Chapter 95

Chapter 95. Confucius Says, Mencius Says

Choi Gyu-sik and I slowly organized the situation.

Legally, there was no room for doubt.

The work belonged to Choi Gyu-sik.

He had registered it with the copyright association in an extremely thorough way.

Registering copyright for a screenplay required the full dramatic concept, title, ideas, and a completed script containing all of them.

Problems arose when one of those elements was incomplete.

But Choi Gyu-sik's screenplay had been registered without leaving out even the smallest thing.

He had also kept the registration updated rigorously.

If Park Min-jung still managed to get away with this under those circumstances...

That would be like claiming you could stand in a downpour without your clothes getting wet.

Even so, I still felt uneasy.

No matter how ignorant Park Min-jung was, she probably hadn't touched this project so recklessly without any plan at all.

She must have believed, however clumsily, that there was some way she could legitimately take the work.

Otherwise, she wouldn't have gone this far.

"No. Her entire way of thinking is different. If she were a normal person, she would've done something to me..."

"To you?"

"No, I'd rather not say it with my own mouth... Just understand that there were things. And no, it wasn't an affair or anything like that."

It sounded like she'd done plenty of abnormal things.

He had put up with her for seven semesters.

There had probably been one or two incidents.

"So she really did this without understanding anything?"

"Probably. She once gathered around twenty theater students from nearby Jung-gu University for a large-scale shoot, then disappeared. All she had to do was say the shoot was canceled. Instead, I had to personally apologize to their department chair."

"So she just doesn't think things through."

Then this situation wasn't actually a crisis.

All Choi Gyu-sik had to do was go to the copyright association, say, "That's mine," and they could probably impose restrictions within a day or two.

Then the point must be to use this as an opportunity...

Was there some noise-marketing effect here?

"Whew... Haah. That was close. If it weren't for you, Mr. Do Jun-hyeok, I might've lost my work without even realizing it. Thank you."

"No. I only found out by coincidence."

Then—

Bzzzzt.

A text arrived while I was still thinking.

Was it the next spam?

"Let me check one message."

It wasn't as though anyone else could see these messages anyway.

I immediately opened the spam.

[Title: 4/5]

[Recorded: 2025.02.16. 14:35]

2025?

It was 2023 now.

Why was I suddenly receiving footage from two years in the future?

I played the video.

It showed a conversation at some construction site.

"So what you're saying is, the reason they figured it out was because he'd already registered that copyright or whatever ahead of time, right? If he hadn't, the thing would've been stolen right out from under him."

"Exactly."

"Damn... What a thieving bitch."

"Still, that thief must've had some kind of instinct. What was it called again? Best Picture... Best Director... some foreign movie-award thing? The Academy Awards? Anyway, you know what I mean. She somehow picked out, like a fortune teller, the masterpiece that ended up sweeping every damn award there was."

"If they hadn't run out of budget halfway through, it would've won the production-design award too."

"Right. So before you smash anything with the equipment, look around carefully and see if there's anything worth saving. Who knows? Maybe something precious enough to become a family heirloom is buried somewhere."

"Family heirloom, my ass... Look at that pond. You know how much those narrow-mouthed frogs are worth? If there are enough of them, that's tens of billions of won right there. Tens of billions."

It was a conversation between construction workers.

Videos really were useful.

This was already the second time I'd received a conversation clip.

The sound was clear.

The image was clear.

This was the final spam before the next upgrade, and I was already looking forward to what came after.

The location wasn't just some ordinary construction site either.

It was the outdoor Odu-ri film set on Ganghwa Island.

Whenever productions lacked the budget for giant Texas-like plains, they often filmed at Odu-ri.

I'd once gone there for a blockbuster-concept music video shoot.

I distinctly remembered it because I'd seen more than one ghost there at night.

The part where they said before smashing things made it sound like filming had already ended and they were dismantling the set.

So those construction workers were probably discussing behind-the-scenes stories from the production.

