Chapter 492: Duke and the Absurd Dramas

The crew didn't have many exterior scenes to shoot in Paris, and they weren't particularly difficult. The real challenge lay in locking down roads in such an incredibly bustling, crowded city. With space and time severely limited, Duke had to direct the crew at top speed to finish the planned scenes without compromising quality. Fortunately, Liam Neeson was in good form. As long as he maintained it, they would stay on schedule.

Cars sat jammed together on the temporarily closed overpass. Mounted on a dolly, the camera pulled steadily backward as Liam Neeson pumped his long legs right in front of the lens, desperately giving chase. The actor, now over fifty, was running at his absolute limit.

"Cut!"

Behind the camera, Duke raised his head and called a halt. "Take five. Riley, touch up Liam's makeup."

The towering Liam Neeson leaned against a car, doubled over and panting. Even with systematic training, sprinting up this long incline was proving to be a bit much for him.

Duke walked over to check on him, then extended the break to fifteen minutes.

Agent Bryan's character concept meant casting a younger actor was out of the question. An aging, retired agent wiping out a gang of strapping young thugs in close-quarters combat was the kind of thing that only happened in the movies anyway.

A fifteen-minute break was the absolute limit. Though they weren't actually shooting on the overpass near Charles de Gaulle Airport and traffic here wasn't overly heavy, the crew still couldn't monopolize the road for long.

Duke stood and walked to the edge of the overpass, gazing into the distance for a moment. He then glanced toward the crew's police tape. Tina Fey ducked past the blockade, walking briskly toward him.

"The plane has taken off," she said, stepping up beside him. "Evie will call you once she lands in Australia."

"Got it." Duke nodded.

Ivanka had only stayed for four days before heading to Australia. The company was in a period of rapid growth. Global expansion was still a distant dream, but breaking into Europe and the Anglosphere—markets closely tied to North America—wouldn't be too difficult.

As for taking the company public, Ivanka had brought it up several times since returning from New York, but Duke had stalled her with various excuses. It was perfectly normal for a company at this stage to seek an IPO to fund its expansion. Besides, the business had been burning cash for years without turning a profit; he completely understood why she wanted to go public.

However, from what Duke could gather, Donald Trump's shadow seemed to loom behind this IPO push. He had no intention of letting that troublesome man get his hands on his piece of the pie.

An IPO was an inevitable necessity for the future, of course. Instant Sharing would undoubtedly need massive capital to continue expanding. Duke was wealthy, certainly, but his net worth wasn't mostly in liquid cash. Moreover, he couldn't sink massive sums of money into a single, uncertain venture.

The IPO could wait. At the very least, they had to hold off until after Google went public.

The brief break quickly came to an end. Tina Fey seemed to have something else on her mind, but Duke told her to save it for later. The next shot wouldn't take too long anyway.

Liam Neeson finally caught his breath. Although the final shot required four takes, Duke called it a print in under forty minutes.

With the overpass scenes completely wrapped up, a portion of the crew was left behind to pack up the equipment. Meanwhile, Duke led the rest of the filming unit into their vehicles, hurrying toward a minority neighborhood in the city proper.

In the moving car, Tina Fey brought up what she hadn't had a chance to mention earlier.

"Word came from the Warner Distribution Department," she said. "Their international division has essentially reached an agreement with the people across the ocean."

At that, Duke's expression immediately shifted to one of deep interest.

"They've agreed to your conditions in principle," she continued. "Taken can have a simultaneous release. They also suggested you bring the film to the Shanghai Film Festival next June."

Tina Fey flipped open her work log, glanced at it, and went on.

"They do have one condition of their own, though. They require you to send over the final theatrical cut of the film no later than mid-April. They need to..."

"Need to review it?" Duke finished.

"Right." Tina Fey nodded. "The film has to pass their review before it can be screened over there."

This was perfectly normal. Forget about the present—even over the next decade, any movie hitting theaters over there would have to pass through censorship. In fact, pretty much anywhere in the world, films faced similar scrutiny before release.

Take North America, for instance. The MPAA rating system wasn't technically mandatory by law, but what distributor wouldn't submit their film for a rating? Without one, virtually every theater chain would refuse to screen it.

Duke thought it over for a few minutes before turning back to Tina Fey.

"Agree to it," he told her.

Duke wasn't overly concerned about the big scissors. The films he had made since arriving in Hollywood were heavily Americanized, sure, but they never touched on issues that would agitate the other side's sensitive nerves. The South China Sea plotline in The Rock, for example, had been smoothly swapped to Iran and the Persian Gulf under his direction...

Besides, from here on out, anyone's film would have to jump through this exact hoop if they wanted it shown in theaters across the Pacific.

