Chapter 1042: I knew it (11)

Everyone in the conference room turned to look at one man.

'Goodman?'

The very person Sunny had singled out in his interview.

To ordinary people who didn't know the details, it simply sounded like, "Oh, I guess he helped with something."

But everyone in this room heard something very different.

—It's him! That's the guy!

It almost felt as though Sun Wooju himself were whispering in their ears.

Heh heh... kill him...

Every gaze settled on Dwight Goodman in confusion.

And at that very moment, the man in question was drenched in cold sweat.

Silver Screen's CEO looked toward the heavyset executive who was repeatedly blotting sweat from his face with a handkerchief.

"Mr. Goodman, would you care to explain this situation?"

"Uh... I believe there may have been some communication issues with the Korean side. Cultural differences may have caused some misunderstandings regarding my intentions, and naturally there were language barriers as well..."

The marketing executive hastily claimed that the entire situation stemmed from mutual misunderstanding.

"Hmm."

The CEO stroked his chin.

The details of what had been discussed during a meeting about a fifty-million-dollar low-budget film honestly didn't interest him.

Only one thing mattered.

Will this movie make money?

That was why, before discussing Dwight Goodman's fate, Charles Voight turned to another employee.

"I heard the first cut has arrived."

"Yes, sir."

"Then let's watch it."

An internal screening that would normally have taken place only after the final cut had arrived was moved forward immediately.

The curtains covering the conference room windows were drawn shut for security.

The film's runtime was approximately one hour and fifty minutes.

But—

"Oh."

The executives found themselves drawn in from the very first scene, which opened with jazz music.

Of course, their concentration didn't last long.

"Hmm..."

"Mmm."

The early portion set in Korea felt a bit slow to the American audience.

Then the setting shifted from Japan to the United States.

And suddenly their eyes lit up.

Stylish jazz music.

Strong storytelling.

Musical numbers carefully placed exactly where they belonged.

Sun Myungju's masterpieces reborn as musical songs through the hands of his son.

Most importantly—

There was one thing that caught their attention above all else.

A film drenched in nostalgia for 1990s America.

To Americans, the nineties represented a golden age.

A time when all of America's major competitors had collapsed, leaving the country as the world's sole superpower.

The Gulf War victory.

Strong trade.

Strong economic growth.

A period of prosperity.

Those were good days.

As a CGI recreation of New York's Twin Towers briefly appeared in the background, smiles spread across several faces.

The film was soaked in nineties nostalgia.

The phones people used back then.

The countless period props.

The distinctive Christmas atmosphere embodied by films like Home Alone.

The optimism and confidence of a pre-9/11 America.

The promise of a bright future.

The executives couldn't help smiling.

Partly because they were reminiscing.

But there was another reason.

If it works on us, it'll probably work on general audiences too.

They could already see the marketing potential.

Nostalgia for America's golden age would almost certainly resonate with North American audiences.

Most importantly—

The movie was simply good.

"Huh?"

"Huh?"

Before they realized it, the film was over.

Normally, five minutes of meetings felt like an hour.

This time, two hours had passed like ten minutes.

The lights came back on.

"Hmm."

Everyone immediately looked toward the CEO seated at the head of the table.

Years of reading their superior's mood allowed the executives to spot the tiny upward curve at the corner of his lips.

He likes it!

In reality, Charles Voight was in an excellent mood.

His shareholders had been pressuring him over performance and were practically demanding his resignation.

And now a lifeline had fallen into his lap.

If everything goes well, this could even reach three hundred million worldwide.ℴ

By last year's standards, that would place it around thirtieth in the global box office rankings.

That might not sound extraordinary.

But the crucial fact was that the movie only cost fifty million dollars to make.

Even after spending tens of millions more on promotion, the returns would be several times greater.

It was exactly the kind of blockbuster success the company desperately needed.

Which was why Charles Voight deliberately frowned.

"Goodman."

"Y-Yes...?"

"...I'm extremely disappointed in your judgment."

It was a signal to the other executives.

Offer him as a sacrifice.

Yes, sir!

The executives immediately joined in, criticizing how profitable the film appeared and calling the decision to alter the revenue-sharing agreement foolish.

"That's enough."

The chairman pretended to stop them.

"This isn't a meeting about assigning blame."

Then he called another name.

"Cassidy."

"Yes."

"You'll be handling marketing for this film from now on."

Rebecca Cassidy, widely regarded as the most capable person in the marketing department, nodded.

