Made in Hollywood

Throughout June, Duke has been busy with the preparations for "Iron Man". While working, he will also pay attention to the box office performance of "Batman: Hour of War" from time to time. After all, the better the foundation of this film, the second film The explosion will be more and more violent when it is released.

After George Lucas' "Star Wars Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith", the North American film market in June welcomed Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's "Mrs. ", DreamWorks Animation Studio's masterpiece "Madagascar" and Spielberg's "War of the Worlds", plus the aftermath of two hit films in May, the market competition is more intense.

The box office of "Batman: Hour of War" inevitably showed a downward trend, but the decline was generally stable. It received a total of 36.28 million US dollars throughout June. By the time July came, the film was The North American box office has reached as much as 239.07 million US dollars, and breaking the 250 million US dollars mark is basically a foregone conclusion.

In terms of overseas markets, "Batman: Time for War" has been released in more than 90 countries and regions, with an overseas box office of 235.66 million US dollars and a combined global box office of 474.73 million US dollars. More than 500 million US dollars is not much use. time.

However, compared with other Duke films, the overseas box office performance of "Batman: War Hour" is slightly dull. Under normal circumstances, the movies with popular themes such as action, sci-fi, magic and war that are currently selling well in North America, the overseas box office is often 1.2 to 1.5 times the North American box office or even more.

"Batman: Time for War" tends to have a dark and realistic style. After leaving the North American market, it still affects the audience's senses to some extent.

In other words, the movie is still a little more complicated, and it's not fun enough.

But such a result is enough to satisfy Warner Bros. and Duke. After all, this is a reboot that has suffered a tragic failure, and such box office figures have proved that Batman has gained a new life.

Even, Warner Bros. executives have decided that when Duke makes a second Batman movie, there is no cap on production costs.

certainly. This is also relative, because Duke is not James Cameron. Although the films he directed have always focused on big productions, he is not the kind of bottomless director.

This is all a matter of the future, how can the second Batman have to wait until after the release of "Iron Man".

One movie a year is also Duke's limit, if you speed up. First, he couldn't guarantee the quality, and secondly, the rest of the team couldn't afford it either.

In addition to the box office hit, "Batman: War Hour" has also enjoyed good merchandise sales. After nearly two months of screening, sales of various related products in North America exceeded 130 million US dollars. Overseas also sold nearly $80 million, especially the comics, which became instant bestsellers after Batman was resurrected from the big screen. DC Comics' June results were up nearly 30 percent month-over-month.

Then there is the Batmobile, a car that is wild and cool enough. From the beginning of May to the present, nearly 400 versions of various configurations have been sold together, bringing huge revenue to Lamborghini and Warner Bros.

According to the contract signed by the two parties, Duke has a 20% share of the box office. You can also get 8% of Batman's various peripheral income.

A blockbuster movie, the income it brings is staggering.

In Hollywood, film companies invest in three to five major productions at the same time, and often as long as one of them sells well, they can recover their investment and even make a profit. Even those movies that lose money in the short term, if not too bad, through long-term offline operations, there are also possibly profitable.

Of course, Duke's films are not in this category. The films he shoots, even if they are the worst at the box office, can recover their costs through the box office and basically achieve profitability.

In July in Hollywood, something big happened.

Released over the Independence Day holiday, "Escape from the Clone Island", like "Kingdom of Heaven" and "Air Fighter," which were released in May, suffered a double failure in word of mouth and at the box office. The production cost of the $126 million sci-fi The masterpiece, only received more than 12 million US dollars in the first week, and directly plunged to 5 million US dollars in the next weekend. The North American box office is bound to be difficult to exceed 50 million US dollars, and huge losses have become a foregone conclusion.

Like the straw that broke the camel's back, "Escape from the Clone Island" exposed the various crises of the troubled DreamWorks, even David Geffen, Steven Spielberg and Jay The personal relationship between Frie Katzenberg has also come to the brink of splitting.

The external pack of wolves looked around, and there were many internal crises. DreamWorks, which once wanted to become a new Hollywood giant, has come to a turning point in its fate.

In mid-July, earlier than Duke had imagined, DreamWorks officially declared bankruptcy and reorganization, closing down heavily-losing divisions including records and TV series, and no longer independently releasing its own films.

