theotherayn

iQiyi just put it in their October drama list. the current release lineup seems to be Spring of the Blade Sep 17 > Shadow Punisher Sep 26 > The Great Long March > LIRD Oct 14 > Small Town Remedy Oct 26 (but only SotB seems to be set, the rest is still tentative)

no stable gossip about a specific date for LOA yet. last month they said Oct 8 but recently rumors dropped about it being delayed further in Q4 because of issues with a supporting actor. but the melon owner isn't a reliable one so no one fully trusts it either.

LIRD is said to be the next idol drama after Spring in the Blade which is rumored to start Sep 17 (iQiyi will release a serious drama in between)

🍉 tentative October 14 or 16

iQiyi opened character popularity for the show and a big melon owner posted yesterday that it's might be soon so it's moving at least. possibly after Spring of the Blade.

idk why his 3 upcoming shows are so stingy with posters/trailers. let's hope they have some new stuff for the investment conferences this month.

🍉one of the big melon owners posted it might be dropping soon and iQiyi just opened character heat index so maybe it'll drop this month after all🤷‍♂️

basically if you look at the data for the drama (douyin/reservations/etc) it's average. whatever little promo they've done isn't capturing the attention of the casual audience which a drama needs now to have the chance to recoup investment. iQiyi is also rumored to be having money problems so they're not spending much on marketing. Mango is though. DHTR is one of their flagship variety shows and LOA has some viral reuters. if both become hits and WXY and XRH get more fans then that will benefit iQiyi without them having to spend more. of course if a show becomes a hit, it still depends on its quality as a whole but if you notice the past two months iQiyi decided to air dual platform idol dramas and low cost romance dramas (apart from their flagship serious dramas.) it's all to save money because those won't have too high expectations. cdrama may be starting to gain international attention but unfortunately on the domestic side, they're losing investors and audience to AI dramas.

yeah, i still think they're gonna wait for some free buzz from DHTR8 and Lament of Autumn (platforms/production companies have been stingy with marketing this year and except for Harper's Bazaar, LIRD has been perfunctory with its promo) but LOA is also rumored to have been moved to October so if they don't want to air it at exactly the same time, it might be November if we're lucky. it would be funny/sad if Zhu Ruibin's drama with Esther Yu airs first since I've heard rumors it's also airing in Q4

not on iQiyi's official September drama list :(
https://weibo.com/1731986465/Rg3zJh7KA

September Schedule:

Sep 5 - Business live (Slek/Shulei)
Sep 16 - Business event (BYD FangChengBao)
Sep 23 - Business event
Sep 25 - Fashion event (Harper's Bazaar Gala)

Love in Red Dust - EDIT: not listed on iQiyi's official September drama list :( EDIT 2: now listed in iQiyi's October drama list 🍉Oct 14

LIRD hi6 and our dormitory episodes were moved this week for anyone planning to watch

Divas Hit the Road 8 - officially announced to start airing every friday at 12nn starting Sep 4
https://weibo.com/5067321419/5338639929704673

🍉Spring Banquet - will likely start filming in October after the national holiday (ZRN has pre-production work noted in fine print on her schedule)

new casting 🍉 from 3 big melon owners so contact is likely true

Spring Banquet - Tencent S+, directed by Deng Ke (The Road to Splendor, Prisoner of Beauty), screenwriter Liu Fei (Dazzling), produced by Enlight Media (Fight for Love), with Zhang Ruonan as FL. Enlight is a mostly film production company and also ZRN's agency but they also produced You Complete Me which was WXY's very first drama job! no news on when it's supposed to start but it was marked as Q3 before. seems to be a well known IP (same writer as Love in the Clouds) and they've been trying to produce this for years so we'll see if it actually happens this time lol. you can check out the novel here: https://mydramanovel.com/spring-banquet/

UPDATE: filed a few months ago with 30 episodes. platform might be iQiyi instead. aiming to start mid to late September.

