Not to mention that Yuna and Seo Hyun auditioned and met Suzy by chance, Zheng Xiyi had already left S.M and walked into Hemingway Coffee Shop at this time, and the waiter saw him coming and hurriedly saluted: "Director Zheng Xiyi NIM, someone is waiting for you inside, saying that he has made an appointment with you......"

Zheng Xiyi nodded, and said as he walked inside: "Well, that's right, I made an appointment." Pen Fun Pavilion www.biquge.info"

When he walked into the artist area, Zheng Xiyi saw the two men sitting by the floor-to-ceiling window at a glance, and they also saw Zheng Xiyi, they all stood up from the sofa, smiled and nodded at Zheng Xiyi, Zheng Xiyi saluted as he walked over: "Anihasse, director of Donghyuk NIM, Brother Kong Liu, long time no see, you have worked hard." ”

The people who are waiting for Zheng Xiyi are the director of "The Melting Pot" Huang Donghyuk and the starring Kong Liu, although Huang Donghe is not handsome, but he has a doll, although he has just passed his forty-first birthday, but he looks like he is only in his thirties, he also smiled and saluted Zheng Xiyi: "A few of us are not hard, but the largest investor did not send anyone to the crew, and did not come to visit the class once, which made the rest of the crew a little uncertain, and thought that we would interrupt filming at any time because of lack of funds." ”

It is normal for other people in the crew to have such worries, generally speaking, even if the investors do not go to the crew to keep an eye on themselves, they will send an agent to stay in the crew to check and balance the power of the director, because if the director is allowed to control the funds himself, overspending is almost an inevitable result, but the investors of "The Crucible" have never been to the crew from beginning to end, which is definitely a very strange thing, coupled with the particularity of this movie, how can the people below have no doubts.

"Haha, Director Huang NIM, I'm going to be in trouble, I don't want this movie to be released in South Korea, otherwise how will I get back the money I invested. Zheng Xiyi laughed when he heard this.

Huang Donghyuk shook his head with a wry smile, he was also uncomfortable with this, except for him and Kong Liu, Huang Zhiyong and a limited number of other people in the crew who knew where the funds came from, the others were completely unaware, which was one of the conditions for the church to allow them to shoot this film. After all, Zheng Xiyi is not only famous in South Korea, but also has a high reputation in Asia and internationally, if his investment in "The Crucible" is leaked, the movie will be able to become popular all over Asia through Zheng Xiyi's popularity before it is released, and the church will naturally not allow such a situation.

Kong Liu said with apology in his eyes: "Xiyi, thank you really this time, if it weren't for you, I'm afraid it would be difficult to make this movie." ”

Zheng Xiyi waved his hand and said firmly: "Animida, Brother Kong Liu, even if there is no me, this movie will be filmed and released, it doesn't matter if this movie is me or not, as long as you are still insisting, it will definitely appear in all cinemas in South Korea." ”

His tone was very sincere, and he didn't mean anything modest, because in his previous life, although the "Melting Pot" crew was so short of funds that they couldn't even afford to hire supporting actors, so they could only let Kong Liu's mother make a cameo for free, but Kong Liu finally completed the movie with great difficulty by himself, and finally created the miracle of "a movie changes the law of a country".

Hearing him talk about the movie theater, Huang Donghe and Kong Liu glanced at each other with some embarrassment, their lips moved, but they were embarrassed to speak.

Observing the face is one of the basic skills of an actor, Zheng Xiyi immediately noticed the eye contact between the two of them, raised his eyebrows and asked, "Could it be ...... Are there any new obstacles?"

Huang Donghyuk exchanged a look with Kong Liu again, and then said with some embarrassment: "Director Xiyi, the movie has been filmed completely, and the schedule is scheduled for late September, but it's just ......"

"Just what?" Zheng Xiyi looked at Huang Donghyuk curiously.

Huang Donghe was speechless, Kong Liuyi gritted his teeth, and bowed deeply to Zheng Xiyi: "Crisp Ode Hamida, Xiyi, the first week of the release of "The Melting Pot...... Probably less than two hundred screens!"

Zheng Xiyi blinked, looked at Kong Liu and Huang Donghyuk, both of whom lowered their heads with shame on their faces. South Korea now has about 2,500 screens, less than 200 screens in the first week of the release, that is, on average, less than one of the ten screens is showing "The Melting Pot", and South Korea has a small territory, so the area of movie theaters is generally not large, except for a few luxury movie theaters, most movie theaters do not have ten screens at all, and 200 screens means that most movie theaters do not show "The Crucible" at all.

"Uh......" Zheng Xiyi pondered for a moment, and asked hesitantly, "You guys are just for this, Brother Kong Liu, what is there to apologize for such a trivial matter?"

Huang Donghyuk and Kong Liu were dumbfounded, is this still a trivial matter?

Logically speaking, this is not a trivial matter. The number of screens in the first week of release shows that the theater has good or bad market expectations for this movie, and the more the number, the more optimistic the theater is about the movie, and the small number is naturally the opposite. Many low-cost movies can have two or three hundred screens in the capital, if it is a movie of famous directors and actors, four or five hundred screens are considered normal, although Huang Donghyuk and Kong Liu are not first-line, but they are also the best in the second-line, but they only got about 200 screens, which shows that South Korea's major theaters are not optimistic about this movie at all.

In fact, the theater chain is not optimistic about it, in fact, it is not deliberately difficult, and their reasons are very good. In a country with more than half of the population, it is very likely that the market will react coldly or even be boycotted, so the theater chain can only take out such a screen to test the water, Kong Liu's agency CJ Entertainment also has its own theater chain, and the agent once asked Kong Liu if he could first screen the movie for a week or two to see the market reaction and then consider whether it will be released publicly, obviously even CJ Entertainment is not very optimistic about the box office of this movie.

Kong Liu said to Zheng Xiyi with some excitement: "Xiyi, you don't have to comfort me, how can you do it with such a small number of screens, you can't recover the cost at all!"

Zheng Xiyi shrugged and said: "If you can't get it back, you can't get it back, I didn't plan to recover the cost of this movie, no matter how much box office income there is, I will donate it." ”

"MO?" Kong Liu and Huang Donghe said, "Don't you deduct the cost first?"

Zheng Xiyi nodded, "Originally, this movie didn't cost much, and I said at that time that I wouldn't set a fund cap for you, but in the end, you didn't even spend a billion won, which is too saving." ”

Huang Donghyuk hurriedly said: "It's not that we save, there are no big scenes in this movie, almost all the actors are paid zero, and Huang Zhiyong's writer NIM also confiscated the copyright fees, so except for the cost of the film and the salaries of the rest of the crew, there is really no big expenditure." ”

Kong Liu also nodded again and again and said: "**** Actually, I originally calculated, if I can't find an investment, how much money will I have to make up to finish filming it, and I had to prepare six to seven hundred million under the most economical situation at that time, but now I have spent almost one billion, an extra fifty percent of the expenditure, which is already very good." ”

Zheng Xiyi glanced at Kong Liu and sighed secretly in his heart. Kong Liu became a popular actor with a "Coffee Prince No. 1 Shop", but then enlisted in the army for two years, so he didn't have any money at all, and after retiring from the army, he began to prepare to raise funds to shoot "The Melting Pot", but he couldn't even get out the filming funds of six or seven billion won, which shows that the income of Korean artists is not as good as outsiders think.

"Xiyi, are we really not fighting for it anymore? at least we have to have more than three hundred screens, right?" Kong Liu saw that Zheng Xiyi didn't speak, and couldn't help but persuade him again.

Zheng Xiyi saw that he and Huang Donghyuk really minded about the number of screens, so after thinking about it, he changed his words, "Then let's do it, I'll think of a way, but maybe even if there is an increase, it won't add too much, after all, the theater is still willing." ”

Huang Donghyuk and Kong Liu couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief at the same time, and finally had a little smile on their faces, after all, it was a film they worked so hard to shoot, and naturally they didn't want to fail just because there were too few screens.

However, Huang Donghyuk is a director after all, and he knows a lot more about cinemas than Kong Liu, so he couldn't help asking: "Director Xiyi, which cinema are you going to talk to?"

"Rakuten!"

Huang Donghyuk's heart moved, remembering that it was rumored in the circle that Zheng Xiyi and Zhang Yunshan, the executive director of Lotte Department Store, had an unusually close friendship, and couldn't help but look at him again, secretly wondering what the relationship between these two is, could it be that Zheng Xiyi hasn't even looked for a girlfriend for so many years, is it because of Zhang Yunshan?

Zheng Xiyi wants to know what Huang Donghyuk is thinking, so he has to beat him up......

Kong Liu didn't think about it so much, Huang Donghe didn't have much contact with Zheng Xiyi after all, and he didn't know much about him, so he would think crookedly, but Kong Liu had almost blind trust in Zheng Xiyi's character because of Zheng Xiyi's investment in him to shoot "The Melting Pot", so he didn't believe the rumors in the circle at all, but rubbed his hands and said excitedly: "Since Xiyi, you plan to convince Lotte, then I will try to go back and talk to the company, I can't rely on you alone for everything." ”

Zheng Xiyi didn't be polite to him, nodded with a smile and said, "Okay, then let's both go back and try it." ”

Hwang Dong-hyuk was still doing post-editing for the movie, and Kong Yoo was in a hurry to go back to CJ's executives, so he didn't stay any longer, and the three of them chatted a few more words and went to their own business.

That night, Zheng Xiyi made a phone call with Zhang Shanyun and asked her to help ask the person in charge of Lotte Cinema Line to have dinner together, although Zhang Shanyun didn't ask him why he wanted to find the person in charge of Lotte Cinema Line, but Zheng Xiyi invested in the filming of "The Melting Pot" She knew, so she casually agreed, Zheng Xiyi thanked him and hung up the phone. He didn't directly ask Zhang Shanyun for help because it was about the church, although Zhang Shanyun was high up, his goal was also obvious, coupled with the cruelty of the struggle among the wealthy families, in case he was stabbed to the church by other people from the Xin family, Zhang Shanyun would be troublesome even if he was not afraid, and Zheng Xiyi didn't want to bother her, so just ask her to introduce her and build a bridge.

As soon as he hung up Zhang Shanyun's phone, Xu Xian's message came, and he naturally said that he was going to the interview today. In fact, Zheng Xiyi got the news from Li Chengman in the afternoon, and Director Li Yongzhou had a good impression of Xu Xian, but it definitely couldn't be decided at the time, so it would take a few days to know the result. Xu Xian has no experience and can't see whether the director is satisfied with him, so he is very uncertain, so he is a little nagging to Zheng Xiyi to review the mistakes he made during the audition, Zheng Xiyi smiled silently while explaining to her the correct way to deal with it, and the two of them unconsciously said that it was almost zero.

Just when the two of them were about to say goodbye, Xu Xian suddenly said casually: "Senior, I met a member of the JYP girl group during the audition today, and I think it is quite suitable for her to play Yang Ruiyan." ”

Zheng Xiyi frowned, but his tone remained unchanged at all and asked: "Oh, is there an artist audition who matches the role like Xiaoxian?" It seems that Xiaoxian, you have a strong opponent, what is her name?"

"Missa's Suzy, Bae Suzy!"