Throughout the month of June, Duke was busy preparing for "Iron Man", and while working, he would also pay attention to the box office performance of "Batman: Time to War" from time to time, after all, the better the foundation laid by this film, the more violent the explosion of the second part will be. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info

In George? After Lucas's "Star Wars Prequel 3: Revenge of the Sith", the North American film market in June ushered in Brad? Pete and Angelina? Jolie's "Mr. and Mrs. Smith," DreamWorks Animation's Madagascar, and Spielberg's War of the Worlds, plus the aftermath of two blockbuster films in May, have made the market even more competitive.

The box office of "Batman: Time to War" inevitably showed a downward trend, but in general, the decline was relatively stable, with a total of $36.28 million in the entire month of June, and by the time July came, the North American box office of the film had reached as much as $239.07 million, and it was almost a foregone conclusion that it would break the $250 million mark.

In terms of overseas markets, "Batman: Time to Go to War" has been released in more than 90 countries and regions, with an overseas box office of $235.66 million, and the global box office combined to $474.73 million, and it won't take much time to exceed $500 million.

However, compared with other Duke films, the overseas box office performance of "Batman: Time to Go to War" is slightly flat, and under normal circumstances, the overseas box office of popular films such as action, science fiction, fantasy and war that are now popular in North America is often 1.2 to 1.5 times or more than the North American box office.

"Batman: Time to War" tends to be dark and realistic, and after leaving the North American market, it still affects the audience's senses to some extent.

In other words, the film is still a little more complicated and 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 miserable failure, and such box office figures have proved that Batman has been reborn.

Even, Warner Bros. top management has decided. When Duke made the second Batman movie, there was no cap on the production cost.

Of course, this is also relative, because Duke is not James? Cameron. Although the films he directed have always been large-scale productions, he is not the kind of bottomless pit type of director.

This is all for later, how can the second part of Batman have to wait until after the release of "Iron Man".

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

In addition to the box office hits, the merchandise sales of "Batman: Time to War" are also gratifying, after nearly two months of screenings, various related products have sold more than $130 million in North America, and nearly $80 million overseas, especially comics, after Batman was resurrected from the big screen, various versions of Batman comics instantly became bestsellers, and DC Comics' performance in June increased by nearly 30% month-on-month.

And then there's the Batmobile. This car is wild and cool enough, and from the beginning of May to the present, nearly 400 units of various configurations have been sold together, bringing huge revenues to Lamborghini and Warner Bros.

According to the contract signed by the two parties, Duke will receive an 8% share of Batman's various peripheral revenues in addition to a 20% share of the box office.

A blockbuster movie that brings in an astonishing amount of revenue.

In Hollywood, studios invest in three to five major productions at the same time, and often only one of them sells well, recouping their investment and even making a profit. Even those movies that lose money in the short term, if they are not too bad, may be profitable through long-term offline operations.

Of course. Duke's films are not in the ranks, and his films, even the worst at the box office, can recoup their costs through the box office and basically achieve profitability.

In Hollywood in July, something big happened.

"Escape from Clone Island", which was released during the Independence Day holiday, is like "Heavenly Dynasty" and "Air Combat Heroes", which were released in May. suffered a double failure of word-of-mouth and box office, this sci-fi masterpiece with a production cost of up to $126 million, only got more than $12 million in the first week, and plunged directly to $5 million the next weekend, and the North American box office is bound to be difficult to exceed $50 million, and the huge loss is a foregone conclusion.

As if the last straw that broke the camel's back, "Escape from Clone Island" exposed all kinds of crises in the troubled DreamWorks, even David? Geffen, Steven? Spielberg and Jeffrey? The personal relationship between Katzenberg was also on the verge of splitting.

With wolves on the outside and crises on the inside, DreamWorks, which once wanted to become Hollywood's new giant, has come to a turning point in fate.

By mid-July, earlier than Duke remembered, DreamWorks had officially declared bankruptcy and reorganization, closing loss-making divisions including records and TV series, and no longer distributing its own films separately.

Giving up the right to distribute means that DreamWorks is completely bowing its head in front of the six major companies, and everyone in Hollywood knows that a label with a wide distribution channel can stand at the forefront of the entire industry, although DreamWorks can be reorganized, but the reorganized DreamWorks is no longer the DreamWorks originally conceived by the Big Three.

Looking back, Duke still vaguely remembers the glorious scene when DreamWorks was founded in 1994.

David? Geffen, Jerever? Katzenberg and Steven? Spielberg, the three Jewish geniuses, at the time in Robert? When Zemeckis finally decided to form a studio independent of Hollywood, they probably didn't think about failure.

All three have a lot in common, they are all Jewish, none have a full college education, they are full of creativity, and they all have huge personal resources.

At that time, many people who were dissatisfied with the domination of Hollywood by large companies also had high business expectations for the newborn DreamWorks, hoping that these three geniuses and huge resources could create a new pattern in Hollywood.

When DreamWorks was founded, Spielberg had a business dinner at his home, and Duke remembers that Spielberg's wife even had to go to the outside store to buy linen tablecloths to make up for them because of the growing number of visitors.

What a stark contrast between the glory of that time and the situation now.

Why did DreamWorks fail? Hollywood's Big Six are a factor that can't be bypassed, and they, and people close to them, like Duke, have never relaxed their encirclement of DreamWorks.

Of course, aside from the external environment and management factors, the failure of DreamWorks is also inseparable from the different temperaments and concerns of the three founders.

To put it simply, what is it like to have three people with different temperaments have a regular breakfast meeting together?

Duke has listened to Tom more than once? Did Hanks mention - David? Geffen's words are usually short and mild. Katzenberg, on the other hand, is a 'substance' gentleman, and he keeps meetings to 22 minutes or less. Spielberg, on the other hand, has the mind of a cartoonist, he can draw anything on paper and turn it into reality.

For example, when discussing something with someone, David? Geffen would say, 'We think you're great, if you can join us, it would be perfect, if you can't, we still think you're great'. And Katzenberg would say, 'You're great, here are 17 reasons why you should work with us.'" Spielberg would say, 'I love the part of your film five years ago where you had the platypus dancing around the table, and if you can do that, you can do anything.'" That's how they have meetings, and it's sure to be over in 22 minutes.

The three people's philosophies are hugely different, and if DreamWorks is developing smoothly, these are not problems, but when it comes to a crisis, the collision of different ideas brings contradictions, and as DreamWorks falls into the quagmire step by step, this contradiction from ideas and work will inevitably evolve into personal contradictions.

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

From the ending of DreamWorks, Duke also sees another future for him, and if after the initial success, he does not choose to continue working with Warner Bros., but instead develops independently with ambition, what will go to it? I'm afraid it's only going to be worse than DreamWorks.

Along with the defeat came either a Jedi counterattack or an even more disastrous defeat, and DreamWorks simply had no ability to fight back, and after announcing bankruptcy and reorganization, the Big Three finally parted ways.

David? Geffen said goodbye to the DreamWorks system and the Hollywood film entertainment industry, and devoted himself to his philanthropy with a net worth of hundreds of millions.

Jerry Liver? Katzenberg took the reins of DreamWorks Animation Studios, led the only money-making department in the entire DreamWorks system, and continued to work with his nemesis, Michael? Eisner competes with his old rival Disney Animation.

Steven? Spielberg has become the new owner of the spin-off DreamWorks live-action studio, but the director, who has never attended DreamWorks' financial meetings, is not a qualified operator, and is currently looking for a suitable distribution partner.

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

Although he is a little embarrassed about the fate of DreamWorks and the Big Three, Duke will not have too much sympathy, after all, DreamWorks collapsed earlier than before, and his appearance is one of the important reasons, and the people who have personally hit DreamWorks have no qualifications and need for sympathy.

Of course, Duke won't regret it, and if there is one chance to do it all over again, he still won't be on the side of DreamWorks.

After following the fate of DreamWorks, Duke continued his preparations, and after several extensive auditions, the crew had already circled the selection of the heroine within a relatively small range. (To be continued.) )

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