hi6 preview for next saturday:
https://weibo.com/7536775935/5334811117097449

unless they airdrop it, i don't think so. Pull Strings is also starting tomorrow so they usually give a new show a week on its own (especially since they're both idol dramas.) maybe there's a slight chance for next week/very late August? but no melon owner has hinted anything

Harper's Bazaar x Love in Red Dust for Qixi festival

August 19
10AM - BAZAAR blockbuster
https://www.weibo.com/7907743005/Re5ds8Ox5
10:10AM - BAZAAR video materials
https://www.weibo.com/7907743005/Re5hCqwkp
10:10AM - atmospheric snippets
https://so.douyin.com/video/detail?aweme_id=7675417361910906707
10:20AM - BAZAAR video materials
https://www.weibo.com/7907743005/Re5lClCmK
10:30AM - atmospheric snippets
https://so.douyin.com/video/detail?aweme_id=7675417750072236523

yeah i was a little scared because if the contracts were all signed and he suddenly backed out, he could piss off youku (at a time when pissing off a platform is a bad idea) but if it also involved an internal battle among youku executives then this is better for everyone. i wish them luck in courting the guy they reportedly want since his fans are also vehemently against this project.

re LIRD, they shot hi6 and a magazine so it's coming soon. my theory is that they think the buzz from either Divas Hit the Road and Lament of Autumn airing first will help the show better and both of those are tentatively scheduled for early September (Mango seems to be better at sticking to rumored scheduling unlike iQiyi that has a lot of unaired dramas to choose from)

tbh the director and screenwriter didn't have a good reputation based on the comments i saw on douban/xhs (and i really don't like multi season formats, i get enough impatience from that in western media lol) so I was ambivalent about this, personally. but yeah, it would do him well to try a political drama in the future, hopefully with a better creative team.

these are all just rumors and i don't remember them all but (aside from the ones I mentioned above): the youku modern drama with Jing Boran/Sun Qian, tencent suspense with Jing Tian/Zhang Xincheng, mango modern drama with Wei Zheming/Liu Xiening. there's also supposedly a xianxia drama with Ju Jingyi/Zhang Yunlong

🍉 er he seems to have backed out of Chang Ning Di Jun. one melon is that the script was changed into a two male lead drama (the novel itself had a male frenemy/character foil to Shen Leng but the melon implies they made it BL-adjacent. Liu Xiening also denied the melon she's the FL.) another melon is that youku wants a certain movie actor even though they were the ones who posted on official social media accounts that the ML was already decided (and said movie actor keeps rejecting the show.) either way, it's another mess so good luck to the production team.

🍉Yu Zheng said in his last livestream that Re Jing Hong is on hold

🍉 Divas Hit the Road 8 to air on Fridays starting September 11, pilot on September 4

🍉 no update on Love in Red Dust airing dates. though WXY reportedly said "maybe September" during the hi6 recording.

🍉Epic of Tang Dynasty likely won't start production this year (serious historical dramas have longer approval process)

btw, just in case it starts another fan war. there's also a fake rumor* going round that yu zheng is trying to snatch a role for him from another drama that's about to start filming but all of the rumors about Xingyue joining that project always seemed like yxh accounts just guessing he was in it because his schedule was free. the only recent projects that the more reputable melon owners ever connected with him were Re Jing Hong and Chang Ning Di Jun. (*the root was a melon owner vaguely talking about a platform change and had nothing to do with actors, but yxh spread it was an ML change.)

🍉 tentatively scheduled to air every friday starting September 11

UPDATE: + pilot episode on September 4

i didn't check how many there were exactly but i know it's a long one. and there was a melon months ago that Youku was testing out the Netflix model (aka multi-season shows with smaller number of episodes) and this one only has 12 episodes filed so they might be planning for more seasons in the future if the first one earns enough.

no, recent melons have the iQiyi schedule at Heavy Weapon (Aug 10) -> Pull Strings (simulcast with Youku, Aug 20) -> The Awake -> Spring of the Blade (simulcast with Youku, late Aug/early September) so it looks like it's been moved to September.