Entering November, the North American film market finally got rid of "Joker", the film that shocked everyone, and finally the global box office was 1.16 billion, compared with Lee Shengyao's previous life, the biggest difference is that the film has a better box office in Asia and Europe.

Lee Shengyao's influence has undoubtedly given the film a great boost.

In the 2015 film market, it surpassed "The Martian", "The Hunger Games 3: Under the Mockingjay", "007: Spectre" and other super blockbusters.

Ranked fifth of the year, behind Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Avengers 2: Age of Ultron, Fast & Furious 7, Jurassic World.

Among the top 10 grossing films of the year, "Joker" has the lowest cost.

The total box office of "Minions" is 1.15 billion, but its cost is 74 million, which is 4 million dollars more than "Joker".

Such an achievement has raised eyebrows from Warner Pictures, which has been dormant for several years, and lately, Los Angeles newspapers have been touting "Joker."

Discussing the film became the biggest topic of conversation in the Los Angeles area.

On this day, layers of clouds piled up in the sky.

The cold wind was whirring.

Pedestrians on the street hunched their necks and hid themselves under their coats.

At DreamWorks' headquarters building, several small cars slowly drive into the basement.

With the crisp sound of locking the car, several men in suits and leather shoes strode towards the elevator.

One of them had white hair, a large nose, and was very Jewish.

This person is none other than the most successful film director in Hollywood for half a century. Spielberg.

"Did you hear that Disney is approaching Lee, and they want to ask Lee to make the next movie."

"It's not just Disney, Sony Pictures, Paramount, and Universal Pictures are all in action, and everyone can see that this guy is indeed a box office wizard."

"Yes, when The Hangover was a huge success, I knew he could go further."

"We should get in touch with him as soon as possible, and DreamWorks can work with him as well."

Spielberg was joined by several DreamWorks executives.

Spielberg's face was much gloomy when he heard the conversation between these men.

But he didn't say much, still smiling, and strode forward.

As one of the three founders of DreamWorks, Spielberg used to own a large stake in DreamWorks, but as the company continued to raise funds, first Paramount vigorously acquired DreamWorks shares, and then Walt Disney and Twentieth Century Fox bought DreamWorks shares, and now everyone's shares have been much diluted.

Spielberg, the founder, became a minority shareholder in DreamWorks.

He couldn't say anything about it at DreamWorks anymore.

However, Spielberg's vast majority of films that are not too expensive are generally in collaboration with DreamWorks.

Those high-cost films are partnered with the Big Six Hollywood.

From September last year to April of this year, Spielberg made a film - Bridge of Spies.

The cost of this movie is not too high, and the famous actor Tom Hanske was invited to cooperate with DreamWorks.

The movie was made in April and should have been released a long time ago, but DreamWorks felt that the movie was of high quality and could make a high box office, so it carefully selected the schedule.

I kept picking and pushing back, and finally chose to release it in early November.

Now Spielberg is coming to DreamWorks to discuss the promotion of the movie.

DreamWorks has seen "Bridge of Spies" for a long time, Spielberg's strength is undoubted, everyone thinks the movie is very good, and there is hope to win the Oscar next year.

Arriving at the conference room, Spielberg and his party sat down separately, and soon after the company's senior management arrived, they began to discuss the scale of the release of "Bridge of Spies", as well as the publicity efforts, costs and so on.

After about an hour of discussion, the plan was finally decided.

Spielberg quietly breathed a sigh of relief.

He is known as the king of commercial films by the Hollywood media, in fact, the main achievements are in the last century, after the millennium, the films he directed have not been particularly outstanding at the box office.

is like "War of the Century" with Tom Cruise, which requires scenes and scenes, stars and stars, and special effects, and the global box office is only more than 300 million.

The movies he was a producer for exploded at the box office, just like the "Transformers" series and "Jurassic World".

However, after all, it is not as real as the movie he directed, and many Hollywood media think that his movies are outdated and not suitable for today's moviegoers.

For such comments, Spielberg is naturally unhappy, he wants to win the award and high box office, and wants to prove that even in this era of mobile Internet, he is still the king of movies.

"Bridge of Spies" is based on a true story and tells the story of the Cold War.

Spielberg takes it very seriously, from the beginning of the writing of the script for the film.

Now that the film is finished, it is indeed a high-quality movie, and he is full of confidence and looks forward to a good box office.

"At least 500 million."

"Bridge of Spies" is not a family-style movie, and there is no original book with great influence, so it is difficult to get a high box office.

Spielberg wants a half billion.

In terms of espionage, 500 million is already a ceiling-level movie.

"Can't be too far behind that guy."

That guy is Lee Shengyao.

Spielberg has previously publicly criticized Lee and belittled Lee for his films.

Although the conflict between the two sides was later resolved through an intermediary, Spielberg no longer criticized Lee Shengyao and praised Lee Shengyao's films for being good, while Lee Shengyao no longer prevented Spielberg's films directed or produced by Spielberg from entering the mainland market.

But deep down, Spielberg is still very unhappy with Li Shengyao.

He can be said to be the king of movies in Hollywood, with top grades, seniority, and qualifications.

He didn't feel that he had to pay a price for criticizing Mr. Lee.

But reality gave him a heavy slap in the face, with the growth of the Chinese film market, Hollywood pays more and more attention, and no film company dares to offend cinema giants like China Film and Fenghua.

Spielberg is a businessman, and he does not publicly criticize Lee Shengyao.

But he is still unhappy in his heart, and he has been paying attention to Li Shengyao's achievements.

There was all sorts of negative press during the production of Joker, and he found it very enjoyable at the time.

"Joker" participated in the Venice Film Festival, the screening effect was excellent, the word of mouth exploded, and it directly won the Golden Lion Award.

