Chapter 36 - Rising Tides and Bitter Regrets

Hearing this, Kim Soseong's fingers tightened around his phone, his palm turning red from the pressure.

Yes, he was the one who came up with the idea, but back then, no one else objected.

"They're all unreliable," Kim Soseong muttered angrily.

"There's nothing we can do; <> is just too popular."

The moment his manager mentioned <>, he realized his mistake.

Sure enough, Kim Soseong's expression darkened immediately.

Recently, he couldn't stand hearing those four words, <>.

The slightest mention of it set him off.

But there was no escape for him; everywhere he went, people were talking about the show's huge success and Im Giseok, the rising star of the screenwriting industry.

"Rising star? He just wrote a trashy short drama."

In Kim Soseong's opinion, the success of <> was purely because of its subject matter, which attracted a crowd of low-taste viewers.

But, no matter how much he criticized it, the screenwriting industry only cared about results, and the fact remained that <> was a hit.

"I have an idea," his manager said, looking at Kim Soseong, "If Im Giseok can make short dramas, why can't we?"

<> became so popular that it beat out both CineHeaven TV and ReelRise in viewership.

These two platforms hadn't paid much attention to short dramas before, but with <> as an example, they were starting to take notice.

Originally, most short dramas were bland, a mix of all sorts of bad elements, but the sudden rise of <> made the platforms realize that short dramas could be done differently.

Audiences didn't care about the "prestige" of a series; being enjoyable was the most important thing.

Right now, BingeBox had already secured Im Giseok early on, so CineHeaven TV and ReelRise naturally wanted to develop their own teams for short dramas.

No matter what, even if they didn't care much for the short drama market, they wouldn't just hand it over to BingeBox.

"It's not a bad idea to try," Kim Soseong thought, "<> became so popular because it had no competition in the market."

He regretted being so harsh with Im Giseok before.

If the whole <> incident hadn't happened, Im Giseok would still be a hardworking junior writer under his control, and none of these problems would be happening now.

...

The 90th anniversary celebration of the Silla National Film Institute was big news.

Im Giseok also received an email about it.

Every graduate was invited to return to campus for the anniversary week.

However, the invitations were different: some graduates were invited as famous alumni, while others were just regular graduates.

Im Giseok was in the latter group.

He didn't pay much attention to the email at all.

The filming of <> was nearing its end, and he really couldn't spare the time to attend the event.