This celebrity became even more popular after being exposed of having multiple girlfriends
Chapter 219 - 213: "Disappeared" Starts Filming (4k)

Chapter 219: Chapter 213: "Disappeared" Starts Filming (4k)

Wu Mu looked at the talent manager candidate introduced by Yan Yongmei before him.

It was a middle-aged man, probably in his late thirties or early forties, with dark skin, a robust figure, and an expression that was slightly formal and stern.

Wu Mu wasn’t angry when he bluntly said he wasn’t optimistic about him.

He was a bystander and he wasn’t optimistic either; the number of people who had risen from actors to capitalists within the industry was few and far between. Furthermore, they were all old-timers who had been famous for twenty or thirty years.

For a young idol like him, who seemed to have high popularity and many fans, becoming a capitalist was far off, let alone getting out from under the exploitation of capital.

His previous contract with the company had been a 30/70 split, with him taking 30% and the company taking 70%.

It was probably about the same for the other popular figures in the circle.

Shi Wu’s intention was clear. He was willing to help for a while, as he himself needed such an opportunity for transition and adaptation. However, once a better option came along after he had helped Wu Mu establish his footing, he wouldn’t hesitate to jump ship.

Wu Mu naturally had no objections.

The main hassle now was setting up the studio’s infrastructure; he would be worn out dealing with a great pile of tasks all by himself.

Once the hectic start-up phase was over and things were on track, finding another manager wouldn’t be a problem.

Wu Mu agreed and naturally everything fell into place.

He had his producer and manager all set, and now he could leave the rest to them.

When Shi Wu heard that Wu Mu’s requirements for his studio were to maintain basic operations without hiring too many people, mainly to help him deal with work that came knocking, he thought that it was good he had spoken up first. Clearly, Wu Mu wasn’t planning to expand the studio.

Although he also only considered Wu Mu’s studio as a starting point for his career transition, he went about his work diligently, with professional ethics.

Shi Wu busied himself with hiring staff, renting office space, and coordinating the various affairs under Wu Mu’s command.

Although Wu Mu had stepped away from the studio set-up work, he had new tasks to deal with—familiarizing himself with the new script sent over by Yang Rongfa’s team.

Compared to the previous version they had sent him, this script had undergone some changes.

The main changes were the ones Wang Ren had mentioned about altering the personality of the character Wu Mu was going to play.

After comparing the two versions, Wu Mu found that his character, Wang Chuan, had transformed from a lively and proactive personality into a somewhat more passive character.

The biggest change was that instead of his character actively pursuing the female lead, Lin Mo, in an almost obsessive manner, it was now depicted with mutual attraction, suggesting an approach from both sides.

"This is because they think I’m someone with a passive personality?" Wu Mu wondered to himself.

The assessment was quite accurate. Personally, he indeed wouldn’t have pursued a girl obsessively.

He could accept an equal and sincere mutual attraction, where in the process of the girl making efforts to approach, he could respond with equal sincerity.

But he truly couldn’t accept the idea of placing himself in a lower position and desperately pursuing the other party.

There was no need. He was no less than anyone else and deserved to be liked.

A slight modification to the character’s personality didn’t make it any less challenging, but it certainly felt a bit more familiar than before, slightly lowering the difficulty.

Of course, Wu Mu estimated that even with this, he probably couldn’t perform satisfactory without "cheating" on his acting skills.

Even though he couldn’t see his own acting points, judging by how much more he was criticized for his acting than his singing, he reckoned that his acting points were definitely lower than when he started singing.

Wu Mu familiarized himself with the script. After all, he had taken their money, and although he was mainly doing it for the points, he still needed to be professional.

He didn’t need to write a tens of thousands of words character biography or memorize the script perfectly, but he at least shouldn’t be clueless about the plot he was supposed to act out and then just recite numbers on set.

Well, considering his current investment in the film and his say in it, even if he did just that or they used green screen compositing instead, Yang Rongfa would probably have to put up with it.

Familiarizing himself with the script wasn’t too difficult. Although his character was secondary male lead and would also be billed as a special guest star, in terms of screen time, his role was really just a supporting character with slightly more importance.

His screen time in the drama wasn’t very much, perhaps ranking sixth or seventh among all characters, mainly serving as a key point of conflict in the plot.

As Wu Mu familiarized himself with the script, Yang Rongfa’s team also began actor announcements.

The official Weibo account they had newly created for the drama series released a list of cast members.

They had released a list before, but back then the secondary male lead was cast as Zhou Yu, and after that, there were complications like a change in investors and reduction of investment budget. Thus, it was necessary to make a new announcement.

With this announcement... Wu Mu wasn’t at all surprised that he was berated miserably.

His own brother had been officially announced as the secondary male lead before, and now suddenly he was replaced; it was clear that a resource grab had occurred.

Zhou Yu’s fans would be weird not to run over and curse at him.

This time, even the usually supportive bystanders, the fun people, had nothing good to say.

"Seriously, Wu was doing well in variety shows and singing, why switch to acting in dramas?"

"Don’t go there. I’ve watched one of Wu’s films before and I had to walk out halfway through. It was too cringey; it was a total waste of my money for the ticket. He’s really not cut out for acting."