Meanwhile, Goodman's face steadily grew paler.

"By the way, how much was the promotional budget reduced?"

"...Ninety-five percent."

"My God, Goodman."

"..."

The chairman shook his head.

"Restore it to the original amount."

He paused.

"And increase it by another one hundred percent."

"Understood."

Just as he was about to move on to the next agenda item—

One of the executives from Goodman's faction spoke up.

"I'm not opposing your decision, Chairman. However, there was a reason Mr. Goodman made that choice. Promotional funds have already been committed to other projects, so our available budget is currently rather limited..."

He pointed out the company's financial situation, arguing that there wasn't enough money readily available for a major Sound of the Sun campaign.

Several executives from his side nodded in agreement.

Then the CFO spoke.

"We actually do have the funds."

"...?"

"We recently received eleven million dollars from Lemon Entertainment as a co-investment."

"...!"

The finance chief calmly explained that they now had eleven million dollars in immediately available capital.

The opposing executive quietly shut his mouth.

As discussion moved on to other films, Charles Voight wore an odd expression.

...This feels strange.

It was almost as though someone had predicted this exact situation.

Eleven million dollars had suddenly fallen into their hands at precisely the right moment.

Money received from Sun Wooju's side was now being spent promoting Sun Wooju's film.

The coincidence was unsettling.

In the end, only the revenue-sharing terms had changed.

Lemon Entertainment seemed to be coming out ahead no matter what happened.

Kyahahaha!

In his imagination, a giant floating lemon drifted through the air, laughing mockingly.

Kyahahaha!

Charles shook his head.

Just a coincidence.

Compared to Silver Screen, that tiny Korean agency was insignificant.

Surely they hadn't calculated things this far ahead.

Still.

The feeling lingered.

And so he redirected his irritation elsewhere.

"Goodman."

"Y-Yes...?"

"I am deeply disappointed in you."

"..."

"Handle your personal issues with NewBlack yourself. And I would prefer never to see your name in the headlines again."

The CEO's glare pierced straight through him.

In an instant, Dwight Goodman had become a traitor.

And the amount of cold sweat pouring from him increased dramatically.

Immediately after the Like The Sun performance.

Interview requests flooded in from every direction.

I even gave interviews to foreign media.

Whenever someone asked why I had planned the livestream, I casually mentioned a certain individual.

—This gentleman expressed some concerns, which is why I decided to do the livestream.

I couldn't exactly say that he'd told me the movie lacked a proper protagonist or global commercial appeal.

So I phrased it diplomatically.

I thought that would be the end of it.

Then something surprising happened.

[...I sincerely want to apologize.]

After the reports came out, the studio contacted us through official channels to apologize.

And not just anyone.

Dwight Goodman himself sent a video message.

"...?"

I was honestly bewildered.

The speed of the studio's response caught me completely off guard.

I had only made a passing reference during an interview.

I never expected things to escalate like this.

It felt as though I'd left a restaurant review vaguely implying discrimination—

And then—

Gagged!

The owner suddenly appeared, dragging out a bound criminal and saying:

"We're terribly sorry. Please forgive us."

"I... don't think they needed to go that far."

To begin with, my expectations of Hollywood weren't exactly high.

I had intended to shrug it off with, Well, that's Hollywood for you.

Instead, I received an apology.

The whole thing felt surreal.

"Seriously... they didn't have to do all this."

I shook my head and replayed the video.

Then I sent a message to the group chat.

Me: [Director.]

Me: [We received an apology message. Want me to send it?]

Director Kim Bora: [YES!!]

I shared the video with everyone who had attended the meeting that day.

Across from me, Director Jo sat on the sofa, sipping coffee while watching.

"Hmm... the coffee smells especially good today."

After watching the apology that began with I'm sorry, he immediately replayed it while leisurely taking another sip.

I smiled and drank some cold water.

Beside me, the maknae looked impressed.

"Wow. I've never seen Hollywood people apologize before. They don't even apologize when racism scandals happen."

"It's because money is involved."

Director Jo chuckled.

"Their attitude changed because the film's prospects changed. Before, they thought it was worth one. Now they think it's worth ten."

"Ah..."

"And if I were the studio, I wouldn't pick a fight with someone who can gather ten million viewers for a livestream."

The members burst out laughing.

I smiled awkwardly.

The room was filled with cheerful laughter.

After the livestream reached ten million simultaneous viewers, the studio's attitude had undergone a complete one-eighty.

—How much promotional budget do you need?