Hearing the news, Spielberg didn't eat for two days and drank a few bottles of wine.

"Joker" was released worldwide, and it was a hit in beautiful countries, European countries, as well as East Asia, Brazil and Argentina, and won a box office of 1.16 billion.

Spielberg felt like a knife in his heart, and he grew six more wrinkles that day.

The box office of "Bridge of Spies" is definitely not as good as "Joker".

Spielberg wants not to lose too ugly.

In addition, "Bridge of Spies" will definitely participate in next year's Oscars, and it will naturally compete with "Joker" at that time.

This time, after his active efforts, DreamWorks finally decided that "Bridge of Spies" would be opened in 4,000 theaters.

After discussing the matter of "Bridge of Spies", a high-level executive stood up, and then said: "There is one more thing, that is, about Lee, whether we should contact Lee, if DreamWorks can cooperate with Lee, it will definitely be able to go further." ”

Hollywood's Big Six don't have DreamWorks, and Hollywood's Big Eight don't have DreamWorks.

The media in Los Angeles generally ranked DreamWorks in tenth place, which means that DreamWorks is the tenth largest film and television production company in Hollywood.

The gap between DreamWorks and the Big Six is relatively large, and the resources are limited, so it is impossible to compete with the Big Six.

But that doesn't mean they're not aggressive.

The other high-level officials in the conference room heard the proposal and expressed their opinions, and almost none of them objected, all of them agreed.

Spielberg felt as sick as he ate a meal of flies.

He didn't want DreamWorks to get too close to Lee Shengyao, in that case, he would be very uncomfortable.

"Steven, what do you think?"

Someone pointed to Spielberg.

"Lee is a very good young director, and his films have a lot of commercial potential, and I think I can get in touch with him."

Although he was unhappy, Spielberg still went with the crowd in order to make himself more normal, saying good things about Lee Shengyao.

"Very good, let's vote by show of hands, and if it passes, we'll immediately form a group, make a plan, and invite Lee to work with DreamWorks."

The 100% approval rate by a show of hands quickly determined the relevant plans for DreamWorks to cooperate with Li Shengyao.

After the meeting was dismissed, Spielberg hurried back to his office and locked the door.

He lay on the sofa and looked gloomily at the ceiling, and after a long time, he relieved himself, removed the matter from his brain, and focused on the release of "Bridge of Spies".

November in North America is the same off-season for movies, November is almost no super blockbusters, mainly horror and comedy films, such as Paramount's "Friday the 13th" is a typical low-budget horror film, and Warner's "Midnight Dispatch", this movie is a low-budget comedy.

The only more competitive film is DreamWorks' Bridge of Spies.

After the movie was released, it immediately won the daily box office championship, with a box office of 13 million US dollars.

As DreamWorks executives believed, the film has an excellent reputation, with a freshness index of 90 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, an 8.8 rating on IMDB, and an 8.9 rating on Yahoo.

The word of mouth is very good, film critics continue to praise it, and the media also praises it.

However, in terms of the attractiveness of the movie, it is still a little insufficient, not Spielberg's ability, but his age and material selection.

"Bridge of Spies", a spy war film that reflects the Cold War, may be very popular in the eighties and nineties of the last century.

But the new generation of viewers is clearly not very interested.

Next, the box office of "Bridge of Spies" continued to decline, and it was in a state of applause.

Everyone who has seen it says it is good, but not many young people watch it.

Yahoo Entertainment's critics predict that the movie will grossing around 70 million at the North American box office.

With the passage of time, "Bridge of Spies" has been released for longer and longer, and the final North American box office is really about 70 million.

The overseas box office is about the same as the North American box office.

It seems that not only young audiences in beautiful countries, but also young audiences in Europe do not like Cold War movies very much.

The final global box office of this movie was around 150 million US dollars.

This box office certainly doesn't pay for itself.

"Spielberg has been abandoned by young audiences, he has to forget about the old subjects, he needs to prove himself again, he needs to communicate with young people."

"Maybe he should make some superhero movies."

"I'm confused, I have to say that Spielberg is really old, he no longer has the box office appeal of the past."

"The audience that likes Spielberg is old, and they don't have the energy to come out and support him."

"Compared to Lee, the gap between them is really too big."

"Bridge of Spies" has a good reputation, and the film is very complete, maybe it can win an Oscar."

This is what the media in Los Angeles said about Spielberg and "Bridge of Spies."

In his DreamWorks office, Spielberg locked the door again and lay on the couch, staring blankly at the ceiling.

Outside the glass window, the sky was overcast, and the cold wind was howling, as if it was about to snow.

Outside the office, people came and went, and the sound of leather shoes and high heels clicked.

The rich aroma of coffee wafts around.

Although "Bridge of Spies" is losing money, this movie will not affect the operation of DreamWorks, they are working on "Kung Fu Panda 4", and this movie will definitely make money.

In addition, DreamWorks executives are also working on plans to invite Lee Shengyao.

"We want to show the greatest sincerity and give Li the most relaxed creative environment."

This is the decision of the high-level meeting.

Spielberg thought of this, his heart was not happy, lying on the sofa, lying from nine to twelve in the morning, still did not eliminate the negative emotions in his heart.

In the afternoon, I lay down for another three hours before I was relieved.

He plans to stop thinking about the box office failure of "Bridge of Spies", and he will lobby hard within DreamWorks to get DreamWorks to agree to do public relations for "Bridge of Spies" and win the Oscars next year.

It is better to have a public relations fee of 10 million US dollars.

Next year's Oscars, "Bridge of Spies" beats "Joker", and he will beat Lee Shengyao in such a head-to-head competition.

(End of chapter)