Chapter 157 - New Roommate
Ensuring sufficient sleep, Justin Bieber quickly returned to his form during the performance. At the same time, under the professional guidance of his vocal teacher, his singing skills had improved significantly, and the final version of Let-it-be-me sung by Xiao Jia carried a flavor of clarity and freshness, and everyone who had heard the song was left with a very special impression.
The filming of the movie "Thumping Heart" took up Lin Mingyang's entire summer vacation, and the editing was completed just in time for the new semester at Harvard. The entire film cost around $10 million to produce, but Lionsgate had to spend more money on publicity and marketing than on pure film production costs in order to get the film into mainstream theaters.
Saying goodbye to the crew, Lin Mingyang's life returned to the trajectory of the campus. The Kirkland dormitory building was still the same as before, but while going up the stairs, Lin Ming Yang found quite a few new faces, although the word freshman wasn't written on their faces, the kind of blank expression on their faces, and the various kinds of curiosity in their eyes, all of them proclaimed their identity to people.
Their arrival added some vitality to the old dormitory building, but there was not the slightest sign that something strange and weird would happen next. Green Nat and Billy Olsen returned earlier than Lin Mingyang every vacation, and as Lin Mingyang dragged his luggage into the living room of dormitory suite H33, he saw the first sign of abnormality.
Green Nutt and Billy Olsen were sitting on the sofa in the living room, Lin Mingyang thought that he would usher in some warm pleasantries, but I did not expect that the reaction of the two people to see him was surprisingly "flat", and their sad faces were about to catch up with the bitter drama.
Lin Mingyang had to take the initiative to greet them, "Hey Nat, I've already made the novel into a movie, and at the beginning of the movie I added the subtitle, 'Dedicated to Grimm Nat, who recommended this novel to me', what do you think? "
Green Nutt jumped up in excitement, hugging Lin Ming Yang and shouting excitedly, this was the version Lin Ming Yang had imagined, while the actual situation was the opposite, Green Nutt just nodded his head with a dull gaze, which was greatly out of his expectation, "Billy, what's wrong with this guy?"
The expression on Billy Olsen's face wasn't any better than Grim Nutt's as he nudged in the direction of Lin Mingyang's bedroom. Following his gaze, Lin Ming Yang saw that his bedroom door was actually open, and he immediately thought of a possibility: a new roommate had come!
Although it felt good to live in a bedroom by himself, Lin Ming Yang also knew that he couldn't enjoy this treatment for long, a situation he had prepared himself for, but the expressions of Green Nutt and Billy Olsen made him not help but be a little confused, it wasn't just a newcomer coming in, was there a need to make that kind of expression?
Lin Ming Yang dragged his suitcase and pushed open the hidden bedroom door, a very skinny gray haired boy was arranging the bedding on the empty bed that Mark Zuckerberg had left behind, the rattling of Lin Ming Yang as he pushed the door caught his attention, he stopped what he was doing and stared at Lin Ming Yang as if he was possessed.
The other party's gaze made Lin Ming Yang feel uncomfortable, he forced out a smile at the corner of his mouth, "Hi, I'm..."
Before he could finish his sentence, that skinny boy didn't have enough to rush over, one hand on Lin Ming Yang's shoulder, the other hand magically took out a cell phone, grinning, completely disregarding Lin Ming Yang's expression at this time, "click", a group photo was born on his cell phone in this way.
"Hello, Felix, I-I'm Klin Corrivet." He said under his breath, and after taking the picture he quickly retracted his hand and moved back a few steps. "I go to Harvard as well, do you think - is it possible - I'm so glad I was able to get a picture with you, can we have another one?" He held up his cell phone with an expectant look on his face.
"But didn't we already take a picture just now?" Lin Mingyang asked blankly.
"The expression on your face was a bit stiff in that one just now, and my friends will think that this photo is another one I've made up with PS, so they won't even believe that I'm actually sharing a bedroom with you." Cline said fervently, seemingly realizing that he had squeezed himself a little too close to Lin Ming Yang, he moved back a few more steps and pushed himself into the corner, his back touching the wall, "I know everything about you, every single one of my mates around me is a fan of yours, every script you've written, movie you've made, and every role you've ever acted in, I know them all by heart."
Cline took a deep breath, trembling slightly with excitement, "This dorm is so much fun, isn't it? I never thought I could actually come to this school until I got the letter from Harvard. My dad delivers newspapers, and he doesn't believe it either. So I'm going to take a bunch of pictures and send them to him. If I could have a picture with you-" he looked at Lin Mingyang begrudgingly, "maybe I could stand next to you and ask those two housemates in the hall to help me press it? And then could you sign an autograph?"
"Wait -" Lin Ming Yang raised his hand in a pause motion, "You just said photoshopping photos, you used to do this a lot?"
