Chapter 18 Getting Better

"Link, you are so cool. How dare you walk forward when there were so many people and reporters just now?"

"Please call me Warrior."

Link joked that as an old director, he had participated in too many movie premieres and walked too many red carpets in his career, and today's was just a small scene.

"Sorry, Link, I didn't dare to follow you just now."

"It's okay. I understand."

Link and Chris Bauer walked into the AMC cinema and met Jerome Preston at the door. Jerome was wearing a suit, with his arms behind his back, and was also looking at him with a smile.

"Link, I just made a bet with someone about whether you dared to walk the red carpet, and I won."

"Jerome, thank you for your arrangement. This premiere ceremony can help me save a lot of publicity expenses."

"You're welcome! I don't want my cinema to be empty, but are you really the only two of you here?"

"Yes, this is Chris Bauer, the others will probably be here later."

After saying goodbye to Jerome Preston, Link and Chris Bauer came to the ticket office and bought two movie tickets to enter Theater 16, which was also the only theater in the AMC cinema showing "Buried" today.

Theater No. 16 is a small theater with only 80 seats. When Link and Chris Bauer walked into the theater, there were only 13 people in the seats.

The trailer and pre-screening advertisements for "Buried" were playing on the screen.

The trailer is also a short film that Link edited while editing the video.

There are two of them in total, and we had originally planned to broadcast them on TV after signing a distribution contract with a film company, but unfortunately that never happened.

The trailer ends and a 2-minute commercial plays.

While the commercials were playing, more than twenty people came in, and the auditorium of 80 people was barely half full.

"Michael, here!"

As the movie was about to start, Chris Bauer waved to the front row of the audience.

The waiter Michael brought a girl from the front row to the back row and sat down in the empty seat next to the two of them.

"Why are you here just now? Why aren't Justin and the others here?"

"I don't know. I asked them. Maybe they will come later."

"They should have come earlier. This Buried Alive is really good."

"Link, Chris said that you wrote, directed, and starred in the show? Is that true?"

"Yes, the movie has started, you can watch it."

The movie starts.

The first thing that appeared was a beam of light, the light of a flashlight, followed by Link's dusty face and the sound of rapid breathing.

This movie tells the story of an Asian businessman who, for unknown reasons, was mistaken for a Soviet spy. He was knocked unconscious and buried in an unknown sand pit. He only had a mobile phone, a lighter, a flashlight, a glow stick, a knife and a pen. He needed these simple tools to save himself.

"Hello, this is 911!"

"Hello, I'm buried, you have to save me, I can't breathe."

"Sir, please speak slower."

"I am buried in a coffin please save me, please send someone to find me."

"what your name?"

"Dawson, Dawson Lee!"

"Okay, Mr. Li, can you tell us your location?"

"I don't know, I'm in a coffin, a box that looks like a coffin, I don't know where, please save me."

On the screen, the protagonist was holding a phone with a look of panic and despair on his face.

"Link, your acting is pretty good. I think you're no worse than a professional actor."

Michael said.

"Fortunately, I have practiced it before."

Link shrugged.

The movie continued.

The protagonist sought help from the police, family members and friends with hope, waiting for police rescue. In the end, the police claimed that they had not found his location.

Rescue failed.

The protagonist also became desperate and began to save himself hysterically.

This scene may seem simple on the surface, but it contains reflections on the international political situation in the past few years.

Through the protagonist's experience, the film reflects that during the Cold War, many innocent people were implicated due to improper handling by government departments and because of racial barriers and distrust.

This is also an anti-war film.

Link doesn't know whether the revised version of "Buried Alive" will sell as well as the original, but he has tried his best and put everything he has into it. He just hopes that the system won't be too bad.

Bang bang bang!

At the end of the movie, more than ten people applauded, but it was sparse.

Chris Bauer also cheered loudly, Eric put his fingers in his mouth and whistled, and the other audience members heard someone applauding and clapped their hands too.

"Thanks!"

Link walked from the audience to the front, "Thank you for your applause. My name is Link, and I'm the director and leading actor of Buried. If you have any questions you want to ask me after watching the movie, you can stay and we can discuss it together."

"Director Link, did the male protagonist escape from the wooden box in the end?"

A middle-aged man raised his hand and asked.

