed have the qualifications to call her short.
What Taylor did not know was that before Alex had entered her room, he had already told Nadia that if he took too long to come out, she should find any excuse to knock on the door.
He merely wanted to experience what it felt like to massage legs insured for two hundred million dollars.
He did not truly want anything to happen.
Well...
It was not that he did not want to.
The main point was that Taylor's personality, capable of turning any disagreement into a song, was far too dangerous. Alex had absolutely no desire to become the subject of a lead single.
A week later, inside a large cinema in France, the atmosphere of the special screening was already boiling before the guests had even stepped onto the stage.
"Let us welcome, with the warmest applause... Alex!"
Yes, the team had taken the promotion to another country. Though, using the territorial scale of Alex's homeland as a reference, it was not much different from crossing into another province.
The audience screamed nonstop. Most of them were shouting Alex and Taylor's names.
There was nothing anyone could do about that. The two of them were, by far, the biggest names there.
"Taylor, in real life, do you treat love as intensely as your character in Death Note?"
As the host asked the question, he kept throwing suggestive glances at Alex.
It was obvious he wanted to stir up couple rumors.
Damn it. So foreigners liked this kind of trick too.
"No."
As she answered, Taylor even shot Alex a provocative look.
Alex scratched his head.
Was this because he had run away last time?
Was she sulking?
Couldn't they simply maintain a pure and innocent relationship based on playing cards?
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