In September, as 'We Made a Beautiful Bouquet' continued its theatrical run, the online discussion surrounding Su Yan gradually began to fade.
That was simply how the film and television market worked.
No matter how famous a creator was, the highest level of attention always came when their works were currently airing.
Su Yan focused fully on filming the two projects, while the theatrical run of 'We Made a Beautiful Bouquet' slowly came to an end.
And in fact, the prediction many media outlets had made earlier—that the summer box office champion and runner-up would both belong to Su Yan's films—did not come true.
Although 'We Made a Beautiful Bouquet' ultimately surpassed 1.2 billion in total box office, it still fell short of 'Windmill' by 30 million.
In the end, it finished third in the summer box office rankings.
But even Su Yan's most jealous critics had no grounds to attack this result.
Was third place bad?
Was 1.2 billion box office bad?
That was a result many filmmakers could never achieve in their entire careers.
Yet Su Yan had achieved it with two films in two months.
At this point, Su Yan's reputation in the Xia Nation film industry had completely exploded.
Among all notable film companies in the country, none would dare underestimate him anymore.
Media outlets and film critics now almost exclusively praise him.
No one brought up his identity as a television screenwriter in a dismissive way anymore.
All the doubts the Xia Nation film industry once had about him before the summer season had completely disappeared.
Meanwhile, because Dimensional Pictures had not launched any new investment projects, a large amount of funds in the company account began accumulating.
Overseas licensing fees from multiple works.
Paid streaming revenue from various online platforms.
When all these were added together, the funds sitting in the company's account had already exceeded 1 billion.
On top of that, the box office revenue share from 'We Made a Beautiful Bouquet' and '5 Centimeters per Second' had not yet been settled.
When calculated together, those two films would bring nearly another 1 billion in box office income.
Even after subtracting over 400 million in production and marketing costs for the two films, a return on investment exceeding 100% was still astonishing.
Because of this, inside the company, both Su Yan and Shinozaki Ikumi had been walking around with noticeably lighter steps these days.
Many wealthy people liked to say:
"Money is just a number to me."
And both Su Yan and Shinozaki Ikumi were not particularly demanding when it came to material life.
But when they thought about their company account soon holding over 2 billion, even they couldn't help feeling excited.
Money definitely wasn't just a number.
After years of cautious investment due to limited funds, the two of them deeply understood one thing—
In the film and television industry, money was extremely important.
But with this much money, if Su Yan used it to make films—
Even if he spent recklessly, he probably couldn't exhaust it in five or six years.
After all, producing an S-level drama in the Xia Nation only required around 100 million.
How could Su Yan possibly produce that many?
But if he invested the money elsewhere…
Su Yan knew the situation in the Xia Nation market very well.
The waters were too deep.
Stock trading and similar businesses were filled with insider information.
He didn't have the time or energy to get involved in such risky ventures with relatively small returns.
At most, he planned to quietly inquire whether any major shareholders of the big streaming platforms were willing to sell their shares.
If possible, he could purchase some.
The situation in the Xia Nation was quite different from the world Su Yan had come from.
In his previous world, televisions had become little more than household decorations within about ten years.
Thanks to the rise of the internet and streaming platforms, many TVs are barely turned on anymore.
But in the Xia Nation—
The four major streaming platforms were mostly controlled by television stations.
The only exception was RaccoonNet, whose shareholders were various film companies and private media investors.
The process of the internet replacing television networks would likely be slower here.
But the trend was inevitable.
Slow, but unstoppable.
If Su Yan could buy shares in those platforms and become a shareholder himself—
Then, when his company's works were released on those platforms in the future, they wouldn't be completely at the mercy of the platform operators.
But those matters could only be handled slowly.
Right now—
Su Yan looked at the over 400 million emotional points sitting in his system space.
He stopped hesitating.
If it was time to draw, then he would draw.
Now he had money, emotional points, and long production cycles for his works.
He was essentially planning next year's projects this year.
Even though it was only late September, he had already begun preparing the movies and TV dramas his company would produce next year.
