688 Time Curtain (1/2)
Future Technology's allure was indeed unprecedented. The company received 170281 scripts which were equivalent to the listings on some web novel sites.
Of course, it wasn't just Future Technology's name - the one million in prizes also played a role.
The massive number of documents meant it was impossible to manually complete the review process. It was time for Jiang Chen's ”assistant”.
For Jean, there was no inherent difference between 170281 and 1782. The computation speed of the quantum computer could read through billions of words in an instant.
The only problematic thing was that because she was just intermediate artificial intelligence, while she had the ability to think, she didn't possess any human emotions.
Without emotions, she obviously wouldn't understand the beauty hidden inside the words and it would be impossible for her to rate the submissions. She could only filter the text based on the settings Jiang Chen set.
Anything less than 100 thousand words were eliminated. It was too difficult to rewrite that into a script with a plot that could fill a three-hour film.
Works over one million words were also removed. He was planning to make a movie, not a drama series.
Works with more than 50 grammatical errors, awkward logic, and obvious plot holes were among the factors considered; only a few thousand works remained after that. Of course, there might've been gold dusted out along with the sand, but the quality of the remaining works would definitely be of higher quality.
The first round of selections took five seconds, but the second round took two weeks!
With Nolan's lead, Warner Brothers employees began to manually review the English. Chinese works were the responsibility of Future Group.
In order to be fair and open, Warner Brothers invited the World Science Fiction Association, which was the sponsor of the Hugo Awards, to participate in the selection process. Of course, the opinions of the judges were only for reference and did not have a direct impact on the results of the selection process.
After two weeks of selection.
Finally, after much anticipation, Future Technology and Warner Brothers jointly announced their winners on the official website. All winners would be reimbursed for their airfare expenses to attend a grand award ceremony on Coro Island and sign with Future Technology.
At the end of the ceremony, Jiang Chen went to see Nolan.
A total of ten works were selected, but they still needed to discuss to select the top work.
The entire event costed a total of 15 million US dollar to select the right screenplay. Future Technology's willingness to invest certainly made Mr. Nolan feel immense pressure. When they met, he said:
”If we were just trying to create hype, didn't we invest too much?”
”But from the results, our reward is satisfying, isn't it?” Jiang Chen smiled.
Nolan revealed a helpless expression. ”I can't disagree on that point, and on that point alone.”
In all the works submitted to Future Technology, there were pieces of some emerging writers as well as some novels that had been popular for a long time and had a high demand for an adaptation. Obviously, it wasn't only fans of science fiction films but science fiction writers' enthusiasm for this open contest was also frivolous.
As they went through the list from the top, Jiang Chen exchanged opinions with Nolan, one by one.
”What about 'Civilization' by Ian M. Banks? The most famous space opera science fiction in the 1980s.”
”It's too difficult to adapt a series of novels.” Nolan shrugged bluntly.
”Then what about the 'Dust in God's Eyes'? Larry Neven's story of the first contact between humans and extraterrestrial intelligent creatures is very interesting. The expedition team, composed of naval officers and soldiers, and businessmen and scientists, was also exciting. Their approach of: 'In the case of contact with nonhuman intelligent creatures, we must assume the other side is hostile' is also quite interesting.”
”That book is on my shortlist.” Nolan laughed.
”Haha, can you tell me about the lucky ones on your list?”