America Tycoon: The Wolf of Showbiz-Chapter 761 754 All Members Mental Split

Night Color Club, second-floor VIP box.

In the soothing music, four girls of different hair and skin colors swung their long hair, helping the four generous clients of the night wash their faces.

Martin closed his eyes, relishing the real touch.

Next to him, Nolan had specifically chosen a black girl, one whose skin shone under the light.

Leonardo and Nicholson leaned back in their chairs, as if their spirits had wandered off to another place.

The music paused, and the face-washing came to a halt.

Martin took out a stack of cash and placed it on the table, "Continue."

Glancing at the thickness of the cash, one girl turned the music back on and started a new round of face-washing.

Half an hour later, four refreshingly clean men came downstairs and one by one, climbed into a business van.

Bruce was already seated in the driver's seat.

Martin said, "To the cinema, for the midnight screening."

Nolan buckled his seatbelt and said, "Thinking that I have to contribute to that asshole Jon Berg's box office always pisses me off."

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Martin opened the car's refrigerator, handing out a bottle of water to each person, "I heard that before a death-row inmate gets the electric chair, they're given a decent meal."

Leonardo reminded him, "That's not very politically correct of you; we are publicly against the death penalty."

Nicholson nodded, "Like Harvey and the Affleck Brothers, if they could really be sentenced to death, being executed wouldn't be as fun as dropping the soap."

Leonardo teased him, "Jack, are you planning to go in and help them pick up the soap?"

Martin, the goofball, casually grabbed a fist-sized stone sculpture that Lily had left in the car, squeezed it hard in his hand, and the stone clattered at Nicholson's feet.

Nolan couldn't help but burst into laughter, saying, "Jack, pick it up quickly!"

"Pssh, I'm not afraid of you guys." Nicholson picked it up and threw it back to Martin, then demanded, "This is nice, did Lily carve this?"

Martin passed it to him, "Take it."

Nicholson didn't stand on ceremony with Martin, examined it closely under the light, and then casually stuffed it into his pocket.

The car drove into the underground parking lot of Century City Plaza, and the five slightly disguised individuals went upstairs together into a VIP box of a movie theater.

After the five of them sat down in the second-floor box, there was still plenty of space.

With the lights fully turned on, looking down from the second floor, the walls on both sides of the theater were adorned with posters depicting the male protagonist battling giants.

Tonight, "Jack the Giant Slayer" was set to officially begin its North American cinematic journey.

Martin and the others had come to see the advance screening.

More precisely, it was Nolan who had invited Martin out to watch the preview of this movie, and then Martin had also called on Leonardo and Nicholson.

Jon Berg's arrogance had thoroughly irritated Nolan, and like Martin, the distinguished British director was eager to see a film finished in a so-called brilliant manner fail.

As the film was about to start, the experienced Nicholson asked the box service for a blanket and reclined his seat even further back to make sure he could sleep more comfortably.

Martin asked, "You're planning to sleep before the film even starts?"

Nicholson said, "After hearing about Jon Berg's 'genius' creativity from you guys, I have no hope for this movie. I'll watch the beginning, then get a good sleep because Jennifer is coming to my place to stay the night."

Leonardo, following the example, called the box service, "Bring four more blankets."

Martin said, "I paid a high price for these VIP tickets, just to sleep?"

The service brought four more blankets, and all four spread the blankets over their legs, ready to pull them up and sleep if they felt sleepy.

The lights dimmed, and the Warner Bros. introduction lit up the big screen.

Then Jack, the poor boy, embarks on his journey to reverse his fortunes with a princess who's rich and beautiful.

The film's cinematography was splendid, and the special effects were exquisitely produced, but the protagonist Jack acted like a lunatic.

Just a few minutes before, he had a serious expression, brooding and deep, and then with a screen transition, he turned into a vulgar joker. Not long after, he switched to a Shakespearean romantic lead of Medieval England, then became as righteous as Mother Mary, but the next moment he became ambiguously good and evil.

It was as if different souls were controlling this shell that was protagonist Jack.

In just over twenty minutes, not only Jack but also the other main characters underwent constant shifts in personality, jumping back and forth in a range reminiscent of the spectrum between "Scream" and "Scary Movie."

All the main characters in the film were schizophrenic.

Snoring sounds emerged; Nicholson put in earplugs, covered himself with the blanket, and slept soundly, even starting to snore.

At this moment, Leonardo said, "If you took the protagonist out and edited his part into a purely solo act, it would be like having six different personalities, all damn well capable of winning an Oscar for Best Actor."

Nolan asked Martin, "How many versions did Jon Berg put together for the final cut?"

Martin, through the channel of Louise, knew quite a bit, "Apparently six versions."

"That's it, then." Nolan nodded slightly and roughly explained, "Look, although they unified the tone of the background color, the characters' personalities and the editing styles don't completely match. From my experience, that's six distinct styles."

Martin exclaimed, "Indeed, a genius's way of final editing."

