Made in Hollywood

Erin Lauder flew to Tokyo early the next morning. Not only did Duke go to the airport in person, but he also let his business jet take her there. When he returned to the hotel, it was almost noon, and he simply used it. After lunch, he declined invitations to several events, and he finally had an afternoon of free time.

Duke does not plan to watch the films shown at the film festival, nor does he plan to hang out in Shanghai. He has been to this city countless times before, and he will definitely not feel fresh and curious, perhaps because his psychological age is indeed relatively old. He is less and less interested in non-essential socializing and more and more like a quiet environment.

The higher he stands, the farther he can see. Coupled with his personality, his mentality is more stable than before.

Maybe it was because he was under pressure all the year round, and he was used to living under heavy pressure. He sat leisurely in the living room of the suite for a while, watching TV. Duke was so bored and distracted. He seemed to return to the past, when he was in The experience of struggling at the bottom of the crew, until Tina Fei walked out of the study, the sound of the wooden door brought his thoughts back to reality.

Although he returned to his former homeland, Duke did not intend to look for anything. He had nothing to do with the past, and the past has become the past. His eyes are always looking forward, and he will never stop moving forward. pace.

He will overcome all obstacles, seize the rare opportunity of this life, and move on.

No one and no reason could stop him.

"It just came from the Duke's studio."

Tina Fey came over, sat next to him, and handed over a faxed document, "There are several items that need your signature to be formally implemented."

Opening the file, Duke quickly browsed. The first thing was the various North American statistics of "Hurricane Rescue".

Just look at the data. This film is more than an order of magnitude worse than a super production like The Lord of the Rings trilogy, but compared with the investment in the film itself, it can still make people feel satisfied.

In its first weekend in North America, "Hurricane Rescue" won $51.25 million in 3,624 theaters. The audience rating of CinemaScore is as high as 88%, the average audience score is 'A+', the 18,775 users of IMDB website scored 86 points, the audience favorite popcorn index is 89%, and 45 media reporters from MetaCritic rated it 84 points.

In general, although the market reputation of the film is far less than that of the Lord of the Rings trilogy and "The Matrix", it is also a high-scoring work in action films.

Except for North America and China. "Hurricane Rescue" was also released at the same time in the United Kingdom and France, and received $16.56 million and $14.11 million respectively in its first weekend, and the overall performance exceeded the expectations of Duke and Warner Bros.

Importantly, Hurricane Rescue's North American box office didn't plummet yesterday's weekday. The single-day box office of 10.85 million US dollars is enough for the film to go on with a steady momentum.

After reading this report, Duke is basically at ease with "Hurricane Rescue", even if there is a slump later. The film can also make money at the box office.

Duke then turned his energies below. Two new films co-operated by Duke Studios and Warner Bros. have also reached the stage of project approval - Zack Snyder's "Three Hundred Spartans" and Wallace Lee's "Underworld".

After the Oscars, Zack Snyder ended his six-month vacation and officially started preparing for a new film. Became the leader of the Three Hundred Red Trousers, "Reloaded" and "The Matrix Revolution" ended up with $715.6 million and $733.56 million respectively. He has proven his ability and also won Duke and Fully recognized by Warner Bros., the project proposal he developed quickly passed the review.

Moreover, the actual cost of this film is not particularly high.

Zach Snyder's project was officially launched, which was already in the plans of Duke and Warner, and Wallace Lee was able to get the opportunity to direct alone. In addition to his recommendation of "Underworld", he also cooperated with own efforts.

In the past few years, Duke's college classmate has left an excellent impression on him. In the post-production of "The Return of the King" and the planning and shooting of "Hurricane Rescue", he has shown a certain ability. And while there are downsides—such as the gossip with several actresses that circulated around the set as an audition director—in Hollywood, these are small issues that can be ignored.

"Underworld" has been confirmed as a project, only the final procedure is needed.

These two projects originally came from his support. Of course, Duke would not stop, and told Tina Fey to follow up in time and keep in touch with Warner Bros.

The last part is the business related to Warner Bros. There are mainly three aspects, one is the negotiation between Warner Bros. and Pixar Studio, one is the distribution cooperation between Warner Bros. and Marvel Studios, and the other is Warner Bros. again applying for a wholly-owned acquisition of Duke’s work room.

With the release of "The Incredibles" in North America, Pixar Studios has fulfilled the animated feature film contract with Walt Disney. Because Michael Eisner has never stepped down, the negotiations between Pixar and Disney have been at the stalemate stage.

