Chapter 162

Chapter 162. A Bold Decision

We even called Seung-tae in to help plan the Super Bowl stage.

"The problem is that we're a little weaker than the other singers in terms of name value. So why don't we bring in even bigger artists as featured guests? We're close with Talent Holdings, aren't we?"

Seung-tae suggested.

If I asked Gwang-cheol, he could probably line up one or two Billboard artists for us.

But this was supposed to be Blue Moon's stage.

Could we really shove other singers into it?

Personally, I wasn't too keen on the idea.

"Then it just becomes a Billboard artist's performance with Blue Moon as backup dancers. How is that featuring? Their fame is on a completely different level."

When I objected, Seung-tae shook his head.

"That only happens when some third-rate producer plans the stage. You seriously think I'd invite a featured artist just to turn Blue Moon into garnish?"

Well.

Sang-do and Seung-tae were both geniuses who had successfully created a modern remake of 〈I Love You So Much〉 when everyone else had said it was impossible.

"If you can really do it, then Blue Moon stays the main act while we still use the featured singers as weapons. Can you pull that off? I've never seen a stage like that before."

"I just saw 18,782 futures where this concept succeeds."

There he goes again.

Still, if he was that confident, then it probably really was possible.

If I had Seung-tae's level of stage-planning ability, I wouldn't have bothered recruiting him into the company in the first place.

He was capable of creating far more original and historic stages than I was.

"All right, then. Let's do it your way. I'll contact Chairman Park Gwang-cheol."

"Please do~."

As I searched for Park Gwang-cheol's number on my phone, I thought about it once more.

If it was a plan made by Yang Seung-tae...

Yeah.

It was honestly harder to imagine it failing.

But what if there was some absolute limit that would make the stage feel inferior no matter what kind of insane show Yang Seung-tae put on?

What could that limit be?

I wasn't even certain there was one.

But for some reason, it kept bothering me.

"Hey, wait."

I stopped the hand holding my phone.

Dae-hun and Seung-tae both looked at me.

"The concept is lacking."

"In what way?"

No matter what legendary singer we invited as a featured guest, in the end, they would still be someone who hadn't been invited to the Super Bowl's original lineup.

That was it.

Of course, they would still be top-class singers.

But from the audience's point of view, wouldn't that thought inevitably cross their minds?

That was the fundamental limitation of our featured-guest strategy.

Yang Seung-tae thought about what I said, then nodded.

"Ah. You're right again."

"Still, it's not impossible."

What if it wasn't a singer they didn't invite...

But one they couldn't invite?

Then the story changed.

There were singers who could've been invited to the Super Bowl a hundred times over, but simply couldn't be booked anymore.

If we brought those people in as featured guests, that would solve everything.

"Like who? Someone who's dead?"

"How are we supposed to invite a dead person? Obviously someone alive."

We couldn't invite the dead.

But retired artists were another story.

The featured guests would probably have a huge impact while appearing only briefly.

All we needed to do was find one among the many retired legends who could still join us for a featured stage.

In fact, the audience might even feel honored that they could see that person's performance at the Super Bowl again.

"We've already seen how successful 〈Friday and Saturday Are for Singers〉 and the remake of 〈I Love You So Much〉 were, haven't we? Park Ji-sang, who succeeded with 〈Gangnam Cool Guy〉, also got huge attention when he performed with a retired rapper."

By the time I finished explaining, both Dae-hun and Seung-tae were strongly nodding in agreement.

My confidence.

Their genuine approval.

With both in place, there was no way this plan could fail.

Bzzzt.

"Come on. We're in the middle of a great meeting, and that vibration just ruined the mood."

Dae-hun complained when my phone buzzed.

Sorry about that.

When future spam came in, I had to check it immediately.

At the very least, I needed to keep my phone on vibrate.

[Title: 2/10]

[Oppa, hello. It's Juri, the one who always takes care of you. This time is hot too.]

[High rollers welcome vnxll.com]

Seriously...

I followed the link.

As usual, there were three videos.

Now that I could watch all of them, I decided to start with the first and go through them one by one.

"Your hologram and voice-synthesis technology has drawn enormous attention now that you've successfully commercialized it. Was the development process difficult?"

I didn't recognize the channel, but it looked like some kind of Nutube interview.

A PD sitting behind the camera asked the question.

A middle-aged man answered.

A subtitle appeared at the bottom of the screen.

[Lee Jae-gwan_Founder of WF Media]

"Extremely difficult. Developing technology like this costs a great deal of money, and we'd already exhausted all the research funding we'd received at the time. Money is always the problem. But so many people showed interest in our research that we were able to raise additional funding, and that's how we eventually succeeded. I truly wanted to express my gratitude."

He had a fairly kind-looking face.

He explained that while struggling with a lack of research funding, a television producer had suggested creating a celebrity hologram.

Since celebrities naturally attracted attention, Lee Jae-gwan thought it was a good idea and bet his final hopes on it.

That gamble succeeded.

And now he was even appearing on interview channels like this.

After the video ended, I searched for WF Media.

There were results.

But nothing about the research achievement yet.

The video had been recorded on October 10.

There was still about a month and a half to go.

Lee Jae-gwan himself was a professor at Korea University.

The moment his research funding ran out, he'd left the university with his researchers and founded WF Media.

At the moment, it looked like they were earning operating funds by developing HUD components for cars.

You know, those displays that project things like speed and warning signals onto the lower part of the windshield.

Next, I played the second video.

"So what are you going to do about WF Media?"

They immediately mentioned the company from the previous video.

I'd been bothered because I couldn't find any connection to Blue Moon.

Maybe this video would show what happened to Lee Jae-gwan afterward.

I focused carefully.

"Well, CEO Lee Jae-gwan will handle it somehow."

