Not only skin color, gender and age are also stubborn barriers in Hollywood, some people once described that the Oscar belongs to a group of older white straight men aesthetics, and the flatness of aesthetics and values permeates the awards and permeates the entire industry. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

Regardless of the final outcome of the Oscars, the landscape of Hollywood will not fundamentally change anytime soon.

Focusing a little bit on that, Duke returned more to the preparation of Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

IMAX modified two IMAX cameras specifically at Duke's request, and after the two cameras were sent to the crew, one was named "Death Star" by Duke and the other was named "Millennium Falcon".

Of course, these are all for the needs of publicity, even if it is a super influential movie like the Star Wars series, the publicity and promotion work must not be relaxed.

In April, Warner Bros., LucasFilms, and UNICEF jointly organized a charity event called "The Force for Change", raising more than $40 million and causing a huge sensation in North America and around the world.

And that's not all, Warner Bros., as the distributor, deliberately announced that "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" will be released in Italy three weeks later than the global release, and then secretly prompted Duke's fans in Italy to organize a protest, not only did they hold a sit-in opposite Warner Bros. Italy, but also organized a petition of more than 50,000 signatures to Lucasfilm, demanding that "Star Wars: The Force Awaken" be released simultaneously in Italy and North America.

Subsequently, Lucasfilm and Warner Bros. held a press conference to announce the adjustment of the release date of "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" in Italy, and the release date of the film was moved to December 16, 2014, becoming the first country in the world to open a film.

The news cheered Italian fans and attracted a lot of attention.

At the same time, Wall Street agencies and Warner Bros. have also made certain estimates of the profitability that "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" can drive, and the results are quite gratifying.

Think about it from another angle. It's how much money the series can make for Lucasfilm or Duke, as well as Warner Bros. and other partners, driven by Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

Duke once said that getting the Star Wars franchise was one of the best moments of his life. This is not an exaggeration.

A few years ago, the founder of Lucasfilm, George? Lucas revealed to Duke that he was retiring and planned to sell the company, along with the Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark franchises.

Prior to this, Lucasfilm had a long-term relationship with Duke because of ILM. The two parties hit it off, and Duke then bought Lucasfilm, the owner of "Star Wars," for more than $4 billion in cash, as well as the company's live-action film productions — including "Star Wars," "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and others — consumer goods, video games, animation, visual effects and sound post-production.

But even with Star Wars in the dowry, it didn't seem like a small amount of money at the time, at least literally, a lot of money.

In fact, in the latest projection, the movie "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" can generate more than $9 billion in revenue for Duke's Lucasfilm and its partners, including box office, TV and Internet rights, merchandise, and toy sales......

In the forecasts of Wall Street. As long as Duke can ensure that "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" is of the same quality as the other films he has made, Lucasfilm will make an extremely terrifying revenue, and even in less than three years, Duke will be able to recoup more than four billion dollars invested in Lucasfilm, and it may also generate profits.

To be precise, the super "IP" of Duke, coupled with a super "IP" like Star Wars, will create unprecedented commercial value.

Previously, Twentieth Century Fox was the original distributor of the first six Star Wars films, and still retains the distribution rights to the first two Star Wars trilogy, the permanent distribution rights of the 1977 Star Wars films, and the theatrical and home video distribution rights of Star Wars 1-3, 5, and 6 until May 2020.

Lucasfilm, on the other hand, owns the TV and digital distribution rights for Star Wars and all film distributions except for the first one.

Start with this Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The subsequent productions were co-branded by Warner Bros. and Lucasfilm, somewhat similar to the co-branding of Warner Bros. and Pixar Studios, and the new "Star Wars" series was never related to Twentieth Century Fox again.

This means that all the rights proceeds of the new Star Wars franchise will go to Lucasfilm and distributor Warner Bros., with Duke being the biggest beneficiary.

Although "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" has not yet started filming. But after Duke acquired Lucasfilm, it has been doing the warm-up of new films, and the pulling effect of "Star Wars 7" is quite obvious, according to Lucasfilm's statistics, in the past 2012 and 2013, the merchandise around the IP of "Star Wars" has brought about $2.2 billion and more than $2.4 billion in revenue to Lucasfilm respectively. It is one of the most profitable series in the sale of Hollywood movie merchandise.

Wall Street analysts predict that Star Wars: The Force Awakens will generate between $3 billion and $5 billion in merchandise sales in the first year after its release, and between $11 billion and $20 billion five years later.

In addition to selling merchandise, toys from the Star Wars series are also an important part of Lucasfilm's income.

In mid-April, Lucasfilm held the first Star Wars toy sale event AY, launching 100 new Star Wars toys, which directly became a phenomenal event in the cultural world.

From AY to the end of the year, industry insiders estimate that retail toy sales for the Star Wars series will reach $2 billion.

At the beginning of the year, Lucas Films announced the end of the license of the Star Wars comics of Dark Horse Comics, and the comic book license will go to Marvel Comics, another holding company of Duke.

In late April, the comic book Marvel re-released the "Star Wars" comic book, and in just one week, it sold nearly 1 million single copies, which is 25 times the sales of the last "Star Wars" comic book of the Dark Horse Comics seven months ago.

"Star Wars: The Force Awakens" has not yet started filming, and Duke and Lucasfilm have made enough profits.

The preparations are gradually coming to an end, although the crew has taken extremely strict confidentiality measures, even except for the core personnel. Most of the crew members have never seen the full version of the script, but Duke has never relaxed on the promotion of the film.

"Los Angeles Times" News, the famous director Duke, who directed "Star Wars: The Force Awakens"? Rosenberg recently received a special invitation. At a state dinner at the White House on Tuesday night, the invitations were given by President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama. Obama. ”

The state dinner had two purposes, one was to welcome visiting French President François Hollande, and the other was to entertain Democratic sponsors from all over the United States for the upcoming midterm elections, and the total number of guests invited reached 350. Due to the large number of invitees, the dinner will be held on the White House South Lawn, not in the usual White House Ballroom......"

It was one of the many things that was hyped about Duke and Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and Duke was subsequently present at the party, making it one of the focus of attention in many current affairs media.

Perhaps many people find it difficult to understand why Americans are so obsessed with a science fiction film, and the whole country from presidents to otaku are crazy about it.

In a way, Star Wars is a national myth created by the Americans themselves.

The United States is a country of young immigrants who have only been founded for more than 200 years, and like Britain, it lacks its own systematic mythology, and Britain has Tolkien, who can create "The Lord of the Rings" based on Norse mythology; And what about the United States. Unfortunately, no one was able to make up for this lack until the 1977 Star Wars release.

Anyone who has seen the Star Wars movie will remember the yellow subtitle at the beginning of the film - "Once upon a time, in a galaxy far away...... What is it? This is the beginning of the most classic storytelling! George? From the very beginning, Lucas talked about Star Wars as a mythological story.

Let's look at the story structure of "Star Wars": an ordinary person fantasizes about escaping from ordinary and ordinary life and going on adventures in the outside world; A mysterious figure appears, tells him about his extraordinary background, and takes him into a whole new world; The protagonist realizes that he is the prophesied savior, and after a series of tribulations, he grows into a truly wise, brave, and responsible hero; In the end, he saved the world and fulfilled his prophecy.

Does that sound familiar, in fact, Harry? Harry from Potter? Potter, Neo in The Matrix, and Frodo in The Lord of the Rings are all like that.

Many classic myths also have this story structure.

I remember someone once studied that the various stories of human beings can be summarized into several specific story templates. There is some truth to this.

The Star Wars routine of "the weak side overcoming seemingly insurmountable obstacles and finally defeating the strong enemy" can be traced all the way back to the story of David defeating the giant Goliath in the Bible.

In addition, the stories of national myths must be easy to understand and must be accessible to the general public. Star Wars did the same.

In the Galactic Republic, there are clear boundaries between black and white, heroes and villains, and the most complex character, the black warrior Darth Vader, can also be understood by "being a good guy in the early stage and becoming bad when he falls in the later stage", and the audience can sort out the plot without thinking about it.

Among them, there are many basic human feelings such as love, family affection, fear, betrayal, sadness, defeat, victory, etc., which are expressed in the simplest and most direct way. Not only can it satisfy adults, but it is also easy for children to understand.

But it's not enough to have a classic story structure and be easy to understand, it's not enough to make Star Wars a national myth in the United States, it must also have something unique in its own.

In this regard, Lucas is very clever to join the philosophy and culture of the East.

Therefore, the "Star Wars" series also has a market in the East, depending on how to use it, Duke not only looks at the traditional Japanese and South Korean markets, but also does not want to let go of the Chinese market, which lacks the foundation of a deep Star Wars culture. (To be continued.) )

PS: Ask for monthly passes and recommended tickets!