From Flower Vase to Film Emperor in Hollywood

From a timeline perspective, "Spider-Man" provides a ready-made explanation, making everything logical.

However, that's not the case.

Edgar couldn't help but mutter, "In my opinion, you should be on a talk show."

"It's such a waste not to showcase your talent for gab, but clearly, Sony Columbia doesn't think so. They're worried a newbie like you might mess up the promotion, so they haven't contacted any talk shows..."

"Captain, focus," Anson said, interrupting Edgar's constant complaints.

Edgar didn't stop there, "They'll regret it. They missed a golden opportunity for promotion. The distribution department needs to seriously review its strategy."

Without a doubt, the summer movie season is always a bloody battleground, with fierce competition for all promotional platforms, from magazines to talk shows.

But for a project of "Spider-Man's" magnitude, as long as Sony Columbia is willing to develop a promotional strategy, magazines and talk shows wouldn't be a problem.

Yet, Sony Columbia chickened out this time, playing it safe during the promotion period, afraid to take risks or experiment, opting for a paper-media-focused approach; not to mention talk shows, even radio programs were completely absent. Such a promotional strategy is simply baffling.

Essentially, Sony Columbia still harbored doubts.

First, they didn't trust Sam Raimi.

Second, they didn't trust Anson and Kirsten Dunst.

Third, relying solely on Willem Dafoe for promotion wouldn't carry enough weight.

In short, Sony Columbia believed that television or radio promotion might expose weaknesses or even cause harm. After comprehensive consideration, they simply switched entirely to print media promotion.

After all, this is 2002, and print media still plays an important role. The promotional effect of newspapers and magazines may not be much weaker than television programs.

To this, Edgar said, 'Blinded by their own eyes'.

Sony Columbia has already taken such a bold risk by choosing Sam Raimi as the director and Anson and Kirsten as the leads, why not go a step further?

Why not take the risk all the way? Why not play the youth card? Even if they don't believe in Anson's appeal alone, they could at least bundle Anson, James, and Kirsten together to create buzz?

Unfortunately, Edgar's anxiety here is of no help. He has no say at Sony Columbia and can only act according to the contract.

It's better not to mention it, because mentioning it just makes him angry.

Rarely seeing him this agitated, Edgar stared at Anson, "They'll regret it."

Anson chuckled and nodded earnestly, "Okay."

Edgar felt a little relieved, picked up his briefcase, and took out a stack of paper, "Is this you on here?"

— Original.

Without computers or mobile phones, it was printed out honestly with a color printer, and even because the original picture was not clear, the printed picture was slightly blurred, and even the mosaic grids could be seen.

Nevertheless, Anson recognized it.

It should be a video, and these printed photos are screenshots from the video.

Anson was a little surprised, and a smile crept onto his lips, "Ha, there's actually a video of this, how come I didn't know? Did someone film a home video at the time?"

If it were twenty years later, the existence of smartphones would make taking pictures and videos a part of daily life, and it would not be surprising for anything to be recorded; but now, cameras are still bulky, camcorders still need to be carried, and home handheld camcorders have just become popular, so things are naturally different.

For Edgar, this was enough, "This really is you. Oh, God."

Before social networks appeared, it is still the era of BBS forums.

At the beginning of last year, a post on the Yahoo community attracted attention. The content of the post was a video shot with a home handheld camcorder.

The image quality was not clear, and the lens was slightly shaky. At first glance, you could tell it was amateur photography, and the poster also confirmed that this was a street performance he filmed in Manhattan, New York, purely by accident; but because he personally liked it very much, he uploaded it to the forum, hoping to get more discussion.

The video content was a performance by a four-person band, the most special thing being that there was a cello, which was completely new.

In the beginning, because of the image quality and because of the cello, the post did not cause a splash in the forum, only a small range of discussion; but unexpectedly, as time went on, the small range of discussion slowly brewed and quickly spread among senior music fans.

It developed from a dozen discussion posts a week to thousands of discussions a week.

Incredibly, the post was enduring, and finally evolved into a hot post on the Yahoo community that lasted for a whole year. Currently, the post can no longer be commented on, and the discussion floor is fixed at about 337,600, but the post has been highlighted and pinned to the top, becoming a perennial topic.

Here, it should be noted that the discussion groups are all music fans, and it is still a hot topic in a small circle. It did not spread in all directions like it did twenty years later. In the final analysis, it is always music lovers who are fascinated by the video.

They analyzed the band members, they analyzed the performance music, but they never got any news—

There have been nearly a hundred cover versions of that song, but magically, the original version has not yet been released, yet everyone knows that the original singer is that video.

Such a magical scene appeared.

Until last month, the "Tonight Show" program team discovered this post and became very interested after learning the ins and outs. They hoped to contact the band in the video and invite them to perform on the "Tonight Show".

"Then, they found me."

"God, they still can't believe their judgment, Anson? That actor Anson? Why would he appear in a video of an independent band?"

"Because the image quality is not clear, they are not 100% sure, so they sent screenshots to me for confirmation."

"Don't mention them, even I can't be sure."

"Jesus Christ, we're going on the 'Tonight Show', Anson, we're going on the 'Tonight Show'."

"But, wait, why would you appear in this video? Did this happen before you became an actor?"

The amount of information was a bit too much, so Edgar was a bit incoherent.

There were too many question marks, and Anson didn't know where to start, including the fact that he himself was very surprised and didn't expect the past to reappear in such a way.

After thinking about it, Anson asked, "Has the program team contacted the other three?"

This was a question that Edgar did not expect. He couldn't help but blink, "Aren't they your friends?"

Anson chuckled, "No, just a brief encounter. If you hadn't brought these screenshots, I probably wouldn't have any further contact with them."

Edgar: Huh?