Chapter 198
Unable to contain his excitement, Baek Seonghan started clapping without even realizing it.
Barely ten minutes had passed since the teaser was uploaded, yet hundreds, then thousands of comments were already pouring in.
[↳ HOLY SH*T! This Looks Insane!]
[↳ Zombies in Joseon Dynasty? I’m so in!]
[↳ Holy crap, this is completely insane. This might be one of the biggest Korean dramas ever.]
[↳ The cinematography is breathtaking!]
[↳ Network Flex, you’ve done it again. Can’t wait!]
[↳ Zombies in the Joseon era? LOL. That’s seriously fresh.]
As comments flooded in from countries all over the world, the corners of my mouth lifted.
Yes.
This is it.
And this is only the beginning.
Just then, Executive Director Kim Eunkyung, who had also been watching Nutube on her phone, spoke in a slightly excited voice.
“Look at this... it hasn’t even been thirty minutes since upload, and it’s already passed one million views.”
“At this pace....”
“Exactly.”
I smiled.
“At this rate, ten million views in a single day might be possible.”
“Ten million?”
Ju Hanyoung trailed off, looking doubtful.
“Surely it won’t go that far....”
“No.”
Baek Seonghan turned toward him.
“If it keeps moving at this speed, Director Min might actually be right.”
“But I’m a little cautious about this kind of reaction.”
Han Taesung, who had been quietly watching us the entire time, finally spoke.
“What do you mean, CEO Han?”
Kim Eunkyung tilted her head.
“The bigger the expectations, the bigger the disappointment can be.”
Han Taesung looked thoughtful.
“You know how trailers are.”
“When the actual thing comes out, people start saying the trailer was the whole movie, or that they were tricked by the teaser.”
I understood why he was worried.
But....
“Don’t worry, CEO Han.”
I answered with complete confidence.
“That will never happen.”
Han Taesung quietly nodded.
“That’s right, CEO Han.”
Baek Seonghan grinned.
“Who do you think Director Min is?”
“If Director Min says it’ll succeed, then it succeeds. Hahaha.”
“Yes, yes.”
Han Taesung smiled faintly.
“I know that too.”
“Just take it as an old man worrying unnecessarily.”
And just as I predicted, twenty-four hours after the teaser was released, it surpassed twelve million views.
It became the most-viewed teaser in the history of Network Flex original series.
The next morning, the moment I arrived at work, I turned on my computer.
The top ten real-time search terms on the portal sites were completely dominated by keywords related to Kingdom of Blood.
[Kingdom of Blood]
[Network Flex Joseon Zombies]
[Network Flex Subscription Price]
[Royal Guard Commander Moon Hyunbin]
And that wasn’t all.
Major media outlets around the world were rushing to publish articles.
[Variety: Network Flex’s First Korean Original, Kingdom of Blood, Takes the Internet by Storm!]
[The Hollywood Reporter: Korea’s Answer to Network Flex Original Series The Walking Dead? Kingdom of Blood Teaser Breaks Records!]
[The Guardian: A Bold and Beautiful Marriage of Period Drama and Zombie Apocalypse. Watch Korea’s Daring First Network Flex Original!]
I was carefully reading through each article when the phone on my desk began to vibrate.
It was Jessica, Team Leader of Network Flex Korea.
“Yes, Team Leader Jessica.”
“Director Min, congratulations!”
Jessica’s cheerful voice burst through the phone.
“Headquarters is in complete chaos right now.”
“CEO Hayes even sent an email personally.”
“He told us to thank Director Min Kibaek, who led this entire project.”
“Thank me?”
I laughed softly.
“This is only the beginning.”
“Yes, exactly.”
“The real thing starts on the official release date.”
“But honestly, we never expected a one-minute-and-twenty-second teaser to generate this kind of reaction.”
Jessica paused for a moment, seemingly trying to calm herself down.
“And if people are reacting this strongly already....”
She continued.
“When we first read the script and held those early meetings, of course we expected it to perform reasonably well.”
“But honestly... I didn’t think it would be on this level.”
“I can’t believe people are responding this strongly to such an unfamiliar Korean story.”
I chuckled.
“Jessica, just keep watching.”
“Kingdom of Blood is only the beginning.”
“A day will come when people all over the world laugh and cry because of Korean content.”
“Haha.”
“There’s that confidence of yours again.”
“All right.”
“I’ll trust you one more time.”
“Then I’ll see you again soon.”
After ending the call, I looked out the window.
The reaction is even hotter than it was before my regression.
From that point until the official release date, we uploaded one new teaser every month, for a total of four.
Every single teaser received an explosive response.
Time passed quickly again.
And finally, only one week remained until the release of Kingdom of Blood.
Inside a Hanshin Media conference room.
Today was the quarterly meeting where executives from every department of Hanshin Media and all its subsidiary labels gathered together.
“Everyone, I have some good news.”
Han Taesung began with a pleased smile.
“I’ve been told that the number of users who set pre-release alerts for Kingdom of Blood on Network Flex has surpassed one hundred million.”
“O-One hundred million?”
