Little Swift was truly a useless piece of shit, foolish, conceited, and self-important.
Merely because of a stroke of luck and a large profit, he thought he was still so fortunate. He had just gone short on Yahoo, showing he had no idea how to write the word "death."
Yang Zhiyuan, upon receiving this news, looked very confused and didn't know whether to laugh or cry. He then dismissed it.
After all, Yahoo's current momentum was good, and other things didn't matter.
Of course, there were a small number of Little Swift's fervent followers who began to declare that Yahoo was about to crash and urged everyone to get out before they got trapped in the Yahoo pit.
"Yang Zhiyuan is insane! He really didn't import any search engine links on the homepage. Does he really think it's still the era of portal websites? Well, I'll invest all my dollars into this too!" While everyone was mocking Little Swift, Huang He saw that three days had passed, and Yahoo's homepage remained unchanged. He immediately threw all his US dollar cash into the US stock market, joining the short-selling of Yahoo's stock.
It was a shame that Huang He's capital was small, otherwise he could have earned more.
Yang Zhiyuan seemed to still be stuck in the previous era of portal websites, believing that a website simply listing various website addresses was a successful portal.
Little did he know what the situation would be like once this portal website lost its search engine.
However, Yahoo's stock price would not fall immediately; it needed time to ferment slowly. Huang He's time in the United States was running out, and there were many things waiting for him to handle back home. Huang He had already been in the United States for over a month and it was time to prepare to return to China.
However, this time Huang He would leave a server team in the United States to provide after-sales maintenance for the servers sold in the US. In addition, a brand new company named Jiangnan Mobile was established in the US.
Oh, don't misunderstand, Jiangnan Mobile is not involved in telecommunications networks, but rather in core businesses such as mobile hard drives, USB flash drives, and storage chips.
Therefore, the team of over ten people he brought was not enough. These people would basically stay in the United States, and Huang He also needed to transfer a team from China to enrich this team in the US.
However, before leaving, Huang He also visited Marvel's headquarters to conduct research on the upcoming film Iron Man.
Over the past half-year, Marvel and Marvel Pictures had done a lot of work.
First, with the substantial capital injection from the company, Marvel had been recovering its intellectual property rights for superhero images that had been sold off. Especially for the members of the Avengers, Marvel had spent a considerable amount of money to buy back most of them. However, there was one exception: Spider-Man.
This was because in 2002, the movie Spider-Man 1, starring Tobey Maguire, had been released in the United States, grossing an astonishing $821 million worldwide, ranking among the top 5 highest-grossing films at the time. It was an unbelievable box office hit.
It was also considered to have marked the end of the decline of superhero films in the United States, which had started in the late 1980s, and ushered in a new era of glory for superhero movies.
Therefore, Spider-Man was a hot commodity in Sony's hands, and it was difficult for Marvel to recover Spider-Man, no matter how much they offered, unless the Spider-Man movies disappeared.
It was strange, unlike other movie IPs that were generally sold off and forgotten, Marvel had only sold the movie rights for Spider-Man; all other rights remained with Marvel.
At the same time, when selling the movie rights, the contract stipulated that Sony must produce a Spider-Man movie every 5 years, otherwise the movie rights for Spider-Man would automatically revert to Marvel.
This was why Spider-Man was the superhero with the most individual films among all the Avengers. It was simply because Sony had to release a movie every 5 years, or the rights would be lost.
And now that Spider-Man was hugely popular, with Spider-Man 2 and Spider-Man 3 already in preparation, Marvel was unlikely to regain the movie rights for Spider-Man in the short term.
However, this was not a big deal, as all the Avengers superheroes, except for Spider-Man, had already been reacquired.
Moreover, because they were reacquired early, when superhero movies were still in a messy state, the recovery prices were very cheap. They had spent less than $50 million to get back 90% of the superheroes that had been sold.
And now, Marvel was finally preparing to shoot its first movie, Iron Man.
The preparation work for Iron Man was already nearing completion, and it was similar to the preparations in the previous life. The actors were basically the same group, but the only role that was facing difficulties was the lead actor for Iron Man.
In fact, the team had given three choices for the lead actor. One was Tom Cruise, another was Nicolas Cage, and the third was Robert Downey Jr.