Copyright.

Thieving woman.

It was clearly about the copyright dispute between Choi Gyu-sik and Park Min-jung.

And since they were calling her a thief, it looked like Choi Gyu-sik successfully protected his copyright just as expected.

The important keywords were:

Budget ran out.

Frogs worth tens of billions.

Academy Awards.

"What are you looking at so blankly?"

"Huh? Ah, nothing. It's nothing."

Based on what the workers had said, the movie apparently swept all kinds of awards at the Academy Awards.

If that was true, then it was the kind of gigantic hit that would dominate the news for days.

When the author of 〈Hanyang〉 won the Man Booker Prize, the country talked about it nonstop.

The same happened when Director Bong Man-ho swept multiple categories at Cannes.

Apparently Choi Gyu-sik would follow in that lineage.

The project looked closer to an art film, so I'd been considering the possibility of declining.

But if this was what happened...

We had to do it.

Absolutely.

But they ran out of budget and missed the production-design award?

And what about those frogs?

There was one thing that immediately came to mind when I heard narrow-mouthed frogs.

Looks like the production company had drawn a dud.

"Anyway, we should fix this quickly. Call the copyright association, call the production company, whatever. What was the production company called again?"

The company was called XX Studio.

"Wait. Let's think about this a little more."

"Why? If we start dragging this out, I'm the one who'll get a headache."

"Just give me a moment."

Finding endangered narrow-mouthed frogs at a film set was about as bad an omen as you could get.

The Odu-ri set already had a great atmosphere.

If you demolished a few structures, rebuilt them, and reused the location, it was efficient and saved money.

But if you cleared the wrong building and discovered a habitat for endangered frogs, things became complicated.

By law, you had to identify exactly how and where they were living and create a replacement habitat for them.

Violating that was serious.

And building the habitat cost a fortune.

Morally speaking, that was obviously correct.

The endangered frogs had been living peacefully in a home they'd made for themselves.

Then some excavator rolled in and destroyed everything.

Of course you should create a pond or whatever else they needed.

But as the workers had said, that wasn't cheap.

If filming delays were included, the total loss really could reach tens of billions of won.

"Do you have money?"

"Money? What money?"

"Money to make the film."

Choi Gyu-sik shook his head.

He'd planned to keep revising the screenplay until enough funding came together.

Meaning this project was already financially difficult even from his perspective.

According to the workers, though, the movie would become a masterpiece that swept award after award.

Success was practically guaranteed.

I remembered one worker's words.

If they hadn't run out of budget halfway through, it would've won the production-design award too.

Production design...

Maybe they ran out of money midway and had to lower the quality of props and sets.

When productions ran short of money, cheapening props would be one of the first things they tried.

That was probably why they missed that award.

If there was a chance to add one more Academy Award to the pile, I had to take it.

"Let's wait and watch for a little while before moving."

"What? Why?"

Now that I'd seen the future spam, I had to deal with the narrow-mouthed frogs somehow.

Unfortunately, the footage didn't show exactly where they were discovered.

The only solution was to secure enough investment to continue the movie even if the frogs appeared.

If we went in with a budget that was only barely enough, we'd be finished.

For all I knew, by the date of the spam video, Choi Gyu-sik might already have starved to death.

But right now, Park Min-jung was already contacting production companies and gathering investors on her own, wasn't she?

She'd handle casting too.

She'd secure a set.

The moment they announced the start of filming and officially began production, Choi Gyu-sik could raise the copyright dispute.

Then all of that work would fall into our hands for free.

And the moment Choi Gyu-sik challenged the rights, Park Min-jung, who didn't understand what she'd done, would be expelled from the film industry forever.

"This looks like the most expensive project you've ever made. Have you ever started a film with the budget this tight?"

"No."

"Then imagine filming gets delayed midway, the budget runs short, and you have to wait for new investors. During that delay, the actors' schedules stop lining up, so the project collapses. Then because you're afraid of wasting the sunk costs, you recast someone else... Doesn't just imagining it sound horrifying?"

