Chapter 260: Shinji: "Invincibility is So Lonely"
Semiramis quickly left.
Although it was unfortunate that the accident had occurred on set, she, having found love, seemed completely at ease.
In contrast, Shinji Matou's expression was a bit odd.
"Tsk tsk, she keeps calling me 'Director' and tries to use 'Master' as little as possible... Looks like Semiramis really got into character and now sees Amakusa as her Master."
"I'm so jealous of that Amakusa kid. Speaking of which, isn't he planning to shift most of his focus to volunteer work after filming this movie?"
Shinji clicked his tongue in envy.
"Is he going to be a kept man for the Empress?"
Although Shinji would make sure none of the Servants starved, it was always better to have work and steady income than not.
If Amakusa poured all his energy into volunteer work, he'd likely end up the poorest among the Servants.
But if the Empress was going to financially support him, his life could turn out quite comfortable — maybe even better than Shinji's, who always managed to blow through his savings.
"Instead of worrying about other people's love lives, I should focus on how to finish this movie properly."
Shinji muttered to himself.
"Even though Semiramis's scenes are done, there are still plenty of other shots left. Hopefully the poisoning incident doesn't cause too much delay."
However, Shinji soon realized that he had been worrying unnecessarily.
Filming proceeded extremely smoothly after that — so smoothly that it felt almost unnatural to him.
Shinji had expected delays, but not only did they avoid falling behind, they were actually ahead of schedule.
"At this rate, we might even wrap up filming before I head to China."
During one dinner, Shinji excitedly announced to everyone how well the Fate/Apocrypha project was progressing.
"Is it really going to end like this?"
In contrast to Shinji's excitement, Jeanne looked a bit bewildered, almost reluctant for it to end.
Shinji completely understood Jeanne's reaction.
Back when they wrapped up Fate/Stay Night, Shinji had felt something similar.
Even though filming had been exhausting and full of unexpected problems, when the project finally ended, there was a kind of stunned disbelief and emptiness.
"This feeling just means you're still too young, Jeanne. After you shoot a few more films, you'll get used to it."
"But still, it's hard to let go..."
"Hey Jeanne, you're not too deep in character, are you?"
Shinji asked, slightly worried.
"Don't worry, Master, I'm fine."
Jeanne winked at Shinji as she spoke — looking exactly like Laeticia from the script.
"Hey, doing that doesn't make you very convincing!"
Seeing Shinji frown, Jeanne laughed.
This time, her smile was different — like a blooming iris, pure and beautiful.
"Jeanne, you've become a bad girl."
The Director shook his head helplessly.
"Are you showing off your improved acting skills?"
"You could say that! I'm making progress too."
Jeanne gave Shinji a victory sign.
"You used to always tease me, but this time I finally got the upper hand!"
"Excellent! Your growth makes your Master very proud."
Shinji laughed heartily.
"I've decided to raise the bar for today's shoot. Jeanne, get ready for multiple NGs!"
"Master, that's so petty!"
Now it was Jeanne's turn to freeze.
"Didn't you say you've grown? Then you should be able to shoulder more responsibility."
As expected, Shinji found teasing these Servants sometimes even more fun than making movies itself.
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Before Shinji wrapped up Fate/Apocrypha and headed off to China, another project finished even earlier — the post-production of Spy Among Spies (Mission Impossible).
Since this spy film was mainly built around action scenes and explosions, it didn't rely heavily on CGI; the post-production was mostly focused on editing.
Usually, for traditional projects like Spy Among Spies, post-production editing turned into a fierce battleground between the director and the producer.
Many directors, unhappy with producers' interference, would release so-called "director's cuts" — though, frankly, a lot of the time those were just cash grabs targeting fans.
Fortunately, Shinji Matou held undisputed authority over the Spy Among Spies project — no matter how annoyed the film's director was, he could only grit his teeth and endure it.
In fact, if it weren't for the Fate/Apocrypha project keeping him busy, Shinji probably would have personally handled the editing for Spy Among Spies.
However, this ended up being a great opportunity for several editors from the Type-Moon group to hone their skills.
Under Shinji's guidance, they constantly refined their editing work.
By the time Spy Among Spies's editing was completed, these editors had gained a deep understanding of the logic behind commercial film editing, especially when it came to action scenes.
Then, Spy Among Spies held its internal test screenings.
An internal test screening is when, after a movie is mostly completed, the production team invites some lucky audience members and critics to a small preview.
At this stage, the film isn't considered truly finished — based on the feedback, the filmmakers might still tweak things.
If the feedback is positive and only minor issues are found, everyone's happy and the team can quickly move toward the official release and start raking in money.
But if the feedback is bad... well, then it's a huge headache.
Just fixing the problems alone could keep the team busy for ages.
Of course, test screenings aren't always accurate indicators either.
Shinji's Fate/Stay Night had once been labeled "unwatchable garbage" by critics during its first test screening.
Later reality proved it wasn't Fate/Stay Night that was garbage — it was the critics' eyesight that was.
However, there was no risk of something like that happening with Spy Among Spies, because from the very start, Shinji didn't even invite critics.
Currently, the film critic circles were pretty much divided into two camps:
Either enemies who hated Shinji with a passion, or sycophants who were bought off by the wealth of Type-Moon and Times Group.
The former would obviously bash the movie no matter what — Shinji could already guess their reviews even with his eyes closed; as for the latter, inviting them would be just as pointless — who would dare say a bad word about their sugar daddy?
Thus, Spy Among Spies's invited audience consisted entirely of action movie and spy thriller fans — plus a bunch of Diarmuid fangirls.
Since they were the exact target audience for Spy Among Spies, there was no risk of anyone deliberately causing trouble.
Under Shinji's supervision, this polished spy film held three test screenings in total.
In all of them, Spy Among Spies received overwhelmingly positive feedback from the audiences.
Even the theater chain representatives were impressed, saying this new-generation spy action movie had a lot of market potential.
Even though the commercial movie scene in this world wasn't all that developed, there were some spy films around — mostly for Cold War propaganda purposes.
The most famous was the 007 series — but in terms of quality...
Well, Shinji personally thought they were painfully bad, far worse than the 007 movies from his previous life.
Thanks to the theater chains' confidence, Times Group managed to secure an incredible 2,724 theaters for Spy Among Spies's North American release.
And the reason they could grab so many theaters? They picked the perfect release window.
Compared to May, June's competition was a bit weaker.
With no heavy hitters like Godzilla crashing into the box office, Spy Among Spies basically became the only spiritual sustenance for movie fans in June.
2,700 theaters might sound small for North America, but in the UK and Japan, the release coverage was nearly 100%!
Facing such a dominant lineup of screenings, Shinji couldn't help but hum a little song to himself:
"Being invincible... is just so lonely~"
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