Filming continued for several weeks.
Because I was moving back and forth between the set and MILM, I could clearly feel my body gradually breaking down.
Dark circles that looked like they might slide down to my cheeks, drooping mouth corners, unfocused eyes.
It was damn busy, but still, as the results gradually took shape, I felt proud.
“Whew…”
When I stretched, a groan came out on its own.
Fatigue, pride, numbness.
When was the last time I slept properly? I can’t even remember clearly.
On days I did not go to the set or to MILM, I had to talk with Junseong in the office about the budget and how the filming was progressing.
Ding.
[I’ll probably be about 10 minutes late. Sorry. I’ll be there soon.]
At Junseong’s text, I turned off the lights in the meeting room and closed my eyes for a moment, to catch a short nap.
A little later.
Click.
With the sound of the lights turning on came Junseong’s voice.
At his voice, I rubbed myself around and woke up.
“You okay?”
His voice was full of pity. And as he looked at my face, he shook his head.
“Man, look at your face. This time it’s especially serious.”
“What are you talking about, you punk. I feel like I’m really going to die.”
“Want to sleep a bit more? Should I turn the lights off?”
“After we talk about this, I have to go back to MILM.”
At my words, Junseong clicked his tongue.
“Hey, take care of yourself while you’re healthy. You’ll go out like that, you know? You’re thirty now. It’s not youth like your twenties.”
“Thirty is youth too.”
“Youth, my ass. When you’re thirty, you’re at the age where you get called mister, not hyung or oppa.”
At my words, Junseong snorted and said,
“I’m still full of energy, you know?”
“Do you even look in a mirror? You look like a corpse and you’re talking about full of energy.”
“The real corpses are at MILM. Compared to the people there, I’m a gentleman.”
Employees who worked all day in front of monitors without even properly seeing sunlight.
As I watched them growing thinner day-by-day, I could not help but burn my will even more.
“How’s the money problem going?”
“More serious. We’re burning way more money than we thought.”
Because the budget was tight, we had to shorten the time as much as possible.
Time is money.
Finishing filming quickly was the best way to save budget, but for <Space Vagabond>, the part that took the most time was CG.
It was not something I could do anything about, just a category I had no choice but to leave to Taylor and the team members pulling overtime at MILM.
“At this rate, even 20 billion won won’t be enough… damn it.”
Junseong frowned and said as he stared at the budget plan.
A fight between money and time.
Hearing that we were getting closer and closer to losing in the most important fight in making a movie, a deep sigh came out on its own.
“Ha… how much more do we need?”
“We need 5 billion more… That’s the minimum. We might need more.”
Junseong frowned and grabbed his head.
“Damn… since the scale was on a different level from our previous film budgets, we should have calculated enough margin too… I was too careless.”
He thumped his head against the desk several times.
“Treat your already not many brain cells preciously.”
“Ugh…”
Junseong spoke with his head down on the desk.
“What do we do? We already pulled from everywhere we can pull! Damn… if we gather more from here, we have to look at over 7 million admissions. This is really crazy.”
Seven million.
<Jawol> succeeded by using a lot of box office codes, but <Space Vagabond> was not a film that really whetted investors’ appetites.
The space opera genre was a genre that had never come out in our country up to now.
The point in time when the first space opera film in our country comes out is 2019.
I chewed over, one by one, the space opera films floating around in my head.
Between those films, the codes that could succeed at the box office had already all been applied to <Space Vagabond>.
But you only make money after you release it. And it was hard just to get to release.
That was when one good method to pull in money suddenly brushed through my head.
“Huh?”
“What, what is it?”
At my words, Junseong, eyes wide, asked me.
“A killer idea came to me. Why couldn’t I think of this earlier?”
“No, what is it? What is it? Say it.”
Junseong dragged his chair over toward me, stomping the floor with his foot.
His eyes were full of desperation and earnestness, and anticipation.
“Toys.”
“What?”
Junseong frowned and said,
“Toys? Are you kidding right now…”
He grabbed his forehead and let out a deep sigh.
“What, are we making it a children’s only film? Then from the start, we should have made it like a tokusatsu. Motion capture, all kinds of high-end tech, used all of it, and then suddenly toys that kids play with? Are you messing with me right now?”
Junseong let out a deep sigh, stomped his foot again, and went back to his seat.
“Why do you think only kids care about toys?”
“What? Do you not know what ‘toy’ means? It was made in the first place for children to play with, right? Then the question of why I think only kids care about toys doesn’t even hold.”
The new word that would be made later, kidult.
A portmanteau of kid, meaning child, and adult, meaning adult.
Especially, these are targeted at adult generations who can show purchasing power.
Right now, people born in the 70s have some purchasing power.
If a toy company has even some interest in our film…
We can get investment.
“One source multi use.”
At my words, Junseong frowned.
“Where did you pick up some weird thing again? Are you talking about media mix? Hey, that has never properly succeeded in Korea. That’s only possible in a country like America.”
