Chapter 811: Mountain Eagle's Superhero Plan

Nowadays, claiming that Duke was the pillar of Warner Brothers would draw zero objections across Hollywood, and everyone inside the studio itself would raise both hands in agreement. Warner Brothers' Editorial Department attached extraordinary importance to the story outline Duke had Tina Fey hand over. While Duke was busy continuing his shoot, they specifically allocated staff to study it and discuss the feasibility of turning it into a film.

As for Duke's instructions to pass it along to the China Film Group, Warner Brothers naturally pushed that to the back of their minds. If the project could yield massive profits, they were confident Duke wouldn't mind Warner intercepting the documents.

It was safe to say that Warner Brothers took this seemingly unfamiliar material quite seriously. After all, a director of Duke's caliber had formally submitted it; this was not some inexplicable nonsense written by an arrogant unknown who had yet to prove themselves in the market.

However, after a few weeks of study and discussion, the executives at Warner Brothers concluded that while the document held a certain amount of value, it ultimately meant little to the studio.

They had specifically commissioned the Warner Greater China Region to investigate it. Although the characters mentioned in the outline were household names in China, hardly anyone outside the country knew who they were. Hollywood operated on an international scale; producing a film exclusively to serve the Chinese market made absolutely no sense.

Given this reality, Warner Brothers forwarded the document to the Warner Greater China Region. Warner's partnership with the China Film Group had already yielded countless benefits, and the studio hoped to use this outline to draw the two sides even closer.

Phil, the general manager of the Warner Greater China Region, formally presented the document to the China Film Group. Upon hearing that these were conceptual ideas for Chinese cinema passed along by Duke Rosenberg, the executives at the China Film Group didn't dare dawdle. They immediately delivered it to Mountain Eagle.

Inside his spacious office, Mountain Eagle opened the file and began to read it earnestly.

In recent years, as the reality of his impending retirement continued to spread throughout the industry, all sorts of unfavorable rumors about him began circulating online and within film circles. Mountain Eagle didn't care. Many of the claims were indeed true, but in this country, if one wanted to actually get things done, how else could they operate?

He had dedicated his entire life to Chinese cinema and vigorously pushed for its reform. He believed he had a clear conscience regarding the Chinese film industry.

Although his retirement was looming, Mountain Eagle still wanted to do something more for Chinese cinema.

After finishing the document, Mountain Eagle let out a soft sigh. The characters outlined within were household names in China; with the right adaptation, a massive audience was guaranteed. If all these figures were truly brought together, he had no doubt the public would eagerly buy tickets, potentially birthing a golden era of Chinese super blockbusters.

However, as someone who understood this industry inside and out, Mountain Eagle knew that shooting a Chinese superhero movie was simply unrealistic.

Similar demands had long echoed across the internet. China had just as many superheroes as America, and they were in no way inferior, possessing a massive fanbase. Yet, placing them in a modern setting for a film? Everyone knew that was just a pipe dream.

Mountain Eagle had read plenty of those online threads, though he didn't fully agree with their arguments.

Some argued that superheroes championed extreme individualism and symbolized resistance against government authority, which would easily cross taboos and make the leadership uncomfortable.

That excuse was blowing things out of proportion. If it were truly that taboo, the first to be banned would be Monkey Sun. The uproar he caused tearing through Tiangong was no smaller than the antics of any superhero.

Others claimed that Chinese films were all cheap knock-offs, lacking the imagination and technical prowess required to produce a blockbuster.

Mountain Eagle didn't buy that reasoning either. If their technology fell short, they could simply throw money at a Hollywood crew. He had dealt extensively with Warner Brothers and Duke Rosenberg, the owner of Hollywood's most outstanding visual effects company, Industrial Light and Magic. He knew perfectly well that these people were driven purely by profit. As long as the cash flowed, they couldn't care less where the contract came from.

Then there were those who blamed mandatory patriotic themes. Yet, in Mountain Eagle's view, this argument didn't hold much water either.

Patriotic themes didn't conflict with sci-fi and superheroes at all. In fact, America's superhero flicks were exactly their version of patriotic films—they lacked neither real-world relevance nor positive messaging, and they could easily be tailored to fit the current political climate. Sci-fi and superheroes were merely a shell; they could carry any theme, so the two concepts weren't mutually exclusive.

Despite mentally debunking all those excuses, Mountain Eagle knew perfectly well that none of this held much significance for Chinese cinema at its current stage. He pressed his intercom to summon his secretary, instructing them to temporarily file the documents away.

After his secretary left, Mountain Eagle lightly tapped his desk. As a veteran Chinese filmmaker, it would be an absolute lie to say he didn't want to see Chinese cinema take flight and dominate the globe just like Hollywood films did.

In fact, based on the outline he had just read, he had already started silently filling in the necessary cinematic blanks.

To tie these characters into a film firmly rooted in modern society, groundwork had to be laid. They would need to design a positive, upstanding superhero who fit the patriotic mold—for instance, he could hail from a model "Five-Good" family in the Capital City, and be a "Four-Haves" youth himself. He would love his city and support the government, and the story would revolve around him thwarting a terrorist organization's super-monster to save the entire Capital City. To align with current directives, this superhero would also embody the outstanding virtues of morality, inclusivity, patriotism, and innovation.

