Lucasfilm and Industrial Light & Magic joined MM as a single as a single to become MM's eighth largest brand, located behind Columbia Pictures, MGM Pictures, Marvel Studios, Netflix, MM Television Network, MM Cinemas, Pixar, and it is a financially and operationally independent subsidiary.

So far, MM owns Columbia Pictures, MGM Pictures, Marvel Studios, Pixar and Lucasfilm, and has the No. 1 production capacity in Hollywood, and there are many popular series of movies that make their peers jealous.

With Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix reaching another high global box office, Warner Bros. has surpassed the 007 and Star Wars franchises to become the most profitable film franchises in history.

The Harry Potter film series has been in theaters since 2001, and to date all five films in the series are among the top 20 highest-grossing films in history, and "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" has grossed more than $920 million since its release. So far, the five "Harry Potter" movies that have been released have left behind the famous "007" series and "Star Wars" series with a total global box office of more than $4.47 billion.

Warners Chairman Horn said: "Pride alone is far from describing our joy at the success of the Harry Potter film series, and I would like to congratulate the directors and actors who have made outstanding contributions to the series. ”

Rubink, distribution manager of Warner's international division, said, "Such a successful global box office performance proves that the charm of Harry Potter movies can transcend borders, age and even language barriers. The first five films have captivated audiences around the world and sparked their imaginations. ”

Although the figures released this time do not take into account factors such as inflation and ticket price increases, the head of Warner said that considering that there are still two "Harry Potter" series movies that will be released one after another, there is still huge room for improvement in the total box office of the series in the future. According to plans announced by Warner, the last two films of the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and the finale, Harry Potter and the Dead Hallows, will be released in 2008 and 2010, respectively. "With no one else at the global box office of the Harry Potter franchise and two films to be released, it's hard to imagine what the total box office will reach when all seven films are released," said Felman, head of distribution at Warner's United States.

But this has affected the status of "007" and "Star Wars"? They are movies with a complete world view, which can make spin-offs and sequels, besides, the world-famous "Star Wars" has only made a prequel, and the sequel has not yet been filmed, which is different from the style of sequels that are popular in this era.

As far as Mark knows, "Harry Potter" was a big deal and made the last Harry Potter into two episodes, but the subsequent spin-offs and sequels did not achieve much good results, but "007" and "Star Wars" did achieve good results.

There's a lot to discover in this Star Wars, and it's definitely valuable to add MM.

And MM with Industrial Light & Magic is equivalent to killing the best special effects companies in Hollywood, and D2 is their biggest partner, while Weta Digital, which is far away in New Zealand, is one of the opponents.

This has industrial light and magic, which means that MM controls another link in the upstream industry, whether it is the Marvel Universe or the Transformers Universe, or the possible Star Wars Universe, special effects are the top priority.

It's all, so to speak, without special effects, there would be no superhero blockbusters and sci-fi blockbusters, and these two are the basis for Hollywood's dominance in the world.

Since the establishment of ILM in 1975, it can be said that the origin and progress of the film development history from the end of the 20th century to the beginning of the 21st century are mainly driven by ILM. Director Steven Spielberg once said, "George makes our dreams come true." ”

Every time Spielberg makes a commercial special effects blockbuster, he first consults with ILM's creative officers and special effects artists, and only decides to start filming if he can do it.

To answer the question of how good George Lucas and his special effects production company, ILM, are just a nutshell: without them, many of the movies you know probably wouldn't have existed, or wouldn't have existed in the state you've seen later, including Raiders of the Lost Ark, Terminator 2, Jurassic Park, Forrest Gump, Jumanjim, Pearl Harbor, Pirates of the Caribbean to Iron Man and Transformers And so on, and all the Pixar animations you've seen, can you imagine a cinematic world without these films?

For the filming of "Star Wars", Lucas founded Industrial Light & Magic, and George Lucas began writing the script for "Star Wars: A New Hope" in 1973, and the film was released in 1977.