The conference room erupted.
“Yes.”
“Apparently this is only the fifth original series in Network Flex history to exceed one hundred million pre-release alerts.”
“Ha...”
Baek Seonghan shook his head in disbelief.
“That number doesn’t even feel real.”
“The teasers seem to have had a much bigger impact than we expected.”
I explained calmly.
“And I have another piece of good news.”
I displayed the materials I had prepared on the screen.
“Two films we invested in have entered the competition sections of the Cannes Film Festival and Venice Film Festival, respectively.”
The atmosphere in the conference room grew even more excited.
“Possibly due to anticipation surrounding Kingdom of Blood, as well as the strong results from those two films, Hanshin Media’s stock price, as the parent company of Big Picture, has been hitting the daily upper limit repeatedly.”
Applause broke out around the room at yet another piece of good news.
“Looks like quite a few people here bought company stock.”
Kim Eunkyung smiled teasingly.
“Hoho.”
Another week passed.
At last, the long-awaited release day of Kingdom of Blood arrived.
The massive screen in the first-floor lobby of Hanshin Media headquarters continuously played the teaser while displaying a countdown.
It counted down the remaining time until all Season 1 episodes of Kingdom of Blood would be uploaded to Network Flex.
4:00 p.m.
Han Taesung, Director Song Jaehyun, Executive Director Kim Eunkyung, Executive Director Baek Seonghan, and I were gathered in front of the large television in the conference room.
“Wow.”
Song Jaehyun kept rubbing his hands together as if his palms were sweating.
“For some reason, I think I’m more nervous than when my own movie came out. Hahaha.”
“Don’t worry, CEO Song.”
Baek Seonghan joked.
“Director Min said it’s going to be huge.”
Exactly at four in the afternoon,
the poster for Kingdom of Blood appeared on Network Flex’s main screen.
“It’s out!”
“Wow.”
“Seeing it like this really makes it feel real.”
While everyone talked excitedly, I quickly opened my laptop and checked the real-time data.
Within five minutes of release, concurrent viewers were already approaching 1.5 million.
And even while we watched Episodes 1 and 2 back to back, the number kept rising.
“Director Min, what’s the concurrent viewer count now?”
“It hasn’t changed that much from the start.”
“1.8 million.”
Two hours after release, concurrent viewers stood at 1.8 million.
“Well, there’s a time difference between the United States and Korea.”
“And honestly, this isn’t exactly a time when everyone can sit around casually watching dramas.”
“Of course.”
“That’s the whole point of OTT, isn’t it?”
“You watch what you want, whenever you want.”
“Even if they don’t watch it today, they might watch it a month from now.”
Everyone clearly looked at least a little disappointed.
Still, they tried to accept it calmly and remain positive.
“Yes.”
“That’s right.”
“This is only the beginning.”
“Give it just one day.”
“We’ll definitely see a noticeable result.”
As always, I smiled at them with complete confidence.
And once again, my prediction was exactly right.
By the next day, viewership had surpassed three million, and Kingdom of Blood entered Network Flex’s global top 100.
Within one week, global viewership surpassed ten million.
It climbed to thirtieth place on the global chart.
Then another week passed....
Inside the Hanshin Media conference room, headlines from major media outlets around the world filled the giant monitor on the wall.
[The New York Times: Korean Zombie Thriller Takes America by Storm!]
[BBC News: Kingdom of Blood. How Did a Drama From a Small Country Called Korea Capture the Attention of the World?]
[Le Monde: Korea Conquers the World With Zombies.]
[Asahi Shimbun: Korean Zombie Drama Sweeps Across the Globe.]
“As you can see, the entire world is going crazy over Kingdom of Blood.”
I moved to the next slide.
“The reaction on social media is just as explosive.”
“On Twister, the hashtag #KingdomOfBlood reached number one on worldwide trends.”
“And on Instargram, posts related to the series have surpassed five million.”
[↳ Serious question. Why do all the characters in this drama wear such cool hats? From the king to the servants, every hat is different.]
[↳ Exactly. Kingdom of Blood isn’t actually a zombie drama. It’s a drama about hat fashion. LOL.]
[↳ But those hats are seriously stylish, aren’t they? I want one.]
[↳ Oh my god, Korean zombies don’t even walk. They sprint at full speed. LOL. Compared to them, The Walking Zombies look like turtles.]
[↳ The zombie actors are insane. The joint-cracking sounds and screams are so realistic I’m going to dream about them. In one word, terrifying.]
[↳ Did none of you notice the cinematography hiding underneath all that?]
[↳ Exactly. Exactly. I’m planning to visit Korea on my next vacation.]
“As you can see, the reactions overseas are on another level.”
Han Taesung nodded with a deeply satisfied expression.
“This is really unbelievable.”
“A drama we made is being watched like this all over the world....”
“Exactly.”
Baek Seonghan shook his head in disbelief.
“The scale of the reaction itself is completely different from when we were only dealing with Korea.”
“Ha.”
“So this is why everyone keeps saying global, global.”
Watching their reactions, I brought up the next set of data.
