Erin? Lauder flew to Tokyo early the next morning, Duke not only went to the airport in person, but also had his business jet take her over, and when he returned to the hotel, it was close to noon, and after a simple lunch, he politely declined several invitations to activities, and he finally had an afternoon of free time.

Duke doesn't plan to see the films screened at the film festival, and he has no plans to go shopping in Shanghai, he has been to this city countless times, and he will definitely not have a sense of novelty and curiosity, perhaps because he is indeed older, he is less and less interested in non-essential social interactions, and he also prefers a quiet environment.

Standing taller, he can naturally see far away, coupled with his own character, his mentality is more stable than before.

Maybe it's because he has been carrying pressure all year round, getting used to living under heavy pressure, sitting leisurely in the living room of the suite for a while, watching TV, Duke was bored and distracted, he seemed to have returned to the past, the experience of struggling at the bottom of the crew, until Tina? Fei walked out of the study, and the sound of the wooden door brought his thoughts back to reality.

Although he returned to his former homeland, Duke did not intend to look for anything, he had nothing to worry about, the past has become the past, his eyes are always looking ahead, and he will never stop moving forward.

He will overcome all obstacles, seize the rare opportunity in this life, and continue to move forward.

No one or any reason could stop him.

"The Duke's studio just passed it on."

Tina? Fei walked over, sat next to him, and handed over a fax document, "There are a few items that need your signature before they can be officially implemented. ”

Flipping through the file, Duke quickly skimmed through it, and the first one was the North American statistics of "Hurricane Rescue".

If you look at the data alone. This film is more than an order of magnitude worse than a super production like the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but compared to the investment in the film itself, it can still be satisfied.

In the first weekend of North America, "Hurricane Rescue" won $51.25 million in 3,624 theaters. CinemaScore's audience praise rate is as high as 88%, the average audience score is 'A+', the IMDB website has a score of 86 points from 18,775 users, the audience popularity popcorn index is 89%, and the MetaCritic 45 media reporters have scored 84 points.

In general, although the film's market reputation is far less than that of the Lord of the Rings trilogy and "The Matrix", it is also a high-scoring work in action movies.

In addition to North America and China, "Hurricane Rescue" was released simultaneously in the United Kingdom and France, earning $16.56 million and $14.11 million in its opening weekend, respectively. The overall performance exceeded Duke and Warner Bros. expectations.

Importantly, yesterday's weekday, the North American box office of "Hurricane Rescue" did not plummet, and the box office of $10.85 million in a single day was enough to keep the film on a steady trajectory.

After reading this report, Duke is basically relieved that "Hurricane Rescue" is basically assured, even if there is a plunge in the back, the film can be profitable at the box office.

And then. Duke turned his attention to the following, two new films from Duke Studios and Warner Bros. It's also time for the upcoming project - Zach? Schneider's "Three Hundred Warriors of Sparta" and Wallace? Lee's Tales of the Night.

After the Oscars, Zach? Schneider ended a six-month sabbatical and began to prepare for a new film, becoming the leader of the 300 Red Pants Army, and "Reloaded" and "Matrix Revolution" ended up with $715.6 million and $733.56 million respectively, and he has proven his ability. It was also fully approved by Duke and Warner Bros., and his project proposal was quickly approved.

What's more, the actual cost of this film is not particularly high.

Zack? Schneider's project was officially launched, and it was already in the plans of Duke and Warner, and Wallace? Li Neng got the opportunity to direct alone. In addition to the fact that he is the recommender of "Tales of the Night", it is also related to his own efforts.

In the past few years, Duke's college classmate has made an excellent impression on him, showing some ability in the post-production of "The Return of the King" and in the planning and filming of "Hurricane Rescue", although there are shortcomings - such as gossip with several actresses when he was the audition director is circulating in the crew - but in Hollywood, these are minor problems that can be ignored.

"Tales of the Night" has been confirmed to be ready for the project, and only the final formalities are needed.

These two projects originally came from his support, and of course Duke would not call for a halt and leave it to Tina? The Philippines followed up in a timely manner and maintained communication with Warner Bros.

Finally, there are three main aspects of Warner Bros.'s business, one is the negotiation between Warner Bros. and Pixar Studios, one is the distribution cooperation between Warner Bros. and Marvel Studios, and the other is Warner Bros. once again applying for a wholly-owned acquisition of Duke Studios.

