Chapter 284: The World Is Fake?

"I am the king of the world!"

When James Cameron held the Best Director Golden Statuette aloft and shouted those words, it ignited the entire media landscape. Some critics called him arrogant, while others thought him presumptuous, but no one believed he lacked the qualifications.

Fourteen Oscar nominations and eleven Golden Statuettes were more than enough to prove the greatness of both James Cameron and Titanic.

Moreover, there was something even greater: the steadily climbing box office numbers!

The 70th Oscar Awards Ceremony was undeniably James Cameron's moment of apotheosis. The former truck driver and self-taught director now stood at the pinnacle of Hollywood. No matter how much the public mocked Cameron himself, they rarely aimed their vitriol at Titanic. Even those within Hollywood who despised the on-set tyrant didn't dare say anything against him openly anymore. To a certain extent, every production company in Hollywood owed a debt of gratitude to James Cameron and Titanic.

The massive ship had brought in far more than just box office revenue; it crashed through the gates of countless closed markets, pushing Hollywood's globalization strategy to its absolute peak. From then on, Hollywood films would completely dominate the mainstream world cinema market, leaving other nations with no choice but to find ways to protect their own film industries rather than competing head-on.

If Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park had sparked a revolution in the global film market, then James Cameron's Titanic had finished it.

Seeing James Cameron basking in infinite glory, it was impossible for Duke not to have his own thoughts on the matter. However, he kept a clear head. He knew that a considerable gap actually existed between them—after all, he had been cheating all along.

Even with his cheat, he still couldn't truly compete against James Cameron and Steven Spielberg. In terms of cumulative box office, Spielberg utterly crushed him. As for the box office of a single film, James Cameron's only rival was himself.

As for the media's hype claiming them as the "Three Great Directors of the Nineties," Duke had never taken it seriously. If he wanted to be mentioned in the same breath as the other two, the gap was still glaringly obvious.

However, that gap provided motivation. An era without competitors was truly terrifying; having powerful rivals was, in a way, its own kind of fortune.

Duke had never feared competition. Having such a lofty goal looming ahead served as a constant reminder not to grow complacent. Living a second life didn't guarantee that he was any stronger than the top-tier elites of this world.

This particular Oscar Awards Ceremony had once left a deep impression on Duke, but now it was merely a symbol. Aside from paying a little attention to James Cameron's "king of the world" declaration, as well as Keanu Reeves and Charlize Theron promoting The Matrix on the red carpet, Duke kept his main focus on his work. Just like the past few months, he stayed in Los Angeles on weekdays to oversee the post-production of The Matrix, while on weekends he flew to New Zealand to participate in the pre-production preparations for The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Such high-intensity work might have driven anyone else insane, but Duke was always brimming with fighting spirit. He held a fierce desire for his future career and never lacked the sheer effort and ambition required to succeed.

Meanwhile, the gradual arrival of the profit shares from Titanic greatly boosted Duke's spirits. How many people in this world could truly remain unaffected by fame and fortune? At the very least, he couldn't.

From last November to the current month of April, Titanic had been screening for nearly half a year. The North America box office had accumulated to 587.95 million dollars, while the global box office totaled a staggering 1.57524 billion dollars. It was an absolute triumph!

Moreover, the eleven Golden Statuettes provided a massive promotional boost to the film. Not only did the number of theaters screening the movie in North America surge once again, but many overseas markets that had already pulled it from theaters also launched a second run.

In early April, Twentieth Century Fox, which handled overseas distribution, along with Paramount Pictures and Duke Studio, conducted their first overseas box office revenue split. Duke Studio received 35 million dollars from the overseas cut, pushing the studio's total earnings from its investment in Titanic to nearly 110 million dollars!

Negotiations for the film's various overseas merchandise deals were also underway. The very first item Duke Studio was eligible to take a cut from was the massively popular soundtrack album.

So far, Titanic had secured sixteen weekly North America box office championships, while the soundtrack album had achieved eight consecutive weeks at the top of the Billboard sales charts. To date, it had sold 10.14 million copies in North America alone.

Overseas was an even vaster market. Although the soundtrack's sales in non-English speaking regions weren't quite as absurd as in North America, it had still sold over 16 million copies internationally.

Since the profits had to be split with various international distributors, it wasn't until mid-April that Duke Studio received its first share of the overseas soundtrack sales, a figure reaching a staggering 21.2 million dollars!

Although this was just the first round of profit-sharing with substantial payouts still to come, the revenue Duke Studio took home did seem a bit low compared to the terrifying total sales figures. However, navigating the overseas market was extremely complicated and required passing through multiple layers of distributors. This was the nature of business; no organization would put in the effort for free.

Not to mention the varying taxes imposed by different countries.