Less than twelve hours after the livestream ended, our assigned contact was replaced.

A new representative reached out.

[It's a pleasure to meet you. As of today, I'll be overseeing the marketing for Sound of the Sun. My name is Rebecca Cassidy.]

She was a senior executive in Silver Screen's marketing department.

According to Director Kim Bora, she had a reputation for being exceptionally capable.

[What happened to Mr. Goodman?]

[...He's been transferred to another department.]

For some reason, it sounded eerily similar to:

"Mr. Goodman has gone to a better place..."

In any case, it was clear that the studio had decided to fully commit.

They planned to hire one of the industry's most sought-after trailer directors.

They wanted to dramatically expand the scale of the premiere events.

I agreed with all of it.

Biju smiled.

"Congratulations, Hyung. You can finally relax a little."

"Yeah."

I leaned back against the sofa and smiled.

I'd achieved exactly what I wanted.

The goal had been to expand the project's scale and force the distributor to spend more on promotion.

And by every measure, it had been a complete success.

But...

The feeling settling over me now was something different.

I'd originally thought it would feel satisfying to teach the studio a lesson.

Instead, what I felt was pride.

"How did I even perform that?"

Honestly, if someone asked me to recreate that stage exactly, I couldn't guarantee I could.

I'd simply lost myself in the performance.

And somehow it had become the kind of stage fans called legendary.

I stared at the video, which had already accumulated tens of millions of views despite being uploaded only recently.

Then—

"Definitely..."

Ri Hyuk clicked his tongue while watching the performance again.

"Hyung, you're exactly like Senior Baek Siyeon."

"Huh?"

"Your vocal style. It's different when you're singing NewBlack group songs compared to when you're comfortably singing solo."

That was true.

When singing as part of NewBlack, I generally aimed for a clean, textbook-perfect style.

Nowadays Souffle was huge.

But back during the fierce competition period, even the slightest mistake would get criticized.

—His pitch seems off todayㅠ

—Feels a little inconsistent.

—His performances vary a lot LOL. Fans probably think everything he does is amazing.

Those comments resurfaced in my memory.

Anyway, I pursued that kind of vocal approach in group songs.

But when singing solo, I was much more relaxed.

Now I understood why Ri Hyuk had compared me to Baek Siyeon.

Rather than constantly scoring ninety-nine points—

I would consistently score above ninety.

And then suddenly, at the right moment, explode with a one-hundred-and-twenty-point performance.

That livestream had probably been one of those moments.

Junghyun asked,

"Do you have some kind of secret, Hyung?"

"No secret. I just sang by feel."

As we talked, the chorus of Like The Sun continued drifting through the room.

The melody echoed throughout Director Jo's office.

And the reason was—

"Hohohoho! Hahahahaha!"

The CEO was dancing near the office windows and laughing like a man who had completely lost his mind.

Everyone smiled warmly.

He's happy because the investment paid off.

CEO Park looks especially radiant today...

When he'd invested twelve billion won, he'd looked utterly miserable.

Now he was laughing as though shouting:

"I was right!"

He genuinely looked overjoyed.

"Oh! The CEO is dancing."

Biju walked over and began dancing with him.

"Come here, Biju!"

"Yes!"

Our main dancer gracefully took the CEO's hand and spun him around like they were attending a ballroom gala.

"Hohohohoho!"

The CEO laughed with pure happiness.

Then, looking as though he'd reached some monumental decision, he suddenly threw a finger heart at me.

"Wooju!"

"Yes...?"

"I'm going to recreate a scene from the livestream too."

"...?"

The CEO gestured toward Biju.

Biju obediently spun him around once more.

The man looked drunk on happiness.

After all, his twelve-billion-won investment was on its way to becoming several hundred billion.

Like someone at karaoke, he began singing the chorus of Like The Sun.

"Behold! Your Sun...!"

Bathed in the sunset, the CEO's bald head shone brilliantly.

"Wooju! The CEO is a Sun too! Hahahahaha!"

"Pffft!"

Everyone immediately sprayed their drinks everywhere.

While one shining individual was blessing the Lemon Entertainment office with divine radiance—

[Breaking news from Hollywood Report!]

The small spark launched by Sun Wooju—Like The Sun—was sweeping through media outlets across the globe.

Every publication covering Hollywood news had plastered Wooju's face across their headlines.

[NewBlack leader Sun, who set an astonishing record of ten million concurrent viewers on MyTube, shone quite literally like the Sun. The uploaded video reached one hundred million views in record time...]