The first two were big stars in the United States. Tom Cruise, needless to say, was famous both in China and abroad.
Nicolas Cage was even more remarkable. Before 2015, he was arguably the most famous foreign actor in all of China.
Furthermore, Nicolas Cage had created many deeply ingrained characters.
However, there was a lot of internal debate within the crew about these two actors. When Huang He saw their names, he directly passed on them.
Huang He's reasons were also very direct. He stated that Tom Cruise was very suitable, but Tom Cruise was already a top star, and his movies would cost at least $50 million at the box office.
Given that the entire Avengers franchise would have more than 20 movies, with at least 10 requiring Iron Man's appearance, if they had to pay $50 million for each appearance, they would essentially be working for Tom Cruise. Therefore, Tom Cruise was not an option.
Nicolas Cage was also not an option. Huang He's stated reason was that his face did not fit the image of Iron Man.
The real reason was that Nicolas Cage himself was not suitable. It wasn't that his acting was problematic, but rather that he accepted bad movies without any hesitation, which essentially ruined his reputation later on.
This left Robert Downey Jr. as the only option, and this was precisely the actor who played Iron Man in the previous life, highly praised by audiences both in China and abroad, with countless self-media and influential figures on Zhihu proclaiming that Robert Downey Jr.'s Iron Man was irreplaceable.
Initially, Huang He had no particular thoughts. He thought letting Robert Downey Jr. play Iron Man according to historical progress would avoid disrupting the original timeline.
What if changing the lead actor caused the movie to collapse?
Therefore, when he came to the meeting, Huang He was intending to support Robert Downey Jr. and help him make the final decision to take on the role of Iron Man.
However, when Huang He actually attended the casting meeting and saw Robert Downey Jr.'s specific information, he frowned.
Huang He wasn't particularly interested in Marvel Cinematic Universe movies in his previous life. Although he had watched more than a dozen of them, honestly speaking, he mostly watched them with colleagues or friends out of trend. Perhaps the only movie he had a genuine desire to watch was Avengers 4, as he wanted to see the grand finale.
Therefore, Huang He didn't know much about the actors behind these superheroes, mostly relying on his impressions from the movies.
In Huang He's impression, Robert Downey Jr. was the image of Iron Man: persistent, strong, and a positive figure full of light.
But when Huang He saw the detailed information of Robert Downey Jr. in his hands, he realized he was wrong, and terribly wrong.
Robert Downey Jr. was born in 1964. His biological father was a director, so he participated in film performances at the age of five.
However, Robert Downey Jr. was not a child star. He later fell out with his father and worked alone in England. He was then discovered by a scout and entered the film and television industry, starting to shoot various films in 1982.
Afterward, he had ten years of smooth sailing in the film and television industry, during which he appeared in television series, filmed movies, and participated in variety shows, gaining comprehensive experience.
By 1992, Robert Downey Jr. reached his first career peak, receiving a nomination for Best Actor at the Nobel Awards for his role as Charlie Chaplin in the film Chaplin.
After that, he went through a period of ups and downs until he was chosen for the film Iron Man in 2004, becoming the actor who played Iron Man.
From the experience above, Robert Downey Jr. seemed like a perfect Hollywood filmmaker's life. However, if you were to see the following stories and experiences, you might not think so.
In 1996, police found cocaine, heroin, and a loaded pistol in his car.
A month later, he overdosed and collapsed at a neighbor's house. At the time, the neighbor's wife was lying next to him, and he was sent to a rehabilitation center. Three days later, he was arrested for escaping.
During his bail in 1997, Robert Downey Jr. was sentenced to six months in prison for repeatedly failing to comply with drug testing regulations.
In 1999, for the second time evading drug tests, he was sentenced to three years of imprisonment.
In August 2000, after serving 16 months, Robert Downey Jr. was released early. Upon his release, he immediately moved into a rehabilitation center in Southern California to continue his drug treatment.
However, in November of the same year, he was arrested again in Palm Springs, California, for possessing drugs.
In April 2001, he was arrested again for wandering barefoot and disoriented on the street and possessing drugs while on parole. It wasn't until December 17, 2002, that he was released after completing his sentence.
"Damn, isn't this just a Song Dongye?" So, when Huang He saw Robert Downey Jr.'s information and resume, he couldn't help but exclaim.