The location was a golf course.

A man with a sycophant-looking beard answered while swinging a golf club.

At this point, I could make rough guesses from facial impressions alone.

Entertainment planner.

Or broadcasting industry person.

One of the two.

"By the way, PD Hong Sang-hyeok. How did you even find a company like that? Thanks to you, our portfolio looks much better too."

Hong Sang-hyeok?

That Hong Sang-hyeok?

The guy who said we wouldn't get awards if we refused Pyongyang?

"You hear things here and there. It looked pretty promising. I went there myself, and the technology seemed solid. I invested too."

"Impressive."

"The downside was that aside from HUDs, most of their technology couldn't be commercialized immediately, so it was difficult to generate short-term profit."

If he was influential enough to plan government events, he was probably already making good money.

And yet he was investing on top of that to grow his wealth.

Not that I had much room to criticize after investing in New Dimension myself.

"Exactly. So how are you planning to realize the profits?"

"I told you. I'm trusting CEO Lee Jae-gwan. Hahaha. I'm sure he'll figure it out somehow."

Hong smiled broadly and smashed the golf ball away.

Then he added casually,

"I'll probably sell it soon anyway. Hahaha."

"The shares?"

"No~. What are you talking about? The company itself. If President Yang and I combine our shares, we can pass the decision at the shareholders' meeting. We're the major shareholders."

The man on the other side laughed in admiration.

"Wow. Lee Jae-gwan said he wanted to keep doing research until the day he died. You're planning to sell the whole company in the end? He'll feel betrayed."

"It's not like we're running a charity. He can just think of it as getting a job at a major corporation and look on the bright side. Hahaha."

Yeah, I'm sure a former Korea University professor would be thrilled to become a corporate researcher, you bastard.

"So you were planning that from the moment you came up with the Kim Gwang-yeon hologram project? That's seriously impressive."

The other man added one final comment.

The Kim Gwang-yeon hologram project.

So Hong Sang-hyeok was the person who had suggested the celebrity hologram idea to Lee Jae-gwan in the first video.

Apparently, his broadcasting instincts really were excellent.

The problem was that he used those instincts for scumbag behavior.

The second video ended there.

Combining it with the first, I could roughly reconstruct what was happening.

One day, Hong Sang-hyeok discovered a company called WF Media.

Using his particular instincts, he realized that the company had a real chance of succeeding.

Even though he knew WF Media's CEO, Lee Jae-gwan, wanted to pursue long-term research, Hong invested a large amount of money together with someone called President Yang.

Their real goal was to eventually sell the company to a major corporation.

Then they made a large profit through singer Kim Gwang-yeon's hologram and voice synthesis.

After increasing the company's value, they sold the entire thing.

They could force the decision using the shares Hong and President Yang had accumulated together.

The second video had been recorded on October 13.

Three days after Lee Jae-gwan's interview.

Please.

Let the third video show Hong crashing and burning.

I clicked it.

"What? Move Blue Moon's stage to the opening show? Why, all of a sudden?"

This time, it was a meeting full of foreigners.

A man with a nameplate reading Lewis looked agitated as he asked the question.

"Our Super Bowl stage features some of the biggest singers in America. Blue Moon is popular, but don't they fall a little short?"

A man named Randy Stafford said that.

Lewis immediately fired back, visibly annoyed.

"Then you should've said that from the beginning. Why change it now?"

"They don't have any featured guests or collaborations. Since their recognition is obviously lower, and they're deeply connected to MUC, I assumed they'd secure some strong featured singers."

We are planning featured guests.

For some reason, though, that information apparently still hadn't reached them by the time this video was recorded.

Then again, knowing myself, I probably wouldn't have bothered telling them the detailed concept for Blue Moon's stage.

"That was your own assumption. This isn't some kindergarten recital. We can't keep changing direction every five minutes. And Blue Moon's solo stage is excellent on skill alone."

"Their skill is excellent, yes. But they still lack weight."

Lewis looked extremely offended.

I was getting angry just listening to it.

But every time Stafford said something infuriating, Lewis answered properly, which made it oddly satisfying too.

"Anyway, that's my opinion. I'm formally proposing it. Chairman Lewis, please put the proposal to move Blue Moon to the opening show to a vote."

If a committee member requested a vote, even the chairman couldn't exactly refuse.

Lewis glared, took several heavy breaths, then spoke.

"Fine. We'll vote. But I want everyone to think carefully. Treating performers this way is what lowers the dignity of the Super Bowl Halftime Show itself. I sincerely ask all of you to remember what strengths we saw in Blue Moon when we invited them in the first place... Now, we'll vote."

The vote was conducted by raised hands.

Three people opposed the proposal.

The majority supported it.

"The motion passes."

Lewis slammed the gavel down as though he were throwing it, then stormed out of the meeting room.

In the end, Blue Moon had been moved to the opening show.

The opening show was still a pretty good opportunity.

But it wasn't the Halftime Show.

I was annoyed.

Still, I needed to solve the problem.

Would this all disappear if I simply told them we were bringing featured guests?

No.

They probably would've checked at least once.

Something must happen that prevents us from actually using the featured artists.

I needed to know what that reason was...

"Haa. This Hong Sang-hyeok bastard is starting again."

Dae-hun, sitting farther away in the office, sighed.

"Why? What happened?"

I asked.

Dae-hun answered.

"The Korean Motion Picture Association just formed a disciplinary committee against Director Choi Gyu-sik. If they go this far, it's not just the Grand Bell Awards. This could even affect the Academy nomination."

I was already furious.

And look who had just volunteered to be my target.

Hong Sang-hyeok.

The star of the second future video.

Whatever I decided to do...

I needed to tear that bastard apart first if I wanted to sleep peacefully tonight.