Chapter 65: Fighting for Theater Screenings
Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
Qiu Ren, the culprit, had just reached Europe with the Central Research Institute. He was here as an intern of the dream media companies of the Celestial Empire.
It was impossible for them to take the body of the Dream Seed overseas. Hence, they could only use the Dream Maker, who entered a contract with it, to be the bait.
They had no idea what kind of Dream Seeds Qiu Ren, this Dream Maker of Battle Royale, Dark Souls, and the Batman Trilogy, could ensnare.
Meanwhile, Qiu Ren was listening to the discussion on the screenings of The Dark Knight between Director Feng Nian and the European movie theaters.
There were three movies from the Celestial Empire joining the Advent Film Festival. The first two already had a certain number of screenings, but not too many were assigned to The Dark Knight.
It reached the point where there might only be one screening in a movie theater each day.
This made other people think that this was just a test screening for the movie instead of being officially released.
What made Qiu Ren’s stomach hurt was that…
In order to maximize the attraction of the arriving Dream Seeds, he must make sure that most of the fan power regions of the dream movies and dream games that were used as bait were concentrated in Europe.
This ensnaring experience had been summarized by people in the past. If they used a worldwide popular production, the arriving Dream Seeds would be lost instead.
Otherwise, The Dark Knight would have already been released around the world.
Batman Begins got a small number of Batman fans in the country. They were now waiting for the second movie, The Dark Knight, to release. For this, some diehard fans even bought flight tickets to come to Europe for the premiere.
And yet, they still couldn’t find the screening time of The Dark Knight after visiting several movie theaters. Looking around, there was only a full schedule for The Flash 2 and productions created by European dream media companies.
“We’ve already given you enough screenings for the two movies, ‘Ascension’ and ‘Yajiao Spear…’ It’s really difficult for us to assign more screenings to this production, which is similar to The Flash 2. Besides, you don’t really care about this production, do you?”
The person talking to Director Feng Nian was a young woman with long blonde hair. Her attire was more like a clergywoman than a theater worker.
Qiu Ren, who was sitting next to her, took a look at her name tag. Mia Krato.
When Qiu Ren glanced at her, her gaze also met Qiu Ren’s, but she soon looked away and put her attention on Director Feng Nian.
The Level SS Dream Seed in Europe was the World of Gods, and it was shared by many countries. Therefore, the religious atmosphere in European countries in this world was much stronger than in his original world.
The most popular religion in this world integrated both culture and entertainment. Simply put, the missionaries in this world never used the Bible when they preached nor stopped people to tell them how good their religion was.
Instead, they slapped their targets’ faces with games or movies their God was cast in, saying, “Go and play quickly! Let me tell you, the game of our sect is super interesting! I assure you that you’ll enter the pit and become a diehard fan of our religion after playing it!”
So, it was normal for the clergy of various religions from the European countries to gather and control the movie theaters in Europe.
Miss Mia seemed like a devout believer of the world of Gods too. She was fair and unbiased in handling the theater screenings.
“It isn’t that we don’t care…” Director Feng Nian said as he glanced at Qiu Ren.
Qiu Ren raised his hand and gestured to Director Feng Nian that it wasn’t necessary to say these polite remarks to save his face.
For the Celestial Empire, The Dark Knight indeed had a lower priority. The two productions the Celestial Empire used for the Advent Film Festival this time, Ascension and Yajiao Spear, were both intended to ensnare Dream Seeds of the wilderness and historical genre.
These were the areas the Celestial Empire was good at.
So, The Dark Knight, which was used to ensnare Dream Seeds with the superhero and sci-fi genre, was more like an extra.
Besides, The Flash 2, with a similar theme, had already received bursting box office results in theaters in Europe and the United States soon after it was released. Under Supernova Pictures’ pressure, it was difficult for the theaters in Europe to arrange too many screenings for The Dark Knight, considering the circumstances.
When Director Feng Nian was about to say something, a staff member of the theater barged in. He came to Mia’s side and whispered in her ear.
Mia’s originally tense and serious expression quickly turned into shock and from shock to deep worry… Qiu Ren looked at the change in her expression and instinctively realized something might have happened.
“Miss Mia… what’s going on?” Director Feng Nian asked.
“Someone invaded the world of The Flash, which is playing the dynamic performance version! He captured the Flash and the audience in the Dream Dungeon.”
While telling Director Feng Nian about this incident, Mia gathered the staff members under her command. She started evacuating the viewers in that theater.