In the middle four years, he first asked Universal Pictures for investment with a story outline, but was questioned what the hell this was, and Universal Pictures didn't want to shoot. Then they found 20th Century Fox Films, although the executives of 20th Century Fox Film didn't know what the hell it was, but they liked Lucas's last movie "American Painting", so they gave money.

Of course, with the filming of the movie, Fox Film became more and more unaware of what this young man was doing, and began to retreat a little, so Lucas made a condition: In this way, he didn't want his $500,000 director's salary, he just wanted the film to be filmed, he didn't want to be paid, as long as the franchise of the film and the control of the sequel, anyway, Fox Films, which thought that the film would not sell, happily agreed, of course, later everyone knew that Fox Films had lost a lot of money, and Lucas exchanged $500,000 for an unknown number of billions of dollars in the commercial value of the Star Wars series。

The reason why I mention this paragraph is to show that before "Star Wars" came out, there had never been a movie of this type in the world, and George Lucas himself described to the film company at the time that he wanted to make a film that "I wanted to make an action movie, I wanted to make a spaceship in it, I wanted to have a lot of short cuts, full of rhythm and action, I wanted the movie to have a special feeling." ”

Dennis Mullen, VFX supervisor at ILM, said, "When I saw the script, I said, 'Oh my God, what's this film?' all the genres and styles were put in this space film, and in the last thirty or forty pages, every page was a new combat special effects shot, every page was, and this thing was never going to work." "In the end, we all knew that it was done, and it had a profound impact.

After more than 30 years of development, ILM is currently the world's largest special effects production company, and its computer technology is second only to the United States military.

Model shooting and the latest all-digital high-definition camera technology are at its core technology, as well as CGI animation technology that is second to none, all of which were developed for the Star Wars franchise, which has won 17 Academy Awards for Best Visual Effects and dozens of nominations.

Counting the 20 highest-grossing films in film history, you will find that they are either visual effects blockbusters or CG-made animated films, and the landscape of the film industry has been completely changed by special effects. In a sense, the development of the "Star Wars" series and Light and Magic is also the development of special effects in world movies.

MM, which controls industrial light and magic, has become one of the upstream industrial chains in Hollywood.

This caused a panic in Hollywood, where in the past ILM was an independent company, and it provided special effects support for everyone, but now it is the private property of a competitor, will it still provide special effects support for everyone? Even if it continues to support, will it take out defective products, out of competition and the idea of tearing down the stage, there is a good reason to do so.

Every special effects blockbuster is a work with an investment of hundreds of millions of dollars, and a few of them have been killed, and the big companies can't handle it! Some people exclaim that Hollywood has entered a new era of hegemony, and companies like MM control every link from production to distribution, and their control is far stronger than that of the big studios in the thirties and forties.

Monopoly trusts have emerged, and they have called for an antitrust investigation.

In this regard, MM has long been prepared, first stating that there will be no change in the way of operation of ILM, the old contracts will be fulfilled, new orders will be accepted, and technical support will be provided for major film companies, the spokesman jokingly said: "ILM monopoly?

And their legal counsel also explained to the public and the government that MM is made up of eight brands, each of which is a publicly traded company with independent financial and administrative operations, and they have an independent board of directors and CEO, which does not violate any of the federal antitrust laws, and they have long been wary of this, and other large companies are doing the same, like Time Warner, News Corp., Viacom, Disney, General Universal, Comcast, etc., who is not like that?

Market competition, survival of the fittest, the stronger the stronger, the loser returns to farming, this is the law of the market, and it is also the inevitable choice for a company to survive, MM is considered a monopoly group, this is because there are only a few shareholders on its joint board of directors, and they are not like Time Warner and Disney, which have huge shareholders' meetings, they are more like News Corp. and Viacom.

Since its establishment, this MM has only diluted a very small part of the original equity, which makes it a high-quality and sought-after, so MM has made conditions, whether it is a gang leader or a person like Lucas, they immediately agreed, who doesn't want to make a fortune with the winner.

For the rumor-mongers, they have a way, send a lawyer's letter after letter, and if it can't make them shut up, then see them in court.