With Steve Jobs's businessman character, he will definitely not hang himself on the tree of Disney. In recent years, the contact with Duke and Warner Bros. has never been broken. Now the ownership of Pixar Studio has come to an end. , the longest period of no more than two years, Jobs will inevitably find a new issuer.

The release seems simple, but in fact it requires years of accumulation and the support of a huge platform. Why can't the second-tier Hollywood companies, including Harvey Weinstein Brothers, New Line Pictures, Pixar Studios, and the future DreamWorks Animation Studio wait for one by one? Or join a big company, or sign a contract with a big company that seems unfair at all?

Distribution channels can be said to be extremely important reasons.

This is not a problem that can be solved by a single person at all. Even when Steve Jobs used to focus on the Pixar studio, the genius was as strong as him, and he was unable to do anything about distribution channels.

Compared to Walt Disney, Warner Bros. has a disadvantage in children's promotion, but has an advantage in distribution and marketing channels around the world.

No matter how talented Michael Eisner is, it can't change the fact that Disney didn't transform into a media group until the mid-to-late 1990s. Now Walt Disney is not the world's No. 1 media company in the future. It is similar to Time Warner Group. However, there is still a certain gap.

But Pixar's work is no longer the ugly duckling it used to be. It has transformed into a white swan in Hollywood. Steve Jobs, who holds absolute control, has undoubtedly taken the initiative.

For the Duke and Warner consortium, a long and arduous negotiation has just begun, and it is not an easy task to stand out among several equally powerful competitors.

Relatively speaking, the distribution negotiation between Marvel Pictures and Warner Bros. is much smoother, with Duke matching the bridge, and there are precedents for "Spider-Man" and "X-Men" to sell well, even if they are competitors, in the face of sufficient interests , will still put aside prejudice and cooperate.

What's more, the cooperation between DC and Marvel has happened more than once.

The negotiation between the two parties has entered the final stage, and only a formal contract is left, and both Marvel and Warner have the same requirement. Duke directed the opening work of Marvel's plan - "Iron Man"!

Superhero movies will not be outdated in the next ten years or even longer. If the series is more successful than it has been, he, the dual major shareholder of Marvel and Warner, will undoubtedly be one of the people who benefit the most.

Although wealth is now just a number stacking game for Duke, like all the rich people in this world, once they join this game, no one will have the idea of ​​stopping until they are completely bored.

After thinking for a few minutes, Duke said to Tina Fey, "I agree to direct "Iron Man" in principle. You inform Nancy and she will discuss the specific details."

The last item is the ownership of the Duke Studio. Even today, the Duke Studio is still a shell company with a relatively limited scale. Duke has no intention of making it bigger. The specific management work has always been led by Tina Fei. The team is in charge.

In terms of the number of employees and size of the company alone, Duke Studios is not even comparable to the film studios of Tom Cruise, Drew Barrymore and Brad Pitt, but unlike the other two, Duke Studios Holds all or part of the copyright of a considerable number of movies sold.

Not to mention other things, the copyright of "The Matrix", "The Lord of the Rings Trilogy" and "Harry Potter" series alone is enough to make the whole Hollywood drool.

As early as a few years ago, Warner Bros. proposed a wholly-owned acquisition of Duke Studio, but at that time, the Lord of the Rings had not been filmed, and Harry Potter had not been popular. Duke would definitely not be stupid enough to sell the company, even if Warner Bros. proposed. To complete the transaction in the form of share exchange, he still chose to refuse.

The situation is completely different now.

Duke is very clear-headed, knowing that the Duke Studio cannot become bigger, and other big Hollywood companies will not sit by and watch the Duke Studio become bigger, and if they want to develop into the current situation of the Big Six, they really only rely on shooting big-selling movies. Can it be done?

He wasn't so stupid or so naive.

"Tina, go back to North America, and you will negotiate with Warner Bros. on my behalf." Duke thought about it again, and urged, "Remember, we don't have a shortage of cash."

Tina Fey nodded. "I know what to do."

After processing the few documents, Duke left the room, went around the Bund, returned to the hotel in the evening, found out the speech and revised it. This is his first time to give a speech at a university, and his attitude is still quite Seriously correct.

After this speech, all Duke's trips in China will officially come to an end. The next time I come here, I am afraid that I will have to wait for a long time, even when the film market here explodes. (To be continued ~^~)