At the same time, this meant that the overseas income ending up in Duke Studio's hands was essentially pure profit.

Even though Duke's investment team and other organizations would take a ten-percent cut of that revenue, investing in Titanic was unequivocally a massively lucrative deal.

As long as the film continued to generate revenue in the future, he held a twenty-five percent stake in those profits.

Duke's successful investment in the big ship also triggered a chain reaction, the most direct impact falling upon the Harry Potter series.

"Perhaps Duke is a bit clueless when it comes to investing in other industries."

In the conference room, everyone at Warner Brothers knew that Jeff Robinov was referring to Apple.

"But his eye for film is still incredibly sharp," Jeff continued. "I believe we need to treat his proposed Harry Potter series with the utmost priority!"

Everyone at Warner Brothers nodded in agreement. The success of Titanic was enough to prove everything.

This was a circle built entirely on chasing after winners.

"How is the progress on The Matrix?" Jeff Robinov asked.

As the cooperative head of the project, Doug Walter replied, "Post-production is basically finished. I spoke with Duke on the phone this morning, and right now, only the opening and closing credits are left to be added."

"What about the rating?"

Doug Walter shook his head. "The cut has already been sent to the MPAA's review board."

Robert Solomon, Warner Brothers' representative at the MPAA, chimed in. "There is a force working against us. Securing a PG-13 rating for the film is going to be very difficult."

Jeff Robinov thought for a moment before asking, "What are Duke's thoughts on this?"

"He's mentally prepared for it," Doug Walter said. "A PG-13 rating is just something to fight for. If it ends up being R-rated anyway, we'll just proceed with the established marketing and distribution strategy."

Jeff Robinov ordered, "Hold the exclusive test screenings as soon as possible. Push the marketing efforts to the absolute maximum. Notify all our manufacturing partners that starting in late April, some of the early promotional products can hit the shelves."

"Also!" he added, "Doug, make sure you keep an eye on our competitors' movements. I agree with Duke's suggestion. Eno Martin from CAA has been constantly extending olive branches to us, and Martin Bob stepping down aligns much better with Warner's interests. The project he's providing packaging services for is backed by DreamWorks anyway. Deep Impact is the primary target we need to gun for."

Warner Brothers wasn't the only one; several other studios were making their own moves as well.

Finally, Jeff Robinov gave one last warning: "Don't ease up on Sony Entertainment, either!"

On the final day of early April, once Duke finished adding the closing credits and the theme song, post-production for The Matrix was officially complete. Whether this film—on which he had performed considerable surgical alterations—would prove even more successful or be met with a cold shoulder from audiences could only be determined by the market.

Marketing and hype, of course, were essential tools for driving that success.

By mid-April, the second trailer for The Matrix hit major television networks. Just like the first one, it largely ignored the film's slightly esoteric plot points, focusing entirely on the action, the collisions, and the elements of "cool" and "cyberpunk culture" that young people had praised so highly during the early promotions.

Posters, newspapers, magazines, transit and outdoor billboards, television and radio commercials—Warner Brothers spared none of the conventional marketing channels, allocating a massive 30-million-dollar promotional budget to the film.

Beyond traditional media, news and reviews for The Matrix were easy to spot across prominent websites like Yahoo. Over on Duke's personal viral marketing website, traffic exploded after he personally replied to a few comments and posted some everyday photos. Although a director's draw couldn't be compared to that of an A-list superstar, he still managed to drive the site's daily traffic to over 50,000 unique visits.

Every single one of those visitors was a potential ticket buyer for The Matrix.

By late April, as the summer season drew ever closer, two rounds of test screenings for audiences, theater representatives, and the media had been successfully held for The Matrix. Based on the feedback Warner Brothers collected—primarily from the under-thirty demographic—the film boasted an astonishing ninety-seven percent approval rating!

As the marketing blitz raged on, The Matrix was scheduled for a third, strictly audience-only test screening, which would be the final test screening before its official release.

For promotional purposes, Warner Brothers set up physical registration booths in Los Angeles while also opening online registration portals on Yahoo and Duke's personal website. Thanks to the two previous test screenings, positive word of mouth had already begun to spread. Within the youth demographic in particular, news of the film was spreading like wildfire across the internet!

On the night before registration even opened, crowds began to gather near the designated locations in Los Angeles. By nightfall, nearly two thousand people had already clustered around the registration point at Warner Studios in Burbank. These hopefuls were willing to pull an agonizing all-nighter just to secure a chance to attend the test screening and be among the first to witness the explosive, wildly cool film that had so thoroughly captured their curiosity.

At the same time, the online registration was just as chaotic. Massive platforms like Yahoo managed to handle the strain, but Duke's personal website was completely unprepared for the onslaught—crashing under the sheer volume of traffic!