Giving up the distribution rights means that DreamWorks has completely bowed its head in front of the six major companies. Everyone in Hollywood knows that only labels with broad distribution channels can stand at the forefront of the entire industry. Although DreamWorks can be reorganized, the dream after the reorganization The factory is no longer the DreamWorks originally conceived by the Big Three.

Looking back, Duke still vaguely remembers the glory days of DreamWorks' founding in 1994.

Three Jewish geniuses, David Geffen, Jerefer Katzenberg and Steven Spielberg, finally decided to set up a studio independent of Hollywood at the suggestion of Robert Zemeckis. At the time, they may not have thought about failure.

These three people have a lot in common. They are all Jewish, they have no complete college education experience, they are full of creativity, and they all have huge personal resources.

At that time, many people who were dissatisfied with the situation in which big companies ruled Hollywood also placed high business expectations on the new baby DreamWorks, hoping that these three geniuses who possessed massive resources could create a new pattern in Hollywood. .

When DreamWorks was founded, Spielberg held a business dinner at his home, and Duke remembers that Spielberg's wife even went out to the store to buy linen tablecloths for supplements because of the increasing number of admiring guests. .

What a stark contrast to the splendor of that time and the current situation.

Why did DreamWorks fail? The big six Hollywood companies are an inescapable factor, and they and those who are closely connected with them, such as Duke, have never relaxed their siege on DreamWorks.

Of course, aside from the external environment and operational management factors, the failure of DreamWorks is also inseparable from the three founders' very different temperaments and focus directions.

To put it simply, what would it be like to have these three people with different temperaments have a regular breakfast meeting?

Duke had heard Tom Hanks mention it more than once - David Geffen's words were usually short and soft. Katzenberg is a Mr. 'Substance Issue', and he keeps meetings to 22 minutes. And Spielberg has a cartoonist mentality, he can draw anything on paper and turn it into reality.

Like, when talking to someone about something, David Geffen would say, 'We think you're great, if you could join us, that would be perfect, if not, we still think you're great Great'. And Katzenberg would say, 'You're amazing, here are 17 reasons why you should work with us'. Spielberg would say, 'I liked what you did in that movie five years ago, where you got the platypus dancing around the table, and when you can do that, you can do anything'. That's how they meet, and it's sure to be over in 22 minutes.

There are huge differences in the ideas of the three people. If DreamWorks develops smoothly, these are not problems. However, in times of crisis, the collision of different ideas will bring about contradictions. Work-related conflicts inevitably evolve into personal conflicts.

As a result, the Big Three split, and DreamWorks' ability to deal with external crises was weakened.

From the ending of DreamWorks, Duke also saw another kind of future for him. If after the initial success, he did not choose to continue to cooperate with Warner Bros., but pursued an ambitious independent development, where would he go? I'm afraid it will only be worse than DreamWorks.

With the failure, either a Jedi counterattack or a more severe failure, DreamWorks has no ability to fight back at all. After declaring bankruptcy and reorganization, the Big Three finally parted ways.

David Geffen completely bid farewell to the DreamWorks system and the Hollywood film and entertainment industry, and took hundreds of millions of dollars to do his own charitable cause.

Jerefer Katzenberg took the helm of DreamWorks Animation Studios and led the only profitable department in the entire DreamWorks system, continuing to compete with his nemesis Michael Eisner and old rival Disney Animation.

Steven Spielberg has become the new owner of the separately spun off DreamWorks live-action film studio, but the director, who has never participated in the DreamWorks financial meeting, is not a qualified operator, and is currently looking for A suitable distribution partner.

In a short period of time, the seventh-largest film company in Hollywood fell apart, and the characteristics of Hollywood giants' domination became more obvious.

Although he is a bit embarrassed about the fate of DreamWorks and the Big Three, Duke will not have too much sympathy. After all, DreamWorks collapsed earlier than before. His appearance is one of the important reasons. People who have personally attacked DreamWorks , nor the qualification and necessity of sympathy.

Of course, Duke will not regret it. If there is another chance to come back, he still will not stand on the side of DreamWorks.

After paying attention to the fate of DreamWorks, Duke continued his preparatory work. After several large-scale auditions, the crew had already determined the candidate for the heroine within a relatively small range. (To be continued ~^~)

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