Caught in Affairs with Superstar

"President Yao, he came to me while we were shooting Four Killers. I actually gave you that script first, but back then you said this kind of subject matter wasn’t particularly hot in the market and told me to wait and see. Right around then President Chen came to me, so I gave him the script. He was really interested and wanted to do this project, so I signed with him."

Yao Yuanfeng: "..."

"Come on, Mengjie, that’s not cool of you. How could you not at least tell me about this? I only said the market wasn’t that hot, I never said we wouldn’t do it," Yao Yuanfeng said. "We already worked together on Four Killers, we’ve got that kind of bond, so how did that Chen Wenjun manage to poach you away again? All he knows is how to talk big, but in reality it’s all hot air. Look at these past few years, has he put out any good films? He hasn’t even launched a single decent newcomer."

Hou Mengjie chuckled and said, "President Yao, don’t get worked up. I’ve already signed this film with him. For the next project, I’ll definitely bring it to you first thing."

Yao Yuanfeng gave him a resentful look.

Hou Mengjie said, "President Yao, don’t look at me like that. Even if this one doesn’t work out, there’s always the next one. Besides, you still have Wen Bing, right? Wen Bing can shoot it too."

Yao Yuanfeng said, "Wen Bing is Wen Bing, you are you. Just because I have Wen Bing, doesn’t mean I can’t have you as well, does it?"

His eyes widened and his nostrils flared; he looked genuinely annoyed.

Hou Mengjie couldn’t help laughing and crying at the same time.

...

There was definitely a bit of acting in how Yao Yuanfeng was behaving.

If he didn’t have that skill, there’s no way he could have built New Shield up to its current size.

Deep down, Yao Yuanfeng was pissed at Chen Wenjun.

Actually daring to poach his people!

But there wasn’t much he could say to Hou Mengjie.

Hou Mengjie was different from Wen Bing; before he even worked with Yao Yuanfeng, he already had a critically acclaimed film, Kill Autumn, and everyone in the industry knew him.

When Yao Yuanfeng wanted to sign him, he wasn’t willing; he only agreed to cooperate on a film-by-film basis.

Now that Hou Mengjie wanted to work with Chen Wenjun, there was nothing Yao Yuanfeng could do about it.

It’s not like anyone stipulated he had to work with Yao Yuanfeng on every single movie.

Besides, on top of that, Yao Yuanfeng was still counting on Hou Mengjie to shoot a few more films in the Four Killers series and build a "Four Killers Universe."

These days every film project is all about building some XX Universe.

That’s because it can create a brand effect.

Which is, to be fair, true.

It’s just that very few of them actually get off the ground in any serious way.

The only one that’s really worked is Two Tigers—before it even hit theaters they shot Female Assassin, and judging from how things have turned out, that was indeed the right call.

Whenever he thought about Wen Bing and Zhou Yun, Yao Yuanfeng felt both love and exasperation.

He loved that the two of them were genuinely talented, had great audience appeal, and could deliver strong work.

He was exasperated because each of them was harder to handle than the last.

Zhou Yun was difficult because you couldn’t fool her, and because she had an agent, Zhou Lan, who nitpicked over everything else.

Wen Bing was difficult because he had a very strong sense of self and creative obsession; he didn’t want to follow the market, and he rejected New Shield’s way of working—he didn’t want to be managed.

There really is no such thing as an easy collaborator in this world.

But just like Yao Yuanfeng said at the company meeting: no matter how hard the two of them are to work with, as long as they can deliver this level of results, he’ll work with them no matter how difficult it is.

Plenty of companies are eyeing New Shield with envy, hoping to snatch the two of them away.

No matter how picky or nitpicky Zhou Yun is, it’s undeniable that she does give him face. Since her debut, she’s done fewer than ten films, and the ones she’s done with New Shield include Life, Two Tigers, Female Assassin, and the current one she’s shooting. Of course, all of them are directed by Wen Bing, but even so, you still can’t deny that Zhou Yun and New Shield have a very tight working relationship.

Other companies have tried to get Zhou Yun to do films, but so far she hasn’t taken a single one.

Yao Yuanfeng thought to himself that Zhou Yun still had quite a lot of space open in her schedule for next year; he needed to find a film where Wen Bing wasn’t the director and lock Zhou Yun in.

He couldn’t let every single film project Zhou Yun did with New Shield have Wen Bing’s fingerprints all over it.

Yao Yuanfeng didn’t bother going back to the scripts Zhou Yun had previously passed on. Instead, he opened the company’s script library and started combing through the newly acquired projects one by one, including all kinds of IPs the company had bought. He picked three, assigned them to his team, told them to get the project plans ready, and decided he’d personally take them to Zhou Yun to discuss.