"I really didn't expect that Lance's next plan was to adapt a comic book into a movie, and his brain circuit was really incomprehensible to us ordinary people. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 info You say, if we had worked with Lance in the first place, wouldn't Superman have been like this this summer? ”

"Let's not talk about Superman, I don't think it's a problem at all to develop a series that rivals Harry Potter, and the company won't have to worry about it for the next ten years. Didn't it say at the beginning, Lance wanted to have a big one, cooperation between companies and companies, and everyone laughed at Chaos Pictures at that time, so what now? ”

"The last time I heard that 'I am a legend' was going to look for Lance, now it seems that ......" The speaker made a spatula motion on his neck with his right hand, and spit out his tongue vividly, and the expression of the image made everyone burst into laughter, but before the laughter could make a noise, everyone closed their mouths in unison, and looked in the same direction with a stiff face, and then everyone dispersed, and left in an instant.

Barry Meyer glanced at the crowd that quickly dispersed, his calm expression was not affected in any way, as if he had not heard the discussion just now, and calmly walked into the elevator, the person who was already standing in the elevator was embarrassed to leave, so he could only smile and nod to greet Barry, and then looked away, staring at the ceiling, trying to eliminate his presence.

There was no sound in the elevator at all, the kind of silent dullness and depression made people almost collapse, and after each "ding" sound, someone left the elevator in silence, except for the flowing air, there was not the slightest noise, until Barry was left alone in the elevator.

After arriving on the top floor, Barry walked out of the elevator quickly, did not squint, even if the assistant greeted him without any response, went straight into the office, and pulled the tie knot hard, the fingers that were too hard to obey the call took a lot of effort, then the tie was loosened, and after taking it off, he smashed it into the glass window, the muffled sound of "bang" was so slight that it was like a bee falling on the petals, which made Barry more and more depressed, and the anger surging in his chest could not be vented at all.

The rest of his eyes fell on the neatly stacked newspapers on the desk, and the name of "Lance" could be seen on the top headline of the "Los Angeles Times", and the anger swept again in an instant, and he raised his hand to grab the top few newspapers, and swayed out, looking at the newspapers flying in the sky, his mood finally calmed down a little.

This is the headquarters of Warner Bros., and Barry knows more or less about the gossip just now, but hearing it with his own ears is another matter, and what he is really angry about is not because of this idea held by the company's employees, but because even they have recognized the strong position of Chaos Pictures internally, and just the news that "Iron Man" and "The Incredible Hulk" have confirmed the establishment of the project, which has triggered their infinite associations, which is a threat that DreamWorks does not bring. Such treatment is almost equivalent to putting Chaos Pictures in the position of the seventh player.

Even if he is as cunning as Barry, it is difficult to suppress the anger in his heart at this time.

However, after venting, Barry quickly calmed down. He needs to vent, but he can't lose his mind because he gets angry, he has to regain his composure and think about how to deal with it. As a top company like Warner Bros., challengers are everywhere, and in addition to Chaos Pictures, there are five other real competitors, so Chaos Pictures is indeed a big problem, but it is not the most important problem.

For Warner Bros., the most important question is always to be yourself. The fiasco of this year's summer file is ultimately a strategic mistake by Warner Bros., but they still have a chance to win back in the second half of the year, not to mention next year and the year after, as long as they remain competitive enough, they are still the most powerful competitors in the North American market.

First "Iron Man", then "The Incredible Hulk", it is certain that Lance should not be able to build a DC Universe for Warner Bros. in a short period of time, as for the extent of cooperation between Marvel Studios and Chaos Pictures, it is not very important, Barry now needs to consider is:

Should the DC Universe be built right away, especially after the collapse of Superman Returns? If the answer is yes, then how should they avoid the "return of Superman" and who should be at the helm? Of course, there is also the core question, with such a big loss in this summer's file, how should the investment in the first phase of the DC universe be controlled, three works? Five works?

Barry has a series of problems in front of him, and even if you are the CEO of Warner Bros., he is still a "part-time worker" who can't do whatever he wants.

The fiasco of "Poseidon", "Superman Returns", and "Banshee in the Water" has led to many complaints and disagreements on the board of directors. If Barry's original plan is to convince Lance to join and put Lance in charge, then the board of directors will not be a problem, and in the name of Lance's undefeated record, it is easy to convince them to give the green light to the DC Universe; But now that this path is not working, all the problems are placed in front of Barry, and even he needs to clear his mind.

