FOX made the biggest profit, but the second biggest winner was Chu Zhi, since Aiguo Company held a massive share of the investment as well.
On the other side, Niu Jiangxue and the others were bracing for disaster. Brother Fei and Niuniu both flew to Los Angeles, and to be precise, they'd been watching the project like hawks ever since the promotion for Unsinkable began.
Otherwise FOX would've completely swallowed up Aiguo's share. Don't think it's unbelievable for them to pocket over a billion dollars of global box office all for themselves. When it comes to profit, they'd even hang themselves from a streetlight if that's what it took.
Since FOX was in charge of distribution across Europe and America, it could easily deduct some "sky-high publicity fee" that was perfectly legal under American law. Believe it or not, FOX would even dare to claim they lost money, and they'd calculate that in units of hundreds of millions. Shameless? That word doesn't exist for them.
A lack of information is fatal in business. It's like that old vegetable-branded web novel site. Back then, writers had no idea what portion of their royalties was eaten up by "channel fees." Even if you tried crunching the numbers yourself, you'd never figure it out, because the publisher only paid you after deducting those fees. And how much were the fees? Nobody knew.
Anyway, I'll stop before I get myself killed.
Money was only part of it. For Chu Zhi, what mattered even more this time was fame.
While the Titanic was ramming its way across the global film market, My Heart Will Go On landed straight at number one on the Billboard Hot 100. To say it "landed" isn't even accurate. It was more like an airstrike. The song flooded every corner of Europe and America. People were forced to hear it so much that they grew calluses in their ears. Just the opening notes were enough to make everyone recognize it instantly.
Not only that, Chu Zhi's past two international albums, The One Gazed Upon by Gods and All Nations, Vol. 1, suddenly saw sales jump by about a hundred thousand copies daily in North America, and over a hundred and fifty thousand daily across Europe combined.
In the five days since release, aside from the first day's explosive start, the following four days still brought him an extra million albums sold in total.
Plenty of Western artists who'd just dropped new albums recently were left dumbfounded. Their fresh releases were being completely overshadowed by records that had come out two or three years ago. Ridiculous!
On a Dutch music program, a top star who was considered one of the country's cultural icons sighed in defeat.
"Just two days ago, I released a new album. Usually, whenever I put out something new, my daughter Anna is the first to call and support me. We're very close. But this time, as soon as she called, she said, 'Father, you're a famous singer too, right? Can you get me Mr. Chu Zhi's signed album? If I could have that for my birthday, it'd be the happiest day ever.' He's stolen Anna's heart."
"Oh my God. The worst part is, I can't even fulfill her wish. His signed albums are far too rare."
What really drove that Dutch star crazy was how My Heart Will Go On was everywhere at home. Playing on the car radio, in shopping malls, even live bands at bars were singing it. Whether you wanted to hear it or not, you'd end up hearing it.
Sony Music judged that before, Chu Zhi was an "Asian superstar and global top-tier singer." Now, he was classified as a "global megastar," on the same level as Akenda Bell.
Never in history, whether on Earth or in a parallel world, had an Asian singer reached such heights. For Chu Zhi, this was an elevator straight up in his career.
Funnily enough, he was literally riding an elevator at that moment. He'd just arrived at Cairo Airport and was heading down to the parking lot.
"Xiao Zhuzi, just look at it in the car." Chu Zhi saw his assistant so absorbed in her phone that she almost tripped.
"Ah, right, right." Zhuzi quickly put her phone away. She'd been reading too seriously.
She was flipping through the latest issue of People magazine. On the cover was director Cameron, with a subtitle: "Unsinkable made Chu Zhi the world's most handsome man in the eyes of women everywhere, and Chu Zhi made a great movie possible."
The interview with Cameron went like this:
[Reporter: "When the funding broke down and the actor playing Carl even quit, were you under huge pressure, Mr. Cameron?"
Cameron: "Outside factors can't change my judgment. I believed Unsinkable would succeed, so it had to succeed."
Reporter: "What are your hopes for the box office and awards?"
Cameron: "Box office over $1.5 billion worldwide. As for awards, I'm confident the Academy will love it."
…
Reporter: "During filming, was coordinating hundreds of extras the toughest challenge?"
Cameron: "Depends on perspective. The props team struggled most with the flooding scenes when Li and Rose were escaping. If a take failed, resetting the waterlogged props was a nightmare. That scene alone delayed us ten extra days.
But from the director's standpoint, the real challenge was the ship sinking into the sea. We prepared extensively. Mr. Helmer and the props team built models. We brought in professional divers for guidance. At four miles deep, we used special spotlights and cameras while divers simulated every single camera movement. Not one frame could go wrong."
Reporter: "So who contributed the most to Unsinkable's success?"