Judging from the fact that '5 Centimeters per Second' had achieved better box office and reputation than 'We Made a Beautiful Bouquet'—
It was clear that the Xia Nation audience really liked Makoto Shinkai's works.
If that was the case…
Su Yan looked toward the information about those works in his system space.
Among the remaining Shinkai films, there were only three truly worth exchanging:
'Your Name.'
'Weathering With You'
'Suzume'
As for works like 'The Place Promised in Our Early Days', Su Yan didn't even need to exchange it to know—
It was too artistic.
If he filmed it, the box office likely wouldn't perform well.
And 'Children Who Chase Lost Voices' was actually one of Shinkai's weaker films.
Su Yan's evaluation of it after watching it in his previous life had been fairly low.
As for 'Voices of a Distant Star', it was simply too short to consider.
Among Shinkai's so-called disaster trilogy, the one with the highest exchange value was undoubtedly 'Your Name.'
As Shinkai's most famous work, it not only had the highest box office among his films, but also the best reputation and popularity.
The only problem was the exchange price—
350 million emotional points.
But Su Yan was no longer the person he had been years ago, worrying constantly about emotional points.
Without hesitation, he exchanged it immediately.
Exchange first.
Production could come later.
After all, a film like that would still take at least a year to produce.
As for 'Weathering With You' and 'Suzume', he would exchange them later after accumulating more emotional points.
Once 'Fate/Zero' began airing in January, new emotional points would naturally start flowing in.
Similarly, although the 'Rurouni Kenshin' film scheduled for next Spring Festival still had several remaining parts he could exchange—
Su Yan didn't plan to dive completely into the film industry.
Television dramas were still his home base.
The film industry was simply the territory he intended to expand into for the company.
So he also had to think about new TV projects for next year.
After some thought, Su Yan used the remaining 70 million emotional points in the system space for a lottery draw.
Soon—
A work that had been buried deep in his memory appeared.
'Kimi ni Todoke'
"?"
Su Yan froze.
That work?
Among romance anime from his previous life, this was truly one of the absolute peaks.
He remembered it clearly.
Back when 'One Piece', 'Naruto', and 'Bleach' dominated popularity rankings—
Among the top ten manga in volume sales, the only romance manga capable of competing with them was 'Kimi ni Todoke'.
And it even outsold 'Naruto' and 'Bleach', ranking just below 'One Piece'.
There was no way Su Yan could forget a work like that.
Previously, most of the works the system had drawn for him were depressing ones.
But this time—
It had drawn a pure romance story.
And not just any romance.
A truly wholesome, sincere, pure-love series.
But after thinking about it carefully, Su Yan understood.
Most works with high emotional value requirements were extremely popular titles from his previous life.
And among extremely popular works, tragic, depressing stories were actually relatively rare.
Especially when limited to works Su Yan had personally watched.
That narrowed the possibilities even further.
Huge IP franchises like 'One Piece', 'Naruto', or 'Bleach', are worth tens or hundreds of billions in value—
He obviously couldn't draw those.
As for massive depressing works like 'Evangelion', those were even less likely.
So something like 'Kimi ni Todoke'—
Famous, beloved, but commercially smaller because it was a romance story—
Being drawn by the system actually made sense.
And if the system wanted to stir trouble, it would probably keep doing it.
Heh.
That was fine too.
Su Yan thought about it carefully and suddenly smiled.
Hadn't his fans always believed he only created depressing stories?
Releasing a pure romance series like 'Kimi ni Todoke' once in a while might actually be interesting.
After all, when everyone expected Su Yan to emotionally devastate them—
If he suddenly released something like this—
It would break the audience's fixed assumptions about him.
In the future, before the end of his works aired—
No one would dare make confident predictions anymore.
Until the final moment, whether the story was tragic or healing—
It would become like Schrödinger's cat.
Unpredictable.
Creative storytelling required suspense.
And Su Yan's personal image as a creator shouldn't become completely fixed either.
Soon, Su Yan exited the system space.