Their censorship standards were notoriously erratic—what passed today might be banned tomorrow—but that mostly applied to their own domestic productions. The quantitative metrics for foreign films were actually quite straightforward.

In the past, Duke had felt helpless whenever the big scissors were brought up. But after his time in Hollywood, he fully understood the reality: no country or region on Earth would ever allow audiovisual media—tools fundamentally capable of propaganda and incitement—to circulate entirely unchecked.

Political correctness was a mandatory baseline for mainstream media in any nation. The big scissors certainly suffered from inconsistent standards, excessive arbitrariness, and countless other flaws, but it was too simple to dump all the blame squarely on their shoulders.

Take, for example, certain absurd drama projects he had worked on in his past life.

Back then, he had spent time on the sets of several absurd dramas. He knew perfectly well that their prevalence wasn't just a byproduct of the big scissors; it was inextricably linked to market demand.

Setting aside the mandates of censorship, a little analysis revealed that absurd dramas were arguably the most clearly defined genre of all television shows. They relied on a globally universal formula: clearly drawn battle lines between good and evil, justice triumphing in the end, and life-or-death stakes...

Furthermore, with the explosive growth of the internet, there was no denying that the television audience was skewing older. Viewership was increasingly dominated by people born in the fifties and sixties. Growing up in a unique era, this demographic harbored a profound enthusiasm for these absurd dramas, thereby forging a rigid market demand.

A guaranteed market demand inevitably ensured these absurd dramas had breathing room. For networks and production companies, they were a golden ticket: low risk, high reward.

First, absurd dramas were the pinnacle of absolute political correctness, with massive "rigid demand"—they were practically mandatory programming on various memorial days. Second, the genre was highly codified, boasting a fiercely loyal target demographic in older viewers. Compared to other shows, they didn't require expensive stars, kept production budgets low, enjoyed high rerun rates, and pulled in solid profits. Better yet, productions that were red and specialized while boasting local flavor often received substantial government backing and lucrative financial subsidies.

Though he had never truly made a name for himself in his past life, his career turning point had sprung from one of these very crews. Pyrotechnicians were indispensable on absurd drama sets, and the sheer volume of these productions provided a wealth of opportunities for newcomers to cut their teeth.

The behind-the-scenes departments might lack glamour, but looking at the casts of these absurd dramas, it was easy to see how much opportunity the genre generated for everyone involved, both in front of and behind the camera.

Absurd dramas demanded very little of their cast and crew, especially the actors. Even if they weren't particularly attractive, tall, or refined—traits that might bar them from other genres—they were generally perfectly fine for an absurd drama.

In reality, many glamorous B- and C-list pop idols often earned far less than obscure absurd drama actors whose names nobody even recognized.

Duke recalled producers mentioning that some B- and C-list actors—the ones starring exclusively in idol and slice-of-life dramas—still relied on their families to pull strings and cover their living expenses. In stark contrast, absurd drama actors who were willing to put in the grueling work often found themselves drowning in roles, quietly raking in fortunes.

Hyperbole aside, in an industry where opportunity vastly outweighed raw talent, the cast and crew of absurd dramas were perhaps the closest thing to a true meritocracy, where "you reap what you sow."

The popularity of any specific film or television genre was always a complex web of factors. It was impossible to lay the blame for an industry trend at the feet of any single individual or agency.

Much like Captain America giving Hitler a beatdown, or Quentin Tarantino massacring the Nazi high command, both China and America ultimately held similar attitudes toward cinema: political correctness must be encouraged, and romanticized imagination was heavily indulged.

Naturally, taking a few imaginative liberties added immense entertainment value, which audiences adored. But resorting to outright vulgar, tasteless elements? That absolutely deserved to be mocked.

All in all, as a former industry insider, Duke had a fairly clear grasp of the big scissors' bottom line. Furthermore, he was a director perfectly willing to make necessary compromises, not a stubborn purist like Christopher Nolan.

Upon arriving at the minority neighborhood, Duke knocked out a few quick shots and wrapped up the day's work.

The exterior shoots in Paris were sparse but highly fragmented. They were constantly forced to adjust their schedule around the city's chaotic conditions. Finally, entering mid-January of 2004, the crew arrived at their very last scene.

All the high-difficulty action sequences had already been filmed in the soundstages back in Burbank. For Liam Neeson, the hardest parts on location were undoubtedly the endless running scenes. When he completed his final sprint across a bridge spanning the Seine River, Duke officially announced a wrap on production.

It had taken a mere two months to get the entire film in the can. Duke didn't linger in Paris. He needed to get back to Los Angeles to dive into post-production, and just as importantly, he needed to make the rounds and boost his visibility during the final stretch of awards season.

Showing his face and rubbing elbows with the voters was crucial work. First on the agenda was the rapidly approaching Golden Globe Awards.