"So now this situation means Xu Youyou has basically experienced a large-scale reputation collapse."
Liu Rulan spoke with some regret.
"It just shows how heavily they marketed Xu Youyou - when faced with such problems, she had absolutely no way out."
Ultimately, it was because Xu Youyou built her career on traffic popularity, with Hao Entertainment behind her elevating her to an absolutely perfect height, molding her into a flawless goddess without leaving herself any room for retreat. Once such a persona collapses, it easily causes fan backlash as they can't accept it.
This mainly comes down to different choices - if Xu Youyou and her team had properly guided their fans from the beginning, perhaps more people would view this matter with calm attitudes.
But obviously, it's too late now - Xu Youyou has become a textbook negative case.
"So she's still doing tie-in marketing with Su Shengxi, and Su Shengxi's side agreed?" Xiao He continued asking.
"I'm not really clear about that." Liu Rulan shrugged. "I only know that 'Clear Light Like Dawn' is Xu Youyou's first work after that incident. To attract better traffic flow, they started tie-in marketing with Su Shengxi, while also trying to whitewash her image among fans."
Actually, it started with just dragging Su Shengxi into the marketing, but Yi Man'er was unlucky - being Su Shengxi's drama CP, so she got pulled into the tie-in marketing too.
Xiao He was puzzled: "What's there to whitewash about this?"
"Can't be helped. When comparing the two ex-boyfriends, fans can still accept Su Shengxi a bit more." Liu Rulan spread her hands, her expression quite meaningful. "One is a young top idol male star, the other is an older playboy - when comparing these two, fans naturally prefer the former. Some fans even shout for Xu Youyou to get back with her ex-boyfriend - they can't accept the current one."
Xiao He's mouth twitched: "They're treating it like selecting concubines, swapping whenever they want."
Indeed, entering the entertainment industry lets you witness all sorts of bizarre things and hear various seemingly artificial statements.
"But what's interesting is that Su Shengxi has managed to remain silent about this the whole time."
Xiao He rested his chin on his hand.
"Normal. No matter how much fans dislike Xu Youyou's current boyfriend now, they can't deny one thing - that guy is really rich, super rich." Liu Rulan said.
Tie-in marketing is mostly just annoying, but offending a wealthy big shot wouldn't be worth the loss.
"But it's really strange how wealthy people from over there have been coming here recently."
Xiao He muttered to himself.
Director Feng's situation was like this, Xu Youyou's situation was like this too - just not sure if these two cases are somehow connected... Maybe he should investigate this later.
"Alright, just understand this matter - it's their business anyway, as long as it doesn't affect our drama's broadcast." Liu Rulan placed a stack of scripts from the table in front of Xiao He. "During the broadcast period of 'Starry Radiance,' you can look at recent scripts. But most crews that can start production recently have rather average quality - first see if any interest you."
Then she skillfully separated these scripts and introduced them one by one: "These two are male leads, these three are second male leads, this one is a somewhat special script invitation, and the rest you can look at first."
Xiao He first looked at the two male leads Liu Rulan mentioned.
Perhaps because he previously played Shen Jue and Mu Ze, these two scripts were one historical suspense and one modern suspense.
Xiao He roughly flipped through them - neither satisfied him much.
The historical suspense script mainly focused on investigating cases, with many episodic stories where the protagonist leads his companions to participate in investigations and finally finds the true culprit.
The protagonist in this script was the type with extremely high martial arts skills, but the character image was relatively righteous, differing too much from Xiao He's goals.
As for the modern suspense drama protagonist, it felt like a copy of Mu Ze - looked okay at first, but Xiao He didn't like the final outcome, giving a feeling of the screenwriter dragging things out for ages only to produce something disappointing.
Xiao He wasn't short on points now - he felt no need to act in such things. After all, he had some fame now - wasn't it reasonable to cherish his reputation?
Finally, Xiao He sighed, shook his head, and put down both scripts.
Couldn't be helped - this was actually the dilemma many villain actors faced now.
Unorthodox protagonists were ultimately rare - most protagonists circulating in the market still remained in the realm of absolute righteousness or, even if not righteous initially, would be redeemed to become righteous. If Xiao He wanted to play unorthodox protagonists, he'd have to wait for opportunities.
And such opportunities weren't always available - like Xiao He's first second-billing male lead role "Law of the Jungle" benefited from perfect timing, location, and human factors. Next time might not replicate such an opportunity.
But comfortingly, there were many outstanding villain roles in the market now. Even if not true protagonists, if acted well, the final fame wouldn't be inferior to protagonists at all, even directly overshadowing the protagonist's brilliance - like Xiao He's portrayal of Mu Ze.
So sometimes character positioning wasn't important - what mattered was the character's inherent setting and storyline portrayal.
Seeing Xiao He's reaction, Liu Rulan knew he wasn't interested in these two male leads, so without dawdling, she directly pulled out the somewhat special script she mentioned earlier and gave it to Xiao He: "Since you're not satisfied with the protagonists, look at this one. I've been following recent suspense dramas for you - mostly just flashy tricks with superficial mystery. After filming, probably only the trailer would look good, and you wouldn't be the main role anyway. I think compared to those, this special script suits you better."
Xiao He casually took it, then raised his eyebrows, "Cameo role invitation?"
Cameo roles meant roles with less screen time and limited appearances - most such roles just made brief appearances, serving auxiliary narrative functions, commonly called plot-pushing tools.
These kinds of roles, well, even if directly deleted or recast, wouldn't affect the overall narrative pace - they belonged to tools adding hype and topics for movies.
Many movies loved inviting big-name stars or actors to make brief appearances in their films, then shamelessly promoted these cameo roles as main roles during publicity, tricking audiences into watching, only to sit through two hours with the cameo role possibly having less than a minute of screen time.
Of course, there were also serious crews properly inviting cameos - simply extending invitations for specific roles or actors to make cameo appearances. But such situations were rare now - most were manipulated by capital behind the scenes, mainly inserting their capital-backed talents for "gilding."
And what Xiao He held now was somewhat different - this director was quite ambitious, actually wanting to create a film series, inviting actors to sign contracts for series cameo appearances.
Series role cameos meant all future appearances of this role would be played by Xiao He - equivalent to Xiao He signing this role's future performance contract to ensure subsequent film role continuity, not just appearing in one film.
Domestic film series were still relatively rare now, and film series forming complete worldview systems were even rarer - this field currently represented a very new big cake domestically.
For this director to dare target this cake naturally meant he possessed certain capabilities and standards.