"I've photoshopped other celebrities, but I definitely haven't done yours. There are pictures of you appearing in the media, either in formal gowns, standing with those beautiful actresses, or a group photo of a large group of people, I simply couldn't find any suitable material." Cline said as he held up his hands and swore.
"So you're a master of photo compositing?" Lin Mingyang didn't expect to "encounter" such a roommate.
Cline nodded "modestly", "As long as I have the right material, I can make any look you need!"
"Then why does it have to be my signature photo?"
"Because I'm a master of PS, so any picture I take out of my hand, my gang of friends will think it's a processed image, only your autograph can prove that I really do live in the same dormitory as you!" Krillin clenched his fists in excitement with a look of urgency.
"You recognize both of those guys in the living room?" Lin Mingyang thought of another thing.
"Of course, they were both already here when I came, and I asked them a bunch of things about you-" Klin's words changed, "Can we take a picture now?"
----
"A whole bunch?" Billy Olsen was filled with disbelief, "Are you sure he used that quantitative word correctly?"
Lin Mingyang nodded as he nibbled on an apple, "What were the expressions on all your faces when I came in, was he really that bad?"
"Then I'll correct that Klin right now, he didn't do anything this morning, the whole morning, he kept asking us all sorts of things about you. We all ignored him, and then he droned on and on like a fly in our ears, saying one moment how much he admired you, and the next how much his group of mates envied him... we were all getting annoyed with him!"
"Even though this guy usually likes to exaggerate when he speaks, this time I can testify that the situation of things is even more serious than he said!" Grimm Nutter closed the book in his hand, and it was rare for him to be on the same side as Billy Olsen.
"He's not an undercover agent sent to you by one of the entertainment magazines, is he?" Billy Olsen unfolded his rich imagination, "Maybe he's got cameras in the bedroom, in the bathroom, and he'll secretly go through your cell phone text messages when you're asleep, and install a bug in your room to eavesdrop on your private calls?"
"You think this is a movie?" Lin Ming Yang glared at him without a trace of anger, "A guy who can study economics at Harvard would be so bored that he'd go undercover for some newspaper? And because of those damn blog posts of yours, my life at Harvard is almost semi-public, sending an undercover agent to spy on me, unless the editor-in-chief of that newspaper is brain-dead!"
Grim Nat nodded, "I agree with Felix, especially after someone shamelessly defected from the organization, H33 no longer has a private life to lead!"
"Wasn't I forced to do that?" Billy Olsen said with a wail full of aggression, his eyes rolled and he suddenly noticed the apple in Lin Ming Yang's hand, "Felix, is that the apple you bought?"
"No!" Lin Ming Yang shook his head, "This was given to me by Klin just now, he had a whole bunch of fruits stuffed in his backpack, it seems like his grandfather had a farm where he grew up."
"I talked to him this morning until my mouth was dry, why didn't he give me one?" Billy Olson became suddenly emotional, "That's not fair, that guy must have been trying to impress you on purpose!"
"Using apples to curry favor with me?" Lin Ming Yang threw the leftover cores into the garbage, "Are you out of your mind?"
"Speaking of apples, Felix, why did you choose to use apples as the cover of Twilight?" The extension of this topic reminded Green Nutt of something else, he remembered that the cover picture of Twilight was a pair of slender, pale hands a mouth-watering red apple.
"Didn't you notice that at the beginning of the book I quoted from the Bible? Old Testament 'Genesis' in chapter 2, verse 17: 'But of the tree of the separation of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.' It actually represents how Bella discerns between good and evil, and choosing whether or not to eat that forbidden fruit is a metaphor for choosing to stay with Edward or stay away from him. That apple on the cover of Twilight represents the forbidden fruit from the tree of good and evil within 'Genesis'. Symbolizing the forbidden human-vampire love between Bella and Edward." Lin Ming Yang explained
"I know that Adam and Eve stole the forbidden fruit and were then expelled from the Garden of Eden by God!" Usually Billy Olsen basically couldn't interject when Grim Nutter and Lin Mingyang were having a literary discussion, and this time he was very accomplished.
Unfortunately, his words were automatically "filtered out" by Lin Ming Yang and Green Nutt, "I heard that Disney is preparing to turn Twilight into a movie, and recently the media has been speculating about when the second novel of Twilight will come out! "
"Well, this question..." Lin Ming Yang looked at Billy Olsen who was listening with his ears on the side, "I'd better whisper it to you in private!"
"But I want to know too!" Billy Olsen had also turned into a "curious baby" at this time, but no one else would eat his words.
"If you know, the whole world knows!" Glyn Nutter gave him a contemptuous look.
This time, Billy Olsen swore with all his heart, "I will definitely keep this secret, if you don't believe me, I can give you the login password of my blog, and I will never publish any logs during this period of time, so you can supervise me!"