Leonardo said, "If this movie is successful, I'll twist off Jack's head and send it to Jon Berg!"

Nicholson suddenly sat up, "Who wants to twist my head off?" He looked at Leonardo, "That sounded like your voice."

Leonardo pointed at the protagonist on the big screen, "That Jack."

Nicholson lay back down and went back to sleep.

Martin and Leonardo were bored out of their minds, so they simply grabbed some popcorn and coke to eat and drink while watching.

By contrast, Nolan, the director, watched with utmost seriousness.

Even a lousy movie like this could be of use to a director, as Nolan analyzed its flaws to avoid making the same mistakes himself.

But after a while, Nolan too grabbed a bucket of popcorn and started eating.

Because the film was riddled with rudimentary errors.

From the middle of the film onward, in order to pile up certain scenes, not only did the protagonist have a split personality, but he also suffered from severely insufficient presence, resulting in incoherent plotlines.

The problem was that this wasn't a showdown like Batman versus Joker, but a film purely centered on Farmer Jack as the absolute main character.

Furthermore, the film's tone was inconsistent, with some scenes suitable for adults and others overly infantilized.

Nolan, as an experienced director, didn't have a hard time identifying the crux of the problem.

In order to stack up those grandiose shots and sequences, the film's main storyline had to be sacrificed.

Nolan leaned back in his chair, no longer watching the movie attentively, as this film was so bad, he didn't even bother to glean lessons from its failure.

Because the mistakes were too elementary.

No wonder Martin always referred to Warner Bros.'s new management as the Warner Bros. Team.

Perhaps only those who floated high in the sky could edit together such a preposterously unique masterpiece?

As time went by, Martin took out his smartphone and started to scroll through Twitter.

He initially wanted to check on the advance box office numbers for "Jack the Giant Slayer," which should be available by now thanks to the current efficiency of automated online tracking.

Instead of box office data, he found that Twitter was flooded with people complaining about the movie.

"What kind of movie is this? A protagonist with at least three personalities, is he schizophrenic or am I?"

"It's not just the character; other characters are also schizophrenic, so it's definitely not that the audience is!"

"No, really, what's the style of this film? One moment it's dark and deep, the next it's comically ridiculous, then suddenly it turns into Shakespearian tender passion, it's a total mess!"

"How did the protagonist almost turn into a nobody later on? Isn't he a giant slayer? Why does it all come down to dumb luck when facing the giants?"

"I snuck out of the house tonight to catch the advance screening. Running away from home deserves nothing better than bad movies!"

"Guys, wouldn't you rather save those 8 US dollars in your pocket for a hot dog and a warm coffee? Do not come watch this super crapfest!"

"Not even ten-year-olds would watch this!"

This brilliantly produced film was intolerable to the audience; perhaps, in the words of some high-end personalities, the audience's level of art appreciation just isn't high enough.

Martin said, "Jack, can I post this on Twitter?"

Nicholson didn't open his eyes or mouth; he just lightly nodded his head.

Martin took a photo of Nicholson fast asleep, then took one of his and Leonardo's legs covered with a blanket, found an e-poster of "Jack the Giant Slayer" used by Warner Bros. for public promotion, and tweeted all three pictures.

"In the cinema, Jack the Giant Slayer has put us to sleep in a peculiar way with his boredom; we're almost asleep too."

Within minutes of the tweet being posted, it was retweeted by official Twitter accounts of major entertainment media.

Soon after Martin's tweet was out, thousands of comments flooded in.

"It's so boring, I'm deciding to go home to sleep."

"You actually managed to stay without walking out mid-way; your endurance is truly impressive."

"The movie was so bad it put Jack to sleep; that's something else."

"Go home, Martin. Isn't Elizabeth lovely? Why torture yourself here?"

Martin turned off his phone, looked at Nolan and Leonardo, and asked, "Shall we bail?"

Nolan nodded, "Let's go. This genius new production model offers nothing of value."

Leonardo nudged Nicholson, "We're leaving."

Nicholson stood up and stretched his neck, "All that refreshing sensation from washing my face, gone."

Martin declared, "Night Color Club, time for round two."

The group left early and departed the cinema.

......

Late at night, the Warner Building.

The President's office of Warner Bros. and the surrounding executive assistant offices were still brightly lit.

Jon Berg paced restlessly in front of the floor-to-ceiling window.

That evening, "Jack the Giant Slayer" had premiered in advance screenings, and while it had only been playing for a bit more than half the intended runtime, many negative reviews had surfaced online. Despite this, he still believed that the film, which was edited by combining numerous experts' opinions, would find its market.

There was a knock on the door, and McDonald entered from outside: "President, the stats are in."

Jon Berg, like a gambler waiting for the last card to be revealed, stared with wide eyes and asked, "How much?"

"1.47 million US dollars," McDonald reported the figure.

Jon Berg took two steps back and sat down on the sofa, much lower than the worst-case scenario of 3 million US dollars he had envisaged.