When I explained my idea, Choi Gyu-sik admitted it made sense.

He was understandably nervous since the copyright was his.

But my approach was rational.

Park Min-jung was already running around playing disciple and dragging in investment from one place after another.

Why stop her?

After finishing our strategy meeting, I returned to the office.

With one piece of homework left.

The frogs.

If the frogs were eventually discovered, we'd waste enormous money.

So ideally, I needed to find their location in advance.

After returning to the office, I ended up pointlessly watching Nutube videos of narrow-mouthed frog calls.

Mwaaeng.

Ggong.

Mwaaeng.

Ggong.

Maybe because I kept playing strange frog noises, Dae-hun got interested.

"Why are you watching narrow-mouthed frog videos? You planning to raise one?"

"Why the hell would I raise one? They look disgusting."

"What? They're cute."

You'd be too scared to touch one in real life.

Dae-hun was grinning like something good had happened.

"Hyung, while you were hunting frogs, want to know what I caught?"

"Why? Did we get another broadcast offer?"

"If it were just a broadcast, I wouldn't be smiling like this."

Dae-hun forwarded me an email.

I opened it.

It was an advertisement offer from an automobile brand called Chebrolet.

"What? Chebrolet? Why Chebrolet all of a sudden? They're huge."

"Remember how we basically crossed half the country for regional festivals and military performances? Apparently our gray Starex became kind of famous in the process. People were saying we're a first-tier idol group but don't even have a proper van."

I'd kept telling myself we needed to replace the car.

And kept putting it off.

Had that actually been the right move?

Because now we'd received an advertising offer thanks to it.

It was a great opportunity.

Back when I managed Victory, we'd once modeled for a chicken brand.

That advertisement had kept us breathing comfortably for months.

The chicken company had made huge money too.

But for us, that advertising fee had felt like a pension.

Whenever money got tight, we'd release a few Victory collaboration goods through the chicken franchise, and fans would buy them like crazy.

There were even endless complaints from parents saying their youngest daughter was a Victory fan and now the family had to eat chicken every day.

"Anything else?"

"Hmm. A bank advertisement came in a few days ago. But it's kind of... Whatever. Chebrolet's way better."

"Which bank?"

Dae-hun sent me a second email.

It was from a huge bank called Citizens Bank.

"Just retire already. A bank advertisement comes in, and you want to do a car commercial?"

"Why? Cars are great."

"A car ad airs on TV a few times and that's it. But a bank ad means old people see our girls' standees every time they visit a branch. They see them on the bankbooks. If they install the mobile banking app, Serin's face could appear every time they open it."

If Blue Moon modeled for Chebrolet, we'd basically just look like four beautiful racing models.

Not that I disliked racing models.

But there was clearly a much better opportunity here.

Usually, bank commercials used celebrities with strong, trustworthy images, like Yoo Jun-seok.

Blue Moon might be incredibly successful now, but "trustworthy" wasn't exactly the first image people associated with them.

If we took this opportunity, we could gain that image in reverse.

Trustworthiness was always a positive image.

"Take the bank. Listen to me."

"All right... But Chebrolet said they'd give us a car."

"A car? What kind? A Chebrolet?"

Dae-hun nodded.

"Tell them to send it first and then talk. What do they take us for? Like we'd be tempted just because they offered a car...?"

"Exactly."

"We're going to buy a car right now. Call a dealership. We're going with Volkswagon."

Dae-hun muttered, Does Volkswagon even make vans? as he called.

The dealership picked up almost immediately.

"We're looking to buy a vehicle. Do you have passenger vans? You do? One, two, three... We'd want seating for up to eight people. That's possible? What's the price?"

Dae-hun listened, then asked me,

"They say 120 million won."

"More expensive than a domestic luxury car?"

Safety was mandatory for top-tier idols.