Chapter 97 of 133

Chapter 97

Chapter 97. Into the Tiger’s Den

Park Min-jung and XX Studio began gathering investors in earnest.

Judging by how smoothly everything was moving, they seemed convinced that Choi Gyu-sik's project had strong commercial potential.

Choi Gyu-sik personally asked around through people he knew on their side and learned that the main cast had already been more or less finalized.

There had been a section in Choi Gyu-sik's original manuscript listing possible candidates for the lead roles.

Since they were following that almost exactly, he figured they were trying to minimize changes to the script.

Of course they were.

This wasn't just anyone's screenplay.

It was Choi Gyu-sik's.

The more Park Min-jung touched it, the worse it would become.

Anyway, if things were progressing smoothly, there was no need to worry yet.

We just needed to keep watching closely, then take everything back at the right moment without missing our chance.

If Choi Gyu-sik, the actual original writer and already-famous director, joined the project, they'd probably be even happier.

〈Aran Noodles〉 and Anna's 〈K-Hip-Hop Star〉 had also begun filming.

Na Young-hwan was disappointed, but focusing on Aran alone was probably much better than having both girls appear at once.

Anna had accumulated so many lyrics over the years whenever inspiration struck that she could probably filibuster with them.

The teaser was already drawing attention because it showed Anna firing back at a rapper who dissed her.

"Yeah, I'm fking idol. But your rapping is fkin' fake, yo~."

The underground scene was hyping her up like the second coming of some legendary punchline rapper.

I left her management to Jin-hee and immediately bought a plane ticket to America.

I planned to return to Korea on November 16, the date predicted by the upgrade mission.

There was a reason I had to go to America.

I needed to clear the upgrade mission.

And the person I had to save was Brandon Parker.

Brandon Parker was a muscular white man and one of the most famous action stars in the world.

He specialized in roles where he fired guns and blew up cars, just like the scene from the future spam video.

If my mission was to save Brandon Parker, then America was obviously where I needed to go.

The movie he was currently filming was titled 〈Furious Drive〉.

Unexpectedly, I had managed to figure that out through Park Gwang-cheol.

In the future clip, I could hear the voice of Revick, a famous American rapper, in the background OST.

So I called Park Gwang-cheol.

According to Gwang-cheol, Revick had been hired to produce the main insert song for the climax of a movie called 〈Furious Drive〉.

When we'd talked around the time of the慰問 Train performances, the track had already been completed.

Unless the upgrade mission was something absurd like destroy a giant meteor, there was no way I could fail.

Last time, the mission had been to save Park Gwang-cheol.

This time, it was Brandon Parker.

I had no idea what connection existed between the two that made the future spam want me to save them.

Still, saving Brandon Parker sounded easier than saving Gwang-cheol had been.

I just needed to stop him from getting into that vehicle.

After landing at John F. Kennedy Airport in the United States, I stopped at a luggage-storage area first.

I entered the password the Chebrolet PR team had given me.

Three Starius car keys came out.

I'd asked them to provide plenty, but this was enough to operate a soccer team.

When I reached the parking lot, three Starius vans with consecutive license plates were parked together in different colors.

Black.

Gray.

White.

A real man obviously chose black.

So I got into the white Starius.

The black one needed to be saved.

For an opportunity to become more manly?

Of course not.

I still hadn't figured out exactly how I was going to stop Brandon Parker's scene.

Hollywood actors cost on an entirely different scale compared to Korean actors.

The mission said to save Brandon Parker and his colleagues.

Those colleagues were probably famous actors too.

If I walked up to them without any legitimate reason and shouted,

Let's not film today's scene!

And if filming really got delayed because of that...

The production company would suffer an enormous loss.

Meaning there was almost no chance they'd listen to me.

If things went badly, I might have to take that identical black Starius and ram it into the one from the future video.

I slowly drove the Starius to Talent Holdings.

Even though I knew it probably wouldn't happen, I still felt vaguely nervous that the brakes might suddenly fail.

Of course, that wasn't why I was driving slowly.

Let's just say I wasn't used to the driver's seat being pointlessly positioned on the opposite side.

"It's really nice seeing you here in America. You must've had a tiring trip."

When I told Park Gwang-cheol I was visiting America "for travel," he immediately offered to arrange accommodations.

He said he could find me somewhere near his company.

That was exactly what I'd hoped for.

And now that he'd actually provided it, I was deeply moved.

When I arrived at Talent Holdings, Gwang-cheol offered to show me around the building.

First I'd get a feel for the atmosphere here.

Then naturally ask for an introduction to the 〈Furious Drive〉 production team.

No matter how much planning I did, without any personal connection my only remaining option would be something like:

Mysterious Asian man storms film set and sabotages shoot.

"A bunch of singers happen to be gathered here right now. Want to meet them for a moment?"

"What? Ah, no. You don't really have to."

"Come on in."

I didn't really need to talk with singers.

Then I'd feel obligated to ask for autographs or something.

Wasn't that annoying?

I was planning to run straight out the moment I got connected to the production company, but Park Gwang-cheol dragged me along anyway.

Eventually, we reached the place where the singers were gathered.

I had no idea what they were doing, but they were probably there for something important.

It was practically a basket full of faces I recognized even if I didn't know all their names.

Billy Aaron was there.

So was Revick.

Billy spotted me, happily tapped Revick, and said,

"Maralak. Maralak's boss."

"Ohhh~. Yo, I'm fking idol~."**

Apparently he'd seen Anna's teaser too.

He copied her rap line and held up a hand for a high-five.

Then he even gave me a casual hug like we were old friends.

When I asked whether he knew Anna, he answered enthusiastically, almost singing the words.

