After the duet of Shallow ended, Leon waved to the audience and quickly exited. The stage now belonged to Taylor alone.
In less than a minute, the poignant and heavy piano sound switched to a light and cheerful drum beat.
Taylor jumped up from the piano bench, hopping and jumping in her silver sequined tight dress, radiating vitality.
"New York!"
"World!"
"2012!"
Welcome to New York
Welcome to New York
It's been waiting for you
Welcome to New York is a purely new song, without any pre-promotion warm-up, no public performance, and no streaming release...
Nevertheless, when entering the second chorus, more than 800,000 listeners in the audience were already able to sing along completely.
"Awesome, baby..." Leon stood backstage staring at Taylor's back, unable to hide the admiration in his eyes.
Compared to Empire State of Mind, which is overly complex in technique, the simple and catchy advantage of Welcome to New York is particularly prominent. Even a three-year-old child can sing along.
From today on, the crown of New York City's anthem might change hands.
Before the countdown to the crystal ball drop, Bloomberg delivered a speech.
The main content was about immigration and diversity, beautiful words like "New York equally gives every striver the chance to realize the American Dream," which at first glance seemed no different from the Democratic Party's political line.
The difference was that Bloomberg emphasized that New York welcomes immigrants, but not stowaways and criminals.
This contradicted the philosophy of the Barack administration.
New York currently has more than 700,000 illegal immigrants, most of whom can obtain legal status within five years.
These "new Americans" will not hesitate to vote for their Democratic masters who made them "noble Americans" in future elections.
"Happy New Year to everyone."
"God bless America."
"Thank you."
Just as Bloomberg finished his speech and was busy organizing his manuscript, brilliant fireworks blossomed behind him.
The crystal ball slowly descended along the pole in the center of Times Square, and the New Year entered the final one-minute countdown.
"Ten!"
"Nine!"
"Eight!"
Backstage, Taylor was no different from the ordinary audience offstage, holding her boyfriend's arm tightly the whole time.
Loudly shouting the countdown following the changes in numbers on the big screen.
"Two!"
"One!"
"Happy New Year!"
Hundreds of volunteers threw paper scraps from both sides of Times Square, filled with New Year's wishes.
"Come with me!" Taylor grabbed Leon's wrist and rushed out of the backstage involuntarily.
"What are you doing?"
By the time Leon reacted, he had been led by Taylor into the carnival crowd.
At such a time, no one cared about the difference between a king and a beggar, nor did anyone pay special attention to their celebrity status.
Everyone embraced and kissed the people around them selflessly, arguably the largest collective display of affection of the year.
"Kiss me, honey..." Taylor cupped Leon's cheeks, her eyes full of affection.
Looking at the sea of people around, Leon hesitated a bit while holding her cheeks.
But Taylor didn't give him time to think; two hot red lips had already pressed over.
Reporters ambushing in Times Square noticed this scene and quickly raised their cameras to snap furiously, recording this classic scene of New Year's Eve.
On the morning of January 1st, Leon came to the office. Bonnie, who had just returned from her vacation in Florida, placed a copy of The New York Times on his desk.
The headline of the entertainment section was indeed the photo of him and Taylor kissing in the carnival crowd.
"Looks like your relationship with Taylor is getting better and better." Bonnie leaned half her body on the desk, a smile on the corner of her mouth. "When do you plan to get engaged? Everyone I know is asking me the same question; I'm about to go crazy."
As a personal assistant, Bonnie was also eager for gossip.
The two had come all the way from Brownsville together. In her heart, she hoped this tireless lion could find his final destination.
"This doesn't seem to be something you should care about." Leon raised his eyebrows and quickly changed the subject. "How was the holiday in Florida?"
"Terrible." Bonnie spread her hands. "Miami is full of combinations of rich old men and young girls. Disney World in Orlando was so crowded I couldn't even walk. I looked like a freak among a bunch of couples."
"You should find a boyfriend so you don't have to deliberately avoid your middle finger every time you paint your nails."
"What are you talking about!"
Having her secret exposed, Bonnie's cheeks rarely flushed. She stared at her middle finger and fell into deep thought.
"I have to go first. I almost forgot I'm still on vacation." She shook her hair and fled in panic. "By the way, Mr. Russell made an appointment to meet you in an hour."
"I know."
After Bonnie left, the huge office building became empty again.
Leon stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling window swinging his fists, conducting shadow boxing training.
After only two minutes of combination punches, he was too tired to lift his arms, bending over and panting heavily.
After returning home from the New Year's Eve celebration last night, he and Taylor messed around until 2 AM.
Every time he wanted to sleep, he could always be awakened again by the other party using special means, until climbing the peak for the third time, exhausting all his essence, before he could finally rest.
While practicing boxing, he happened to think of Conor's name. He opened the computer and found the date of the opponent's next match from the email.
The Irishman would complete his third match at UFC 145 held on April 22nd.