“<Space Vagabond> will definitely sell in America too. It might even sell better there than in our country.”
“What’s the reason?”
Junseong asked with a frown, like he could not understand my words.
“Spaceships. Romance. When it comes to geeks, it’s Western geeks. You don’t even know that? Real nerds aren’t in our country, they’re in America. If this movie wakes up the geek heart that’s inside those geeks…”
“And you’re going to tell that to the toy company president?”
Junseong, having expected something from my words, seemed to think I was spouting nonsense, and let out a deep sigh.
“There’s still a ton of production left, and it isn’t even released yet. Why would toy companies believe and invest money?”
“If we just properly show the CG parts we made now, and the miniatures and the set, it can work. You saw the CG MILM made too. You said it was amazing, huh? You did all your admiring.”
Deep wrinkles formed on Junseong’s forehead.
“That’s that, and yes, that CG really was something I’ve never seen before. So I don’t even complain anymore about it costing a lot. Because quality comes out worth the price. But the idea of making that into toys itself…”
Junseong trailed off and tapped the desk irritably with his finger.
As if no matter how he thought about it, it did not feel like the right answer, that tapping was the longest I had ever seen.
“Hey, think about it. One source multi use that comes out of Japanese animation. Character cards, toys, stuff like that, do only kids like that?”
“Do you have guys around you who collect that stuff?”
“…”
“That’s the kind of thing only kids go crazy for!”
I wanted to say it was not.
But without the most successful example of one source multi use in the film world, <Star Wars>, there was no way he would properly believe me.
Aside from <Star Wars>, the toy profits of films that became franchises were enormous, and they swept the world and raked in money.
Even if it is not to the level of franchise films. With <Space Vagabond> toys too, we can definitely make profit.
“Then is there another way? Do you have some place to pull a huge sum from right now?”
“…”
Junseong still had his eyes closed, tapping the desk with his fingertips, like he was calculating in his head.
Then he opened his eyes again and said,
“There isn’t. Like you said, there’s no answer. We already pulled 20 billion won from KMD. Ha… damn it.”
“Then there’s no other method but this, right?”
Still in a situation where it was at the preparation stage, not yet at the stage where proper profit could come out.
There was no suitable place to pull money from right now.
“Hoo… then first, recite your plan once. That ‘one source multi use’. You know there have been a lot of guys who swindled people with fancy sounding words like that, right?”
Dot com, IT, all sorts of names slapped on, and countless people emptied others’ pockets.
One source multi use was one of those.
Saying they will make a game from a book, saying they will make toy products.
The outside is flashy, but in our country, one source multi use has not properly succeeded yet.
“First, in my mind, it’s a figure business.”
“Figures?”
“Yes. Like Ryu Seongmin’s Eagles spaceship, or Nix Road. Make those precisely.”
“Precisely?”
Junseong asked me, like a bit of curiosity had formed.
“Not some vague doll, but make it properly?”
That vague doll Junseong talked about.
Maybe he was thinking of idol doll goods that look completely different, because he asked with a puzzled expression.
“Yes. Completely the same, only the size reduced. If it’s toys like that, adults like you and me will buy too. If the movie succeeds, the toy company will want it too. For sure.”
Junseong closed his eyes again, and tapped the desk.
Tap tap, tap tap.
As if Junseong’s head was spinning fast.
The tapping got faster.
Tap.
Junseong stopped tapping the desk.
Then he let out a deep sigh.
“Hoo… I don’t know. I really don’t know.”
“For now, this method is the best. There’s no better way than this to gather money.”
Junseong looked like he had come over to my side somewhat. Then he spoke with a face like he fell into thought again.
“Then some of <Space Vagabond>’s shares will also go over. Comparing selling the rights after the movie succeeds and selling the rights right now, the price difference will be enormous. Maybe it’s a big loss for us.”
Junseong’s words also had logic.
If we sell the rights after the movie releases, after <Space Vagabond> succeeds, it would sell at a price that cannot even be compared to selling now.
But this was an unavoidable decision for our situation right now.
“That can’t be helped. We have to make the movie first, right now.”
“Damn.”
Junseong let out a deep sigh.
“We have to see the bigger picture. Are you going to sigh because you lost profit right in front of your eyes right now?”
“Originally, you grab the things right in front of you first while drawing the big picture.”
Only now, like his thoughts had gotten organized a bit, Junseong snorted and said,
“First, I’ll try handling it myself. Make an investment plan and the toy company…”
“It would be good to look for the best company.”
“The best company, you bastard, would take a contract to make figures for a movie that hasn’t even released? What, are we going to contact the Lego company or something?”
“Not bad.”
At my words, Junseong snorted, shook his head, and said,
“Go sleep, you punk. You’re already out of it, but since you can’t even sleep, you look completely out of it.”
T/N:
Tokusatsu is a Japanese term for live-action films or television programs that make heavy use of practical special effects.
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