King of Hollywood

Chapter 514: Chapter 235: Finally Released

Appropriate modifications were necessary; every singer had their own style that suited them, and since Britney and Christina’s styles had been proven successful in my previous life, why spend time and effort exploring other directions? Of course, a singer cannot maintain one style forever, even MJ or Madonna continuously sought change, but that would be much later. First, one needed to become famous, find the right style, and solidify it.

This wasn’t a concern, though Adrian focused more on the record company than the film company, after the merger with several powerful competitors, it had become one of the top second-tier companies. Especially after the launch of Britney, which was extremely popular with teens, the company was poised to level up. The company had expanded considerably, and Adrian only needed to provide some key inputs, the rest could be easily managed by them.

This situation was somewhat similar to commissioning Valve Studio to develop Counter-Strike, but Counter-Strike could not be produced at the moment. Not because Adrian lacked creativity, but because the game’s 3D engine was based on Quake, yet used Half-Life’s modeling. And Half-Life had not been released yet. According to the news from Valve, they had released a demo at E3 last year, but it hadn’t attracted much attention, so they were mostly redoing levels, aiming to release a new demo at this year’s E3.

From the few game memories in Adrian’s mind, Half-Life was indeed slated to release this year, but even if Valve released a demo in August, it would be at least three to four months before the full version would be released. There was no rush; after that, discussing Counter-Strike with them wouldn’t be too late. It might not make a lot of money, but the company’s reputation could benefit greatly from online dissemination, making the deal still quite worthwhile.

Whether it was Counter-Strike or Christina’s new songs, those were topics for the future. Adrian’s main focus was now on something else—the premiere of The Matrix!

The movie had already been completed at the beginning of last year, and as most of it was shot in secret, the media knew little about it. The coverage focused on why a movie completed at the beginning of last year was only preparing for release now. Hence, the targeted attention began after the release date was confirmed earlier this year.

On this front, Bossworth was still sparing with details; so far, only a trailer and six posters had been released—one overall, one for each of the three main characters, and one for each of the two antagonists. Besides these, there was nothing else, not even Jennifer Aniston, who had a role in the movie and had been heavily covered by the media.

Even so, people were still filled with anticipation for the movie. The most important point of hunger marketing was how to whet the audience’s appetite, without revealing too much information to satisfy them, or holding back so much that they lost interest. Bossworth did well in this regard—for instance, right after the Cannes Film Festival, they abandoned the original plan and linked Mulholland Drive with The Matrix, dreams, reality, illusions, the pursuit of truth, etc. The audience’s anticipation was largely because of Adrian, who had a significant role as the director and producer. Naturally, this advantage had to be leveraged.

However, an unexpected situation occurred; someone had leaked the novel version of The Matrix online and repeatedly inquired if the movie was adapted from this book. After consulting Adrian, the film company confirmed this, so the novel’s sales slightly increased.