Cameron: "Do I really need to say it? The biggest contributor to any film is the director. It's like a knightly order. If they win, it's because the grandmaster led well. After that, second place goes to Mr. Chu Zhi, and third to the entire crew."
Reporter: "It makes sense for the director to be number one. But why is Mr. Chu Zhi second?"
Cameron: "The first time I saw him was in Eleventh Son. I was struck by how one person could embody both feminine and masculine beauty at the same time. Maybe the answer lies in ancient Greek sculptures. Perhaps the human idea of perfect beauty is androgynous perfection.
My sister's a lesbian, and she even said, 'If I ever had to date a man, I'd want it to be him. In women's clothing, he'd look even more like a woman than me, even without a full bust.' That's when I knew every woman in the world would go crazy for him. I had to cast him in Unsinkable, and I even rewrote the script for him."]
People also wanted Chu Zhi as a cover star, but he just didn't have the time.
And that wasn't an excuse. He really didn't. He was juggling press tours across the Arab world, Spanish-speaking countries, and all of Asia. He barely had time to push ticket sales, let alone do interviews.
So the magazine settled for Cameron. And Cameron himself wasn't the same as before either, so the editors didn't exaggerate his words.
Whether he was bragging or not, he'd earned the right.
Using Cameron's words as a lead-in, the magazine released a survey about Chu Zhi's looks.
[On Fifth Avenue in New York, they asked strangers the question: Why choose him?
An African-American woman who wished to stay anonymous said, "Why him? Because only his face can hold beauty, boyish charm, childish innocence, nobility, and sexiness all at once. The nominees, Douglas and Zimmerman, only have two or three of those traits at most. For Western male stars, it's almost impossible to mix boyishness with sex appeal."
A German woman who gave her name said, "Why ask why? Isn't the answer obvious at first glance? I can't explain it, but this Chinese star just looks better."
"Who is he? This Chinese star? I like him."
"His looks combine the best features of both Asian and European faces. I don't mean he looks mixed, he clearly isn't. It's just that his features naturally carry the strengths of both."
"You're already putting him next to Douglas and Zimmerman. That itself proves how highly you rate him. Between those three, I honestly can't choose. But if you put a gun to my head and forced me, I'd choose Chu Zhi."]
They even listed the exact vote percentages in the end, making it clear that Chu Zhi's good looks were backed by data.
Two people weren't thrilled. One of them was Zimmerman.
"What the hell is wrong with this magazine?"
As one of Hollywood's most famous weeklies, People was something Zimmerman subscribed to himself. Reading that survey left him full of question marks.
Why did they have to drag his name into it?
His agent from Sony tried to soothe him. "Mr. Zimmerman, it's recognition. Everyone knows you and Douglas are the top Hollywood heartthrobs. They only compared you with him because you're that good-looking."
Zimmerman snapped, "Just last issue, they were praising me as 'not just a pretty face, but a star with both looks and acting chops.' Now they put me in some beauty poll? And I'm not even first?"
Then he turned to his agent. "What about you? Between me and that Chinese star, who looks better?"
"…Uh…"
The People feature pushed Chu Zhi's fame to yet another level. But every coin has two sides. Outshining two Hollywood A-listers meant he'd caught the eye of a notorious nationalist organization.
After that incident where the Pope praised him, Chu Zhi had gained immense popularity among Catholics worldwide. That alone already made certain extremists unhappy. Now, with old grudges and new ones piling together, they were ready to act.
No way could they allow China to produce such an influential superstar. If necessary, assassination wasn't off the table.
The second person upset was none other than this guy:
"I really hate that Chinese man. But even sexual minorities can't deny his looks."
"Fuck, I actually contributed to his box office."
"I need to punish myself. I won't eat a single bite tonight. God, what a shitty idea."
Just from that whining tone, it wasn't hard to tell who it was.
Of course, it was Horman Hulk, the Latino rapper who broke the Black monopoly in rap, hailed by Rolling Stone as "a once-in-a-decade rap genius," and champion of Season 7 of America's Masked Singer.
Horman had planned to hold back a little during the competition, but he hadn't expected Red Lion and Old Cadillac, the later-stage contenders, to be such paper jars. Even while going easy, he still crushed them.
And that explained why Masked Singer ended up collapsing so badly that season.
"You just wait. I'll drag you down into the abyss of despair!" Horman jabbed a finger at his bookshelf. To be exact, he was pointing at the Unsinkable action figure, the one-sixth scale model of Li.
There were three versions of the figure, each with a different outfit: tuxedo, trench coat, or vest and shirt. High-quality collectible figures were expensive to begin with. A single outfit for Li cost $200, and the base figure itself was $881. Horman had bought the full set. To vent his anger, he tossed the model into a fish tank full of water. And yes, that fish tank had a name: the Abyss of Despair.