"You are now a 'big star', often interviewed by reporters, and after being held up by a reporter and saying a couple of good things, I guess you can even forget your last name!" Grimm Nath coldly hummed from his nose and mouth, unrelentingly sarcastic: "If you can control your own mouth, then sows can go up trees!"
Lin Mingyang, however, nodded, "Letting a reformed fox run the chicken coop, I think it's the safest bet."
Billy Olsen nodded his head vigorously, while Green Nutt felt that that sentence sounded a bit familiar.
"Not from me, that quote came from our former First Lady, Ms. Hillary Clinton!"
"I watched that news too, and I heard that she is preparing to run for the next President of the United States?" Greene Nutter came to a realization.
Although she has not yet made the final announcement of her participation in the 2008 U.S. presidential election, Ms. Hillary, who is a senator from the state of New York, has already announced that her husband, Clinton, will be placed in charge of ethics and sexual harassment complaints if she is elected.
Instead of feeling ashamed, Billy Olsen is pleased that his "slip of the tongue" is being compared to Clinton's affair. In order to win back the lost trust of his housemates, he readily handed over his account and password, and promised to scrub the toilets in his dormitory for a whole year if he leaked the information in front of the media.
"Well, in fact, I've already written the second part of Twilight, New Moon, a long time ago, the publisher has even designed the cover, and at this moment, I guess it's already started printing, and the novel should be officially released before the filming of Twilight's movie starts."
"What!" Now Billy Olsen was not doing it, "This novel is about to be released and you still want me to keep it a secret?"
"We'd rather imagine that there are ghosts in the world than believe that shit mouth of yours!" Grenade impatiently interrupted Billy Olsen's complaints as he looked at Lin Mingyang, "Quickly tell us, what's the cover of New Moon?"
"It's a fading red and white tulip, it represents Bella going through the darkest period of her life because she lost Edward's companionship and had no goal of survival."
Glyn Nutter sighed softly, "I have a feeling that's going to be a sad story!"
----
The news about the publication of New Moon eventually got out, but this time the leaker wasn't Billy Olsen, the news was deliberately put out by the publisher to attract attention, and this free publicity worked wonders, as news about the publication of New Moon soon dominated the entertainment pages.
Before the publisher even officially announced the release date of New Moon, online bookstores had already begun pre-selling it, and according to Amazon, the largest online bookstore, over 200,000 people had already pre-ordered New Moon on their website. By the New York Times' own account, the number of pre-orders for New Moon has already made the bestseller lists before it's even published.
In contrast to the high-profile debut of New Moon, which has sparked attention, the filming of the first Twilight movie, Twilight, has been slow in coming. Although Disney announced plans to film the movie right after they got the exclusive movie rights for Twilight, the film was then dropped like a stone without a trace.
It's not that Disney wants to deliberately play low profile, they also want to follow the trend of launching the movie version of "Twilight", but the director selection has been delayed. For "Twilight" such a heavyweight adaptation, Disney naturally wants to invite a heavyweight director to pick up the beam, including Stephen Spielberg, James Cameron, including the top Hollywood directors, have received a letter of intent.
On this issue, Disney made a serious mistake, they only saw "Twilight" is a best-selling novel no less than "Harry Potter", there is "Harry Potter" film adaptation of the success of the example in front, almost all of them decided that "Twilight" made box office is not a problem at all. With the lure of high box office, they all overlooked a very important point. The success of the original novel is both a guarantee of the movie's box office and a bottleneck that restricts the director's level of play and shackles the development of his talent.
In Hollywood, there is an unbreakable law, the more investment in the movie, the more can not show the style of the director, but the good thing is that the box office is still a big seller. In general, the most common formula for the success of Hollywood commercial blockbusters is "first-rate director + second-rate actor + third-rate script" or "first-rate actor + second-rate director + third-rate script", and screenwriters have not been emphasized for a long time, and the plot of Hollywood commercial blockbusters has been criticized. The plot of Hollywood commercial blockbusters has also been criticized.
Harry Potter" "first-class script + second-rate director, actors" success can only be considered a special case, with the strong appeal of the original novel, the movie can still be commercially successful after the adaptation. But the movie is a complete replica of the novel, in which you can't see any traces of the director's personal style. The Harry Potter movies have made several young actors famous, but I guess not many people will remember who the director of the movie is.
The directors who received the letter of intent from Disney were all considering the same problem: a movie that could not leave its own style mark, even if commercially successful, would still be a failure for them.
Just like when mentioning ET, people will immediately think of Spielberg, when mentioning Star Wars, people will always associate it with George Lucas, and for Titanic, no one will ignore James Cameron's name. It's a tragedy for a director if mentioning a movie makes it a habit for people to ignore the director.