But reaching this point in his thoughts, Mountain Eagle shook his head and let out a long sigh.

"It can't be filmed!"

With a superhero and a terrorist monster, there had to be a fight. And that fight had to be earth-shattering, or the audience would never buy it.

Once the battle escalated to earth-shattering proportions, a slew of inevitable problems arose.

American movies constantly smashed up their own major metropolises—New York, Los Angeles—and flattened all their iconic landmarks. Japan was even worse; Tokyo had been annihilated on screen more times than the Capital City had suffered through sandstorms.

Because of this, staging such destructive action sequences in China was fundamentally unrealistic. Forget the big scissors and other government bureaus—it wouldn't even make it past the China Film Group.

For example, what if the backdrop for the final showdown between the superhero and the forces of evil was the square in front of the imperial palace?

Before filming even began, the director and crew would have to answer a glaring question: would it be acceptable to topple a certain hero monument?

Did they really need to ask? Absolutely not. That monument stood to honor the martyrs of the revolutionary wars. If a film crew destroyed it on screen, what kind of political subtext would the movie be projecting? Then what about smashing a corner of the Great Hall where certain officials held their meetings? Also a no. That was where the nation's representatives gathered. What if one of those representatives stood up in protest, claiming it lacked proper solemnity?

Not to mention a certain memorial hall—touching even a hair on that building would be considered blasphemy, leading to a permanent, unyielding ban from the big scissors.

At this thought, Mountain Eagle mentally abandoned the city's most famous landmarks in favor of somewhere with less political weight—like the commercial district. The superhero and the villain could duel with the China World Trade Center Building in the background, strictly containing the collateral damage to the stretch between Dawang Road in the east and Yonganli in the west. They could topple one of the Twin Towers, blow a highway overpass in half, and set fire to a certain television station's "Big Pants" building, but nothing more.

But less than five seconds into this thought experiment, Mountain Eagle was shaking his head again.

That approach was still riddled with issues. Wouldn't reducing the Capital City's vital central business district to rubble smear the city's urban development achievements? You could argue it was just a fictional movie, but what if someone took it seriously? Wouldn't local businesses protest? Moreover, it had only been a few years since the tragic fire at that specific television station's annex, and liability had already been settled. If a director put a burning building on screen now, what were they trying to insinuate? Were they questioning the official findings of the Relevant Authorities?

So, what about moving the battle outside the city limits? The barren wilderness certainly wouldn't work. Though Mountain Eagle was nearing retirement, he understood the psychology of moviegoers well enough to know that setting a blockbuster in an unrecognizable wasteland would destroy any sense of immersion. They had to pick somewhere famous.

How about the Badaling Great Wall? It was far from the city and relatively safe, but the feasibility remained at absolute zero.

The Great Wall represented the image of the entire nation. If the hero or the villain punched it in half, the underlying metaphor would be disastrous.

Even if the film didn't intend any political commentary, there was no stopping audiences with ulterior motives from misinterpreting it. What if someone screenshotted the broken wall, posted it online, and added a caption claiming the country was falling apart? The social fallout would be horrific and nearly impossible to undo.

Then there was the villain—a monster dispatched by terrorists. Where exactly were these terrorists from? America, Europe, or Russia were off the table; that would invite diplomatic incidents. The Middle East was out of the question; that was a powder keg waiting to explode. As for the various separatist factions or banned cults, they were definitely villains, but the state forbade mentioning them outright. The censorship on those sensitive keywords alone would be enough to sink the production. What? Invent a fictional terrorist group? Weren't there already enough real ones in the world? Why go out of the way to cause the state more trouble?

And on top of all that, the standard ending for this genre was a political minefield.

"A monster rampages through the Four-Nine City, leaving everyone helpless. Just in the nick of time, a superhero appears and saves the city."

The moment he finished muttering that line, Mountain Eagle immediately spotted the fatal flaw. Did "everyone" include the public security forces and the armed police? A monster was wantonly destroying public order—a massive crisis—and yet the police were helpless, forced to rely on a vigilante for salvation? Wouldn't the public view that as a deliberate smear against certain law enforcement agencies?

Perhaps the script could be rewritten so the superhero teamed up with the police to defeat the villain—just as Duke Rosenberg had done in Transformers, having the Autobots fight alongside the US Military.

But Mountain Eagle shook his head again. The feasibility was still too low. In that scenario, who would take orders from whom? Would the superhero obey the police, or would the police defer to the superhero? Did this vigilante even have an official supervisory department? Perhaps they could make the protagonist a police officer in their civilian life, performing regular duties and only donning the cape when disaster struck. But that was even worse! How could a state officer hide a secret identity from the organization?

Reaching this point in his mental simulation, Mountain Eagle lost all enthusiasm. He stood up to brew himself a cup of tea, completely abandoning the hopeless train of thought.