Chapter 140: Spring, the Season of Harvest (1)
TL: emptycube / ED: Isleidir
“Two million! Two million for the first week!”
The SBE Film CEO shouted while slamming the table.
“This is our goal.”
A few strands of wispy hair remained on his chin. He had lost so much weight that his eyes were sunken with large dark circles. He made people recall the zombies on the poster. The employees, who also struggled through the rigorous schedule for the past few months, were the same.
“Hollywood blockbusters are waiting like a shoal of piranhas. National movies opening on the same day are strong competitors as well. People don’t wait long these days. We need to break through with the first week’s score or else…”
“Our screen time would be taken by the shoal of piranhas.”
The project producer said with a frown.
As if he just imagined it, the CEO’s legs were shaking.
“Marketing is key, marketing! If we want to pull in as many people to watch it in the beginning, we need to pour all our efforts into marketing!”
“We have been releasing press releases every day starting last week.”
The PR Team employee, Kang Minjeong, said with a partly hoarse voice.
“We have advertisements on buses, subways, and billboards as well. Our main trailer already has 4 million views.”
“Good. How are the comments?”
“The production team made an amazing trailer. There’s no way the comments will be bad.”
The production producer blinked his sunken eyes as he smiled.
“We put our soul into it.”
“Thanks to that, we’ve received comments like these.”
“What?”
“’The trailer is everything. Since I’ve seen it, I probably don’t need to watch the movie.’”
Silence hung in the meeting room. Soon, a suppressed laughed escaped. As though it was infectious, laughter quickly spread throughout the room. The zombie employees all had meaningful expressions on their faces as they laughed.
“’The trailer is everything’? They don’t even know how much we didn’t show.”
“Although that was what we were going for, I want to tell them.”
“I wonder what their reactions will be once they see the movie?”
“I know, right? I want to invite them all to the preview.”
“Ah, the reporters were curious about that.”
Kang Minjeong twirled her pen as she said,
“They were asking why we were offering so many free previews. They were wondering if we weren’t worried that our opening score will be negatively affected by word of mouth.”
“Only those who aren’t confident in their work worry about that.”
The project producer snorted.
“That’s what I told them. That we were doing it on purpose to get some word of mouth marketing.”
Kang Minjeong’s red lips curled upwards.
“The previews will be the fuse. Once word of mouth spreads, we’ll boost our marketing efforts and bring up the sales for the premiere. The people who watched in on opening day will spread it through word of mouth again. It’ll snowball from there.”
“How are the press and VIP preview preparations going?”
Kang Minjeong looked at the list of guests at the CEO’s question and laughed.
“It’ll be as splendid as a film festival. We sent tons of invitations to Director Choi Sungwon’s personal connections and friends of our cast. Even if only half of them attend, we’ll be all over entertainment news columns.”
After informing them of a few top stars who would be attending, Kang Minjeong added,
“Neptune will be there, and Seo Jijoon agreed to come as well. Chief Jung Sunwoo said he’ll talk to the leads at Royal Family today so if we’re lucky Yoon Taekyung, Seo Eunkyo, and Im Joowon could come too.”
“Ah, Royal Family starts this week, right?”
“Today’s its first broadcast.”
The CEO licked his lips.
“We’ll benefit if Lee Songha becomes even more of a hot topic. I hope their ratings are great.”
“I hope so but it won’t be easy.”
“Why? From the rumors, it seems the quality is good? China seems to be excited about it as well.”
“The project is good, but they have bad luck with their competitors.”
“Competitors?”
Kang Minjeong clicked her tongue.
“They’ll probably have a rough night.”
*
“Bastards!”
PBS’s drama director swore.
A chill smacked the inside of the director’s office. The chief producer in charge of Royal Family, Director Sung from Well-Made Productions, Writer Jang, and Director Woo. They were all sighing with frozen faces.
It was because of the ratings chart on the table.
Two lines were highlighted.
{IBC’s ‘Benz after the Crappy Car’ Episode 2. 15.8% national ratings.}
{UBS’s ‘Afterlife’ Episode 16. 11.8% national raitings.}
“If you add those two together, their ratings exceed 27%. What do we do?”
“I know, right? Why did you schedule things like this?”
Writer Jang said while brushing her hair to the side.
The pearl earrings hanging from her ear shook violently.
“We needed to start at the same time. Don’t you know that we’ll be at a disadvantage if we start late? Drama performances are set after the fourth episode. Young viewers these days don’t watch on air dates if they miss the previous episode. They wait to binge watch it after the drama ends.”
“Writer Jang. I’m the director here. How could I not know this? If those immoral bastards didn’t scheme, all three companies would have started new dramas at the same time!”