“There has been a terrorist invasion and hijacking in the dynamic performance version of The Flash. Evacuate the audience in theaters A5, A6, A7, B6, D7, and D8 immediately! I repeat! Evacuate the audience in theater A5, A6, A7, B6, D7, and D8 immediately!”
“Has such a situation happened before?” Qiu Ren asked Director Feng Nian with a soft voice.
“It’s happened several times when the dynamic performance version of a movie was hijacked by an illegal invasion organization during the release period. Then, the invasion organization used this to threaten the government. This is categorized as a terrorist attack. However, it’s rare for it to happen in a Level S Dream Dungeon that has popularity like The Flash, or I should say it’s never happened before.”
Director Feng Nian was quite experienced. There had always been some malicious invasions in Dream Dungeons, and the European countries were the hardest-hit areas. Right now, every movie theater had appropriate emergency plans.
However, the only thing the movie theater could do was to evacuate the viewers watching the dynamic performance version.
If it was hijacked by a terrorist invasion organization, even the dynamic performance version of a children’s movie would immediately turn into a production restricted to adults.
Invaders could do whatever they wanted in a Dream Dungeon. They could do all kinds of crazy things, giving the audience an extremely severe trauma and causing adverse effects.
It was just that the evacuation this time had run into some problems. The audience… didn’t want to leave.
“What do you mean the audience doesn’t want to leave?” Mia doubted that the staff member reporting to her had made a bad joke.
“They all want to stay and watch the ending. It seems that the story of The Flash 2 has become more interesting after the intruder entered the dream world,” the staff member replied.
“More exciting? How is that possible?”
What was so interesting about the declaration of a terrorist and a scene of violence?! They would only destroy the plot carefully orchestrated by the director and screenwriters and ruin the entire movie!
Mia was experienced in handling incidents in this area. Hence, she couldn’t understand why so many viewers chose to stay and watch the character they liked being tortured.
“Show me the dynamic performance version of The Flash 2 here!” Mia issued an order through the walkie-talkie.
Soon, The Flash 2 was played on the screen in Mia’s office. Then…
“Ahem, ahem…”
Qiu Ren was choked by his own saliva. At this moment, he was really glad that he didn’t drink water, or he would definitely spurt out the water onto Mia’s face.
The face of Joker appeared on the screen. He was tying the Flash, who had been beaten out of human shape, to the chair.
When the camera turned, someone in a shirt with the Flash on it, definitely a diehard fan, was pointing an automatic rifle at the Flash with shaking hands. She had a struggling and painful expression on her face.
The shots presented in this scene were something that children shouldn’t watch!
Fuck! The Dark Knight had just been released, yet the Joker had already run to another superhero world for a visit.
Qiu Ren could guess the reason why the Joker could intrude the world of the Flash so easily and without warning. It was because… the predecessor of the Joker, Dark Side, was a member of Superhero World.
The Flash was a new hero who looked up to Dark Side in the small settings created by his diehard fans. So, it was a piece of cake for Dark Side to enter the Flash’s world. This couldn’t even be regarded as an invasion.
That was how the Joker availed the opportunity to get in.
Director Feng Nian also made a slightly strange expression at this moment. He wiped off the non-existent sweat on his forehead and looked at Qiu Ren with inquiring eyes.
He seemed to be asking Qiu Ren if he could call the Joker back.
Such an invasion during the release period would be regarded as a terrorist attack!
By then, it wouldn’t just be the problem of having too few screenings for The Dark Knight. Europe would probably ban it directly due to security concerns.
The problem was that Qiu Ren couldn’t ask the Joker to come back. The Joker was a nightmare consciousness… He would never listen to anyone.
“What should we do?” Director Feng Nian lowered his voice and asked.
“What else can we do? We can only let him deal with it.”
Qiu Ren looked at the immoral scene created by the Joker on the screen, the struggling expression of the fan, and the desperate cry of the Flash.
This scene was indeed frightening. Even if he didn’t know what started it, he felt like his heart was squeezed tightly by just watching the current development. He couldn’t even move his eyes away.
The person in charge of the movie theater, Mia, was also the same. She stared at the scene on the screen. For a second, she even forgot to respond to the inquiries on the walkie-talkie.
This was a good plot. This was an amusing development!
The scene created by the Joker alone was enough to make the viewers sit there without blinking and unwilling to leave for a long time.
Then, what about adding a fighting scene of Batman and the Joker?
If the movie theaters in Europe weren’t willing to arrange more screenings for The Dark Knight, then they would fight for it with their strength! The Joker had already made his move.
Qiu Ren should let the real superhero save the scene!