Abandoning the DC Universe? Put the DC Universe on the shelf for a while? Wait for the results of "Iron Man" and "The Incredible Hulk" before making plans?

Barry is indeed a very bold trader, and many of his decisive choices are jaw-dropping, but he is not a brave and reckless man, and he recklessly charges when the situation is unknown, and the result can only be dead without a corpse. Judging from the current pattern in 2006, comic book adaptations are still unstable, and the risks are really too great.

"Spider-Man" is currently the most successful comic book adaptation, the first one in 2002, with a cost of 139 million, swept 821 million worldwide, truly opened a new door to comic book adaptations, and the technology was amazing; The second part in 2004 was fully upgraded, with a huge investment of 200 million, but the North American and overseas box office both declined, and finally the global box office slipped to 783 million. Strictly speaking, the decline is not significant, but it is a disappointing achievement.

First, the box office of the sequel movie surpassed that of the previous work, which is the situation that the film company expects to see, for example, the box office of "Pirates of the Caribbean 2" is much higher than that of the previous work, not to mention the sequel series such as the "Shrek" series; Second, the increase in costs, but not in exchange for the increase in the box office, which really makes the film company a little uncomfortable, although "Spider-Man 2" still successfully achieved profitability, but the profit is shrinking, which also makes people express more worries about the upcoming "Spider-Man 3" next year.

The "X-Men 3" released this year, although the opening weekend exploded at the box office of 100 million, but the follow-up trend was not satisfactory, and the global box office finally landed at 459 million, compared with the second part of the series three years ago, only increased the box office by 50 million US dollars, the increase is really disappointing, because the cost of the third part is almost twice the cost of the second part - from 110 million to 210 million, jaw-dropping, "X-Men 3" made Twentieth Century Fox lose nearly 50 million.

In other words, comic book adaptations seem to be a big hit, but in fact, only two works, "Spider-Man" and "X-Men 2", have met the success criteria in the minds of major studios. Competitors aside, back to Warner Bros. himself.

In the past five years, Warner Bros. has filmed five comic book adaptations of "Catwoman", "Hell Detective", "Superman Returns", "Batman Prequel: The Mystery of the Shadows" and "V for Vendetta", and the results are ...... The whole army was wiped out, and even the word-of-mouth "Mystery of the Heroes" lost about 15 million, not to mention the "Catwoman" who fell apart vigorously. Five works, which cost Warner Bros. more than $300 million. What is even more terrible than the loss is that all five works failed, none of them won, and the "V-word vendetta" with the least loss relied on videotape rental to control the loss within five million, which is undoubtedly a heavy blow to Warner Bros. confidence.

Carefully calculated, after entering the 21st century, only "Spider-Man", "X-Men 2" and "Sin City" - "Spider-Man 2" can barely be called successful.

It can be seen that there is still no successful routine for comic book adaptations, and it cannot even be said that they have a stable market, and any investment needs to take a certain amount of risk, but there are still too many uncertainties in this type of movie.

Of course, Warner Bros. will still not let go of the excavation of comic book adaptations, and "Batman Begins 2: The Dark Knight" is still in full swing, but the question is, do they need to wait to push further and take further risks at this point in time? Do they need to interrupt their plans because of the abruptness of Chaos Pictures, a production company that knows nothing about the sky? Lance has sworn to sketch out the blueprint of the DC Universe and is now working on the Marvel Universe, can he really continue his undefeated myth, and should they wait and see for a while?

In fact, going around and around, it is still back to the state of last year. In the face of Lance's plan for the DC Universe, Barry finally reserved his opinion and was unwilling to take too many risks; A year has passed, and the situation has not changed much, and the disappointing performances of "X-Men 3" and "Superman Returns" are still not enough to be the decisive winner.

But why is Lance so sure? Is it because he really sees a business opportunity, or is it because he really has conviction, or is it just because of his paranoia and arrogance?

"Jingle bell", the phone ringing interrupted Barry's thoughts, his brows couldn't help but knot, he pressed the inner button, and replied directly, "I'm thinking!" His assistant didn't hang up, but said, "Barry, you should answer the call, I think." ”

Barry paused for a moment and said impatiently, "Who?" ”

"Robert Iger."