Roughly translated, Billy was Anna's best friend.

He was Billy's best friend.

And your best friend's best friend was basically your best friend too.

Had the meaning of best changed since I stopped studying English?

I was happy if Billy really thought that highly of Anna.

I just had no idea when they had become close enough to call each other best friends.

"By the way, what brought you to America?"

After finishing the chaotic greetings with the singers, Gwang-cheol and I moved somewhere quieter.

"I told you. I'm here for travel."

"You did say that. But are you really here just to travel? You're not exactly the type, CEO Do Jun-hyeok."

What did he think I was, the ghost of someone who died from overworking?

I could travel too.

Not that this was actually a vacation.

"I've been getting involved in film projects lately, so I thought I should improve my production knowledge. I'm here to observe."

"Oh. Observation. That's very diligent of you. I thought maybe you were planning to bring Blue Moon into the American market."

Univ was enough for idol expansion into America.

They could earn foreign currency and serve the nation all they wanted.

My girls could live peacefully in Korea together with Apollo.

If an Apollo fandom happened to form overseas, then sure, we could perform there occasionally.

But if you wanted to stan them properly, come to Korea yourselves.

"Ah, come to think of it. You asked about 〈Furious Drive〉 when we spoke on the phone, right? I wondered why. So that's what this is about. Are you making an action film in Korea too?"

No.

A quiet art film.

Well, it would probably have some mainstream appeal too.

But at the very least, it wasn't going to feature an action scene where someone drove a Starius through downtown New York at full speed.

"Something like that. Anyway, I didn't know you were involved in film too, Gwang-cheol. Is that production company part of Talent Holdings?"

"You misunderstood. It isn't. The executive producer over there was just my university classmate."

"Your classmate?"

Apparently, one of his close university friends ran a film production company.

I'd learned it late, but Park Gwang-cheol had an extremely impressive academic background.

He'd spent most of his life in Korea, but he'd studied art at an Ivy League university in America.

Apparently that education still helped him run the company even now.

And it was helping me too.

Thanks to his academic background, I now had a chance to meet the production company behind 〈Furious Drive〉.

I could've cheered right alongside him.

"Then... would it be possible for me to visit the film set?"

"You want to? It's not part of my own schedule, but if CEO Do Jun-hyeok is going, I can come along too."

"No, you don't need to do that."

Gwang-cheol told me not to feel burdened and said he'd accompany me anyway.

I felt burdened.

"I know the driver's seat is on the opposite side here, but... forgive me for saying this. We probably would've arrived already if we'd walked."

"I-Is that so?"

The day of the shoot.

Park Gwang-cheol sat in the passenger seat of the white Starius and stared at me with an exhausted expression.

I checked his face, then increased my speed by about five kilometers per hour.

Just in case, I'd switched to manual mode and was still maintaining a speed slow enough that I could stop instantly with the parking brake if necessary.

Of course, Gwang-cheol didn't know there was a possibility this vehicle's airbags might fail even if some lunatic crashed into us.

So from his perspective, he could afford to act like he had two lives.

"How did you drive back in Korea?"

"I just drove sloooowly."

"I'll drive on the way back."

I knew how to stomp on the accelerator too.

Still, the atmosphere made it feel like I should politely agree.

So I changed the subject.

"In American movies, helicopters explode, trains collapse, everything goes crazy. Don't accidents happen when you film scenes like that?"

"These days, most of it is CG. And when they have to film something practically, they rehearse every single detail from beginning to end, then perform it exactly as planned. Accidents are practically impossible."

Production companies were the kind of people who wouldn't even scratch an expensive prop if they could avoid it.

There was no way they'd casually create a situation where someone might get hurt.

"For the record, the production company directly commissioned Revick's OST. I didn't arrange it through my friend or anything, just so you don't misunderstand. Anyway, when should Billy go back to Korea? We haven't heard anything at all about the debut group."

"We're preparing very carefully right now."

Everyone involved probably felt anxious day by day because their lives were tied to the result.

But that didn't mean I could choose the debut lineup carelessly.

It had taken several full days just to select Univ's three members.

We'd already finished evaluating everyone's individual abilities through auditions.

But collecting only members with exceptional individual skills didn't automatically create a good team.

We needed to examine member chemistry thoroughly.

Out of the entire six-month debut-group activity period, choosing the lineup was probably the single most important event.

So we were being careful.

Extremely careful.

Individual activities for the members.

The six-month 〈Rebooting〉 debut group.

Univ's new song.

There was already a mountain of work ahead.

If I failed this upgrade...

I still didn't have a proper plan.

But first, I had to enter the tiger's den.

"Do movies ever collapse halfway through production? Like if there's an accident or something?"

These days, I barely had enough mental space to put out whichever fire had fallen directly onto my feet.

And the current fire was the upgrade mission.

I had to handle this properly if I wanted all those future activities to continue.

"Of course. Like you said, accidents can do it. If the production suddenly loses funding, that can kill a movie too. And I suppose an accident could cause the budget to run short."

Finding endangered narrow-mouthed frogs on the set could halt filming too.

"But unless something like that happens, I don't think an accident alone would completely shut down production. Not unless money became part of the issue."

True.

How expensive could one Starius really be?

"Then what if someone dies in the accident?"

"Then... they'd probably replace that person."

"Even if it's the lead actor?"

Gwang-cheol suddenly went silent.

"Then... I'm not sure. At that level, the whole production might get canceled."

We soon arrived at the film set.

Serious-looking American staff members moved around busily, preparing for filming.

Maybe it was being used in today's scene.

Far in the distance, I spotted a black Starius.

"Could I take a look at that vehicle?"