A few days ago, overseas, Massachusetts.

Alfred Lake is one of AMC's senior department heads responsible for bringing in movies.

He was considered Thomas Lee's superior.

"Christmas schedule? What on earth is this guy Li thinking?"

When Rick saw the report on the desk, he felt that his men were becoming increasingly difficult to deal with.

Here, the Christmas season is equivalent to the Spring Festival. The holiday combining Christmas and New Year's Day is also a good time for major shopping malls to launch promotional activities. The streets are crowded, the shopping malls are packed with people, and the box office of movies is rising steadily. It is the second most popular season after the summer vacation and the Golden Week in May.

Generally speaking, just as most movies shown during the Spring Festival in China are happy and festive family-friendly movies, movies around Christmas are mainly light comedies, romance dramas, cartoons, etc.

But Thomas Lee handed him a war movie.

A foreign language film.

As the Chinese say, why watch fighting and killing during the New Year? It's so unlucky.

Although there is no similar custom overseas, people still like to go to the movies with their families on Christmas. War films are not rated suitable for taking children, so they are not the first choice for going out, which drags down the box office.

Moreover, it was filmed "abroad", which was emotionally unacceptable to Rick.

Fortunately, the contract only guarantees 5% of the screening schedule, and the specific situation will depend on the circumstances.

Next to the report was a box of CDs containing the movie "The Tides of Devil", which was sent by Thomas Lee for evaluation and local censorship classification.

Overseas, all movies, games and other audio-visual entertainment products need to be classified to distinguish some of the content that is not suitable for children, and then make those films that are not suitable for children more exciting.

"Li's judgment is always accurate. There may be a reason why he did this this time. Why don't we watch this movie first..."

Rick wanted to start the review immediately, but suddenly thought of the party tonight.

He graduated from Miskatoc University in Massachusetts, which is home to the famous Miskatoc College Film Festival, which is also the largest youth film festival in the United States. Lake majored in photography and worked in film and television for a period of time after graduation. Later, he joined AMC and worked his way up to his current position step by step.

Tonight's party is the 20th anniversary party of his graduation with several good classmates. It is held in his own house. His house is quite big, so friends can go to sleep directly when they are tired of playing.

Some of these students have become famous directors, while others have stayed in school to teach and become professors. They are all successful people.

In addition to the classic barbecue parties, they also get together to watch movies. After all, they are all practitioners, and there are many things to talk about while watching a movie, so they can spend a relaxing and enjoyable evening.

“It might be better to let them taste it together.”

Rick thought that his own opinion might be biased, but the opinions of so many classmates added together were enough to produce a comprehensive evaluation.

After all, according to Thomas Lee, this is an epic movie.

When Rick heard this, he almost wanted to ask his Chinese subordinate to translate what "epic blockbuster" meant.

As we all know, this kind of big-budget movie has disappeared in recent years. Even Hollywood, the world's strongest film industry, has not rashly attempted such a big-budget production. In recent years, the hottest ones are superhero movies connected by a world view. No one is making that kind of classic epic blockbuster anymore.

Rick doesn't think other countries can make epic blockbusters. First of all, their industrial equipment is not capable of doing so. Secondly, it's the level of the actors. Finally, there are factors such as the script and director. Another point is the financial investment.

There were some epic fantasy movies at the beginning of the century. At that time, computer special effects technology was not very mature, so many of them were shot on location, such as finding hundreds of riders charging on horseback, or making lifelike props to replace special effects.

This is also done to save costs. It sounds unbelievable, but sometimes, making special effects is really expensive.

To this day, what Hollywood is proud of is still its mature film industry system, and various superhero movies are the embodiment of the advanced industrial special effects.

In Hollywood, these special effects can be completed at a relatively low price, but in foreign countries, one either has to spend a lot of money to find Hollywood to do the work, or figure it out on one's own.

For example, to see a burning flame, a foreign team may have to study the particle presentation for several months, but in Hollywood, there are hundreds of the same flame special effects to choose from. This is all accumulation and reserve, and it is not so easy to overtake others.

There are even many special effects that can only be completed by specific studios, and most of these studios are concentrated here. Some people say that Hollywood has monopolized special effects movies, which is absolutely true.

If you want to shoot a large-scale movie with a lot of special effects, you will almost certainly look for a special effects team from Hollywood.

But Rick had not heard of any studio in Hollywood taking on related special effects production business.

In other words, the special effects of "Magic Tides" are most likely produced by studios from other places, or by themselves.

Those 50-cent special effects are not worth looking forward to at all.

Rick also took a look at the director's previous catalog of works, all of which were horror films and thrillers, low-budget movies that would be classified as B-level movies here, which made Rick feel that the so-called "epic blockbuster" might just be a joke.

As for the reason why those movies can have such high box office, Rick thinks it is probably because of the backward aesthetic taste.

There have been blockbusters produced by cooperation between the two countries in the past, and famous foreign movie stars were invited. However, the quality was only average, and the special effects were not up to standard, which disappointed the audience.

Therefore, Rick picked up the disc of "The Devil's Tide" with the mentality of watching a joke and complaining about the bad movie, and drove home.

At night, after enjoying a perfect barbecue, Rick and his friends came to the screening room in his house, which was converted from a part of the garage and had perfect audio-visual effects, making it Rick's happy house.

"What did you say you brought?"

Justin, a friend of Lake's, asked. He is now a well-known director who has made two pretty good movies and is considered a leader in the industry.

"A movie, to be released on Christmas, imported from overseas."

Rick took out the CD.

"'Magic Tide', the name reminds me of the game I played when I was a kid."

quipped another friend, Professor Armitage, a professor at Miskatoke University’s School of Communication.

"It is said that this is an epic movie, haha."

Rick put the CD into the player.

"Epic blockbuster? I haven't heard of any director making such a big-budget movie recently."

The last friend, Les, was a producer of a film company. He didn’t quite understand what Rick meant, so he asked.

"Just watch it anyway. I've prepared some beer. We can chat while watching it."

Rick brought a few bottles of beer, pressed the play button again, turned off the lights, and sat on the soft sofa.

The whole room dimmed, and before the production list appeared, a dark forest appeared first.