Wooju's livestream had surpassed one hundred million views almost instantly.

Not only were the original livestream viewers watching.

Ordinary people were continuing to discover and share it.

[The previous record holder was Uncle Bunny, also composed by Wooju! Once again, his own record has been broken. The song, now available on Spotify and other streaming platforms...]

Anyone who had watched the legendary performance had already added the prerelease track from Sound of the Sun to their playlists.

The thumbnail displayed the movie poster.

A man sitting at a piano.

Beneath the album title were the composers' names.

Sun Myungju & Sun Wooju

As Hollywood reporters excitedly declared that "Two Suns" were dominating the charts—

Musical film fans around the world were suffering.

—I don't know about anything else, but Sunny is definitely a master torturer. He gives us one song and tells us to wait three months??

—No trailer. No stills. What is Silver Screen even thinking?

—How do you release a song like this three months early and then give us nothing?

—This has to be mystery marketing.

To fans who didn't know the full story, it looked exactly like some elaborate mystery campaign.

NewBlack's leader suddenly appeared.

Dropped one of the greatest songs they'd ever heard.

Then vanished.

Without providing a single additional clue.

"Ah! This is torture!"

Ironically, that frustration only caused mentions of Sound of the Sun to skyrocket even further.

#GiveUsSomething

Across Twitter and Instagram, musical-film fans collectively demanded that Silver Screen release literally anything.

—The reason it's called Sound of the Sun: because just like the sound of the Sun, there are no movie updates.

—Silver Screen, listen carefully. This movie is now your only hope.

—They said Sound of the Sun, and then they literally gave us only Sunny's sound before disappearing.

—Behold your Sun! Behold your Sun! Behold your Sun! Behold your Sun! Behold your Sun!

—Praise the Sun!

The reason musical-film fans around the world were losing their minds wasn't complicated.

"Haa..."

They took a deep breath and replayed the video.

A genius bathed in sunset sang a song representing his father.

The showmanship.

The performance.

The overwhelming star power radiating from every tiny gesture.

People found themselves hypnotized, replaying it endlessly.

A real artist.

Eventually they exhausted the video itself and began searching for anything remotely similar.

Old footage of Sun Myungju.

NewBlack performances.

Anything.

The reaction in Korea wasn't much different.

—The lyrics alone make me cryㅠㅠㅠ

—The atmosphere is incredible. It feels like the whole world became one in that moment.

—I've been having a hard time lately, but this song gave me strength. Thanks, Wooju.

—I'm job hunting right now, and this really comforted me.

—How does he sing like this?

But...

One person scrolled through the overwhelmingly positive comment section with a deep frown.

"Haaa..."

Astonishingly—

It was NewBlack's main vocalist.

Ri Hyuk's sharp eyes swept across the comments.

—No singer in their twenties can beat this live performance right now.

—Best live stage I've seen in agesㅠㅠㅠㅠ

—The way it starts as a solo and becomes a choir in the middle... wow. Wooju deserves an award for this live performance.

—I haven't even seen the movie, but I can already picture it.

—Sun Wooju is the best.

If scores existed beyond one hundred points, this performance deserved one hundred fifty.

Ri Hyuk slowly closed his eyes while practicing vocals.

How am I supposed to beat this?

Tomorrow's opponent on Mission Singer, Cha Woohyun, was no longer the problem.

The real challenge was somehow surpassing Sun Wooju.

When Ri Hyuk opened his eyes again, they were burning with determination.

—Kyahahaha! Ri Hyuk! You looked like you were having fun, so I came out!

—?

—I'm Ri Hyuk, the undisputed king of Korean hip-hop!

At first, his older brother had appeared and nearly pushed him toward elimination.

Then—

—Kyahahaha! Ri Hyuk! Hyung worked hard promoting you! I brought people who wanted to see you!

—I am Cha Woohyun, Supreme Leader of the Music World.

—Hehe. It wouldn't be complete without me. I am Baek Siyeon, leader of the demonic sect whose hobby is hunting righteous vocalists.

He'd brought Cha Woohyun and the Four Heavenly Kings.

And now—

—Kyahahaha! Ri Hyuk! Hyung just created a legendary performance! Don't feel pressured. Just go perform at the King of Singers finals~

His eldest brother had gone and achieved the greatest stage of his career.

Inside the soundproof vocal practice room, Ri Hyuk shouted at the empty air.

You evil man...!

Such was the anguish of NewBlack's main vocalist.