With the release of "The Incredibles" in North America, Pixar Studios has fulfilled its animated feature film contract with Walt Disney. Eisner has never stepped down, and the negotiations between Pixar and Disney have been at an impasse.

Take Steve? In recent years, the contact with Duke and Warner Bros. has never been broken, and now the ownership of Pixar Studio has reached the final stage, and it will not take more than two years at most, and Jobs will inevitably look for a new distributor.

Distribution seems simple, but in fact it requires years of accumulation and the support of a huge platform. Why did the Weinstein brothers, New Line Pictures, Pixar Studios, and later DreamWorks Animation Studios all rush to join the big companies or sign contracts with big companies that didn't seem fair at all?

The distribution channel can be said to be extremely important.

It's not a problem that can be solved by a single person, even Steve? When Jobs used to focus on Pixar Studios, he was as strong as he was and at a loss for distribution channels.

Warner Bros. is at a disadvantage in terms of children's promotion compared to Walt Disney, but it has an advantage in distribution and marketing channels around the world.

Regardless of Michael? No matter how talented Eisner is, he can't change the fact that Disney didn't transform into a media group until the mid-to-late 90s, and the current Walt Disney is not the world's No. 1 media company in the future, and there is still a certain gap compared with Time Warner Group.

But Pixar's work is not the ugly duckling of the past, has transformed into a white swan in Hollywood, and Steve has an absolute controlling stake? Jobs, without a doubt, took the initiative.

For the Duke and Warner consortium, a long and arduous negotiation has just begun, and it will not be easy to stand out from several equally strong competitors.

Relatively speaking, the distribution negotiations between Marvel Studios and Warner Bros. are much smoother, with Duke being the matchmaker, and there is a precedent for "Spider-Man" and "X-Men" to be big hits, even competitors, in the face of sufficient interests, will still put aside their prejudices and cooperate.

What's more, the cooperation between DC and Marvel has happened more than once.

The negotiations between the two sides have entered the final stage, and only a formal contract needs to be signed, and both Marvel and Warner have the same requirements, Duke directs the opening work of the Marvel plan - "Iron Man"!

Superhero movies will not go out of style for more than a decade or more, and if the series is more successful than it once was, he, the dual majority shareholder of Marvel and Warner, is undoubtedly one of the people who will benefit the most.

Although wealth is now just a game of numbers stacking for Duke, like all the rich people in this world, once they join this game, no one will have the idea of stopping until they get completely tired of it.

Thinking for a few minutes, Duke vs. Tina? Fei said, "I agree in principle to direct 'Iron Man', you inform Nancy, and the specific details will be discussed by her." ”

The last item is the ownership of the Duke Studio, even today, the Duke Studio is still a shell company, the scale is relatively limited, Duke has not made a big mind, the specific management has been by Tina? The team led by Fei is in charge.

If you look at the number and size of the company's employees alone, Duke's studio is not even comparable to Tom? Cruise, Drew? Barrymore and Brad? Pitt's film studio, but unlike the other two, Duke's studio holds all or part of the rights to a considerable number of blockbuster films.

Not to mention anything else, the rights to The Matrix, The Lord of the Rings Trilogy and the Harry Potter series alone are enough to make the whole of Hollywood drool.

As early as a few years ago, Warner Bros. proposed to buy Duke's studio as a wholly owned company, but at that time, the Lord of the Rings had not yet been filmed, Harry Potter was not yet popular, and Duke would certainly not be stupid enough to sell the company, even if Warner Bros. proposed to complete the deal by way of share exchange, he still chose to refuse.

Now the situation is completely different.

Duke is very sober-minded, knowing that Duke Studio can't get bigger, and other big Hollywood companies won't sit back and watch Duke Studio get bigger, and if they want to develop into the situation of today's Big Six, can they really do it just by shooting big-selling movies?

He wasn't so stupid and naïve.

"Tina, back in North America, you negotiate with Warner Bros. on my behalf." Duke thought for a moment and admonished, "Remember, we're not short of cash. ”

Tina? Fei nodded, "I know what to do." ”

After processing the few papers, Duke left the room, went to the Bund for a walk, and returned to the hotel in the evening, found out the speech and revised it, this was his first time to give a lecture at the university, and his attitude was quite serious.

After this speech, all of Duke's trips in China will officially come to an end, and the next time I come here, I'm afraid it will be a long time coming, even when the film market here completely explodes. (To be continued......)