This was also the last match in his contract. He had previously won two consecutive victories.
If he could also win the third match, UFC President Dana White would send him a new contract with conditions several times more generous.
Although the Irishman hadn't even touched the shadow of a championship fight, his popularity was already comparable to champion fighters.
He ranted on social networks every day, indiscriminately attacking all public figures including sports stars, business tycoons, and politicians.
After being provoked by a Dagestani wrestler, he posted claiming that men in this country are cowards and Chechens could easily shatter Dagestanis' jaws.
But it seemed Chechens weren't interested in such flattery. Several Chechen fighters jumped out, countering Conor as a "hilarious Irish clown."
The Irish madman directed his spearhead directly at the Chechen leader, the warlord Ramzan Kadyrov known as the "Caucasian Strongman."
He released wild words on Twitter—"Caucasian Strongman? Without those soldier slaves with guns behind him, I could twist his head off in a minute!"
Outrageous provocative behavior made Conor notorious in the sports circle, but at the same time made his popularity rise rapidly!
He truly learned the essence of controlling negative traffic from Leon!
Dana White predicted that if Conor could really become a champion fighter, his commercial value would be greater than the sum of champions of all other weight classes!
Becoming the first superstar in the history of mixed martial arts!
Thinking of this, Leon picked up his phone and called Conor, urging him to train well.
And promised him that if he won the next match, he would get an extra bonus of $50,000.
Conor, extremely eager for sports cars, luxury watches, and luxury goods, was immediately pumped up, shouting at the top of his voice: "I won't let you down, BOSS! I will step on the names of Mike Tyson, Mayweather, and Muhammad Ali!"
After hanging up the phone, Russell happened to walk into the office.
Followed by an unremarkable middle-aged man wearing old-fashioned black-rimmed glasses, his eyes dull the whole time.
"This is the man you talk about every day, my boss Leon." Russell patted the glasses man on the shoulder. "Now you finally got your wish, didn't you?"
"You must be DeMonaco," Leon asked.
"Yes, thank you for willing to give me this opportunity! I knew you were an investor who truly understands movies; I knew it starting from Straight Outta Compton!" DeMonaco was incoherent with excitement.
He had been running around for a year with the painstakingly written The Purge but hit walls everywhere. Even Lionsgate, which always favored low-budget horror films, shut him out.
The only one interested in this was Universal Pictures, and this was an opportunity obtained only under the recommendation of director Michael Bay.
Universal's conditions were very harsh. They not only required DeMonaco to transfer the script copyright for free but also forbade him from interfering with casting and script revisions. Studio affairs were entirely subject to the producer's dispatch.
This is not a director at all; calling him a set mascot is more accurate.
In despair, only the independent studio SLW Apocalypse was willing to give him a chance. This was his last straw.
Leon put his feet on the table, putting on an overbearing boss posture. "Don't thank me; you should thank Wan. His talent is obvious to all. I believe his friend won't be a mediocre guy either."
Thinking of Street Jesus's various notoriety, DeMonaco dared not voice his conditions excessively throughout the negotiation.
The script could be taken away for only $60,000. If the movie succeeded and a sequel was filmed, apart from the fee for writing the new script, he would not ask for any extra copyright share.
In addition, he promised not to interfere with casting. Even if the investor sent a streetwalker to play the heroine, he would accept it completely.
"I know you might not like the character settings in the script... I am willing to change them according to yours and Mr. Russell's ideas..."
DeMonaco sighed, hanging his head with a lifeless look.
The director industry is harder to mix in than the screenwriting industry. Big directors are monarchs who keep their word on set, even completely ignoring producers' suggestions.
And a newcomer like him with no historical achievements can only request the investor's charity with the humblest attitude.
"No, I think your script setting is great. Shoot it however you want."
"What?" DeMonaco cocked his ear, almost thinking he heard wrong. "But Mr. Russell said before that the characters' behavior in the script is illogical, and what the audience detests most is intelligence-lowering behavior..."
"The audience's feelings are not important to me." Leon said this from the bottom of his heart.
The audience's feelings didn't matter to him at all; making them spend money to buy tickets was the ultimate meaning!
A movie that makes the audience scold while paying is also a successful movie!
"What the hell..."
DeMonaco was completely dumbfounded, almost swearing. He really couldn't believe these words came from an investor's mouth.
"Yes, you heard right. For such a movie with a heavy theme, we must inject a little element of truth, goodness, and beauty into it." Leon crossed his hands against his chin, his expression serious. "I like everything related to the main theme and positive energy."
A speech with a grand pattern made DeMonaco lower his head in shame.
In the past, Leon repeatedly mentioned in front of the media that making movies wasn't for money, and the success of Straight Outta Compton was just an unexpected gain.
As long as a person has a normal brain, they wouldn't take such magical rhetoric seriously.
It's like a business owner chanting: "I open a factory to let workers have food to eat; living in a big house and driving a Bentley is just an unexpected gain."