Chapter 432: A Three-Way Confrontation

In recent years, every time one of Duke's movies premiered, paid online shills would drum up momentum on the internet. Compared to the aloof Rotten Tomatoes, which placed more emphasis on professional reviews, IMDB had a much broader audience. Its influence ranked among the highest of all movie websites, making it a prime target for the shills.

From The Matrix to The Fellowship of the Ring, IMDB had been invaded by Duke's paid online shills. In the early stages, they flooded the site with positive reviews and extremely high ratings. Even though the scores for both films eventually dropped to their current 9.2 and 9.1 after the shills withdrew and the actual audience grew, the tactic had undeniably played a role during their theatrical runs.

However, paid online shills were neither a deep secret nor a particularly brilliant strategy, and other companies had taken notice long ago. For instance, when The Fellowship of the Ring premiered last year, the so-called inside scoops smearing Billy Boyd and Ian McKellen online were obviously the work of rival studios' paid online shills.

Still, compared to the older, larger, and far more professional network of paid online shills under Duke's command, the opposition wasn't even in the same league.

But the internet was ultimately an open platform. Even though Duke held the advantage of foresight, others could use the exact same methods.

Inside a lounge at the villa, Duke stood behind Tina Fey. The assistant had already logged into IMDB and opened the page for The Two Towers.

"It was still at 9.6 this morning!" Ivanka sat next to Tina Fey, her brows knit tightly together. "It's already dropped to 9.4!"

A movie couldn't please every single viewer. Even among Duke's own fans, some simply disliked the fantasy genre. As the theatrical run progressed and more audiences saw the film, the rating was bound to slide.

But the rating for The Two Towers was plummeting far too fast!

It wasn't just the score; the page below was flooded with an explosion of negative reviews.

"There are too many pointless scenes, the whole story is pretty brain-dead, and the special effects—its only selling point—are just average."

"The plot claims to be a multi-thread narrative, but the director's storytelling ability is truly disastrous. He turned the whole movie into a forced hodgepodge functioning strictly on commercial movie mechanics. It's as clumsy as a beast that only knows how to charge forward, and in the end, it even drags an innocent Aragorn off the cliff with it."

"After watching it, I still couldn't figure out what was supposed to be so good about it."

Tina Fey glanced at Duke. Seeing him nod, she closed IMDB and opened his personal website, which also displayed a massive influx of negative comments.

"It's popular for absolutely no reason. A brain-dead story with a dragging plot. It bored me to death. How is the word-of-mouth this good?"

"Whenever the main characters show any emotion, there has to be a close-up of their eyes and twin streams of clear tears. Several story threads are just forcefully broken apart and patched together. Doesn't anyone else think the narrative is incredibly clunky? Also, there's really no need to release a third movie. It's just too boring."

"Faux-tragic with a forcefully dragged-out plot, sigh. The whole movie just looks so shallow..."

There was no need to read any further. Duke was entirely certain that this, too, was the handiwork of paid online shills.

It was obvious that paid online shills were targeting his film.

Duke thought for a few seconds before saying to Tina Fey, "Notify Nancy and Penny to head to The Lord of the Rings Studio, along with Jamie Jensen from Warner Brothers."

He leaned down and kissed Ivanka on the cheek. "Sorry, darling, I can't keep you company today."

"It's okay." Ivanka offered an understanding smile and pointed through the window at the small yacht moored at the pier. "Jane is coming over soon. I'm going out to sea with her, so go handle your business."

Duke nodded and walked over to the intercom to have his driver prep the car.

In less than three minutes, Duke and Tina Fey were in the car, driving out of Duke Manor and rushing toward The Lord of the Rings Studio in Burbank.

Tina Fey continuously made phone calls to stay on top of the latest internet trends, while Duke considered how to respond.

Frankly speaking, there was no perfect solution. Even in his previous era, