“Besides, its cultivation system is totally different, yet it is correlated to the existing Buddhism and Taoism scriptures,” Tan Jinqi remarked.
“Do you have confidence that it’ll create the same impact as ‘Legend of Wei and Jin’—the greatest of all time? Could you guarantee that it’d be irreplicable so that others might try but would fail to recreate it all the same?” President Gao asked, thinking that Tan Jinqi would hesitate.
As if anyone would give such a baseless and blatant vow.
Even if Director Hou and Director Liu were there, they would not dare to make such promises.
Yet, Tan Jinqi answered without hesitation. “I’m certain of it.”
President Gao was rendered speechless as Tan Jinqi did not come across to him as someone conceited.
“Confidence alone isn’t sufficient,” President Gao said. “Could you ensure the desired outcome would happen regardless of circumstance?”
“Indeed, I can guarantee it would happen as we desired,” Tan Jinqi replied. “However, I doubt that you’ll buy my words. After all, it hasn’t been released yet, so we have no way to see the results. Any kind of promises made will be futile.”
President Gao nodded. “You’re right.
“I’m sorry, but we don’t dare to take the risk.” President Gao stood up as he stretched his hand toward Tan Jinqi.
The two shook each other’s hands.
“For one, the budget is too high for us. On top of that, the story genre isn’t promising.” Although President Gao rejected their offer, his attitude was way better than the people at Journey Films. Therefore, the Tan Siblings did not feel upset or disappointed.
“If you would like to film a more general genre like family drama, educational series for kids, youth idol drama, or something along those lines, we would be more than happy to work with you. I have to be honest with you that mythology series isn’t in the cards of our company’s planning.”
“Got it.” Tan Jinqi nodded and remained taciturn.
“I’m looking forward to working together with you next time,” President Gao said courteously. “I couldn’t wait to see the next masterpiece of Director Hou’s disciple. Furthermore, Director Liu has been speaking highly of your capability on various occasions.”
After exchanging several greetings, Tan Jinqi left the place with Tan Mo.
Judging from the outcome up to that point, Tan Mo no longer had any hopes in Zhulu Culture the next day.
As expected, Zhulu Culture also had a low opinion of mythology series.
Moreover, it already had its hands full with a long list of drama series waiting in-line to be developed. Hence, it had no plans on investing in a new drama series any time soon.
It had bought the rights to a few intellectual properties with the plan to adapt them into low-budget, live-action web series. For now, they were kept in view until it was the correct time to kick start those film projects.
The company executives thought that Tan Jinqi’s high-budget series was too big of a risk for them.
After exiting the Zhulu Culture building, Tan Mo came to a halt and turned her head to Tan Jinqi. “Don’t worry, Big Brother. When push comes to shove, we can just fund our own film project.”
“If we’re the sole investor of our series, what we say goes. Plus, we’ll have full control of our budget,” Tan Mo said. “Just like what you told Chairman Yao yesterday, we don’t necessarily have to look for expensive actors. There are many well-known actors with lower pay rates. We can save up the price difference of the highly paid actors and allocate the budget to production.
“Since we’re the investor of our series, we’ll have the full rights to pick the actors and decide where to use the funds. We don’t have to abide by the whims of third-party investors. If outsiders were the show’s investors, we couldn’t reject all their requests even though we wanted to,” Tan Mo commented. “Even Director Liu can’t have complete control over the filming since he has to consider the desires of those investors. He even has to come up with a believable excuse to reject the things he doesn’t want to be part of the screenplay. All in all, it’s annoying, especially since it affects one’s concentration on filming. Otherwise, ‘Legend of Wei and Jin’ could have been better than this.”
“Since we’ve decided to follow the model of Western dramas, we might as well learn the way they select their actors—prioritizing suitability of the role. There are many big hits nowadays with nameless actors who rose to stardom after the success of those movies. Of course, there are also examples of dramas with famed actors, but those were just minority,” Tan Mo explained.
“Instead of looking for famous actors or superstars, hoping that we can use their fame to help promote our show, we should use it to make a name for unnotable actors. From then on, we’ll never worry about not having suitable actors for our future projects anymore. Regardless of the actors’ popularity, we only focus on their acting skills. We’ll build the quintessence of our production.
“Rather than looking for stars, we should make one ourselves.”
Initially, Tan Jinqi was a little dismal.
No matter what, he would still finish the film project.
As a final resort, he even thought of proposing a bet with the motion picture companies.
If he won, he would earn profits. He would pay for it if he lost the bet.
In short, he was hell-bent on finishing the filming.
After being rejected by three companies, especially when Chairman Yao browbeat Tan Mo, he was worried about her being affected.
Although it was not to the point of becoming a lost cause, it would still have an impact on her confidence level.
After all, Tan Mo got her way in everything since her birth and was pampered by her family members and Wei Zhiqian.
She had displayed her genius intellect since she started schooling.
As a 15-year-old teenage girl who got into Beijing University and subsequently exhibited her talents in Chinese literature, history, aerospace engineering, and mathematics, it was as if nothing was too hard for her.
Everything would end up a success as long as she was involved in it.
Thus, this was the first time someone ever belittled Tan Mo’s work.
Tan Jinqi was not trying to make Tan Mo feel good, nor was he biased toward her just because she was his sister.
In truth, he thought that the script she wrote was truly amazing.
For that reason, he did not wish that Tan Mo would be affected by Chairman Yao, whose remarks were clearly out of his resentment toward her.
To his surprise, not only was she not affected at all, but she already had plans for the next step.
“Did you remain silent earlier because you were thinking about all of this?” Tan Jinqi’s furrowed brows relaxed a little.
“That’s right.” Tan Mo nodded and asked in confusion, “Otherwise, what else should I think about?”
These were all critical matters that needed proper planning.
“Yup, you should think about such things.” Tan Jinqi bowed his head with a broad smile.
The words of Chairman Yao were inconsequential and needed no attention.
“What you said earlier made sense.” Tan Jinqi showed his agreement. “We should develop our show in this manner. That way, no one will have a say in whatever we do, and we’ll be more relaxed during filming.”
Tan Jinqi’s smartphone rang right after he spoke.
After grabbing his phone out, he noticed that it was a call from Wei Zhiqian.
Tan Jinqi couldn’t help but wonder why Wei Zhiqian called him since the latter would always contact Tan Mo.
Even if there were an important thing to say, Tan Mo would be the one who informed him.
So, why would Wei Zhiqian suddenly contact him?
Baffled, Tan Jinqi answered the call.
After shooting Tan Mo a glance, he blurted out subconsciously, “Uncle.”
Both Wei Zhiqian and Tan Mo were dumbfounded upon hearing that.
Uncle?
Since when did they have an uncle among their relatives?