"Unfortunately, no!"

“Wouldn’t this ending be too depressing?”

"This is reality! During the war, many people experienced despair deeper than being buried alive. It is precisely because of this despair that people can be aroused to hate war and yearn for peace. The hero died here, and his death was worthwhile."

Bang bang bang!

Many audience members applauded.

"Link, good job."

Chris Bauer shouted.

——

After attending the premiere at the Grove, Link left Chris Bauer behind and took the subway north to the Burbank City-Union Theater to check out the screening.

The city of Burbank is located north of Los Angeles and is also part of the Greater Los Angeles area. It is a residential satellite city and industrial center of Los Angeles.

Many of the world's leading media and entertainment companies have offices in Burbank.

Including Walt Disney Company, Warner Bros., NBC, Viacom Media Group, PBS, etc., Burbank is also known as the "Media Capital of the World".

Although this area doesn't have as many people as the central area of ​​Los Angeles, the media and information are well developed, and the competition in theaters is not as fierce as in the central area.

It’s not bad to have “Buried” shown here.

It’s just that Link has no money, no connections, and no fame, no celebrity guests to support him, and no media interviews on the spot, which resulted in the premiere being very deserted.

When tickets started selling, Link and manager William Mason were the only two people at the theater entrance.

William Mason was an old man in his sixties with a white beard. He wore a well-fitting suit and a bow tie, looking like an old British aristocrat.

"I've worked in the cinema for 33 years, and this is the first time I've seen such a deserted premiere. If things continue like this, there will probably be no more than 100 people coming to see the movie today."

"It doesn't matter. As long as my movie can be shown, it's already half the success."

"Haha, that's a good attitude. You'd better keep it up."

William Mason stood at the door of the cinema for a while. Seeing that no one came in to watch the movie, he sighed, put his hands behind his back and returned to his office.

Link sat on a bench in front of the cinema.

This cinema is also located in a shopping mall, but it is not as prosperous as the Grove Shopping Center, and the average daily traffic is not large. In addition, the cinema was closed for a short period of time due to renovations, so even fewer people come here.

Link sat on the bench for half an hour. Dozens of customers came and went. Five people stood at the door of the cinema looking at the posters, but no one went in to buy tickets.

Link began to get anxious, wondering if the system that had only appeared once was just an illusion caused by a cold and fever.

During this period, he ignored anyone's advice and insisted on releasing "Buried", mainly because of the 4x box office reward prompted by the system.

This is his confidence and also the motivation for him to work hard.

If the system is an illusion, does everything we did before still make sense?

An hour passed and the cinema was still deserted. No one went in to buy tickets and the ticket seller was sleeping on the ticket counter.

But during this hour, Link also figured out one thing - as a time traveler, his greatest advantages are foresight, directing skills, countless classic scripts, and decades of life experience.

Even without system help, it's not a big problem.

This time I was fooled by an illusion. Next I can continue to sell scripts, or work in other crews to accumulate funds and fame, and then direct other movies in two years.

Although the road to explosion will be slower, it is still dozens of times faster than that of ordinary people.

Link stretched and felt very hungry. He walked to the fast food restaurant next door and bought two hot dogs and a cup of hot cocoa. When he came back, he saw a middle-aged man walking into the cinema.

Today, the entire cinema is only showing one movie, "Buried", and people who enter the cinema can only watch "Buried".

Movie ticket +1.

After the man went in, another couple went in.

Movie tickets +2.

very nice.

It's getting better.

Link was worried that his luck was too bad and sitting at the entrance of the cinema would ruin his luck, so he simply sat on the bench opposite and stared at the entrance of the cinema while eating.

Today is Friday. At around four o'clock in the afternoon, the number of customers in the shopping mall increased, and the number of people entering the cinema increased from single digits to more than 20.

However, there were also people who came out halfway through the movie and complained as they passed by that there were only three or four people watching the movie in such a large theater, and it was a horror movie, which was a bit scary.

By about five in the afternoon, the mall's foot traffic increased again.

The number of people going to cinemas to watch movies is also increasing.

By six o'clock in the afternoon, more than 60 people had gone in to watch the movie.

By seven o'clock in the afternoon, the number of people officially exceeded 100, which was more than William Mason had expected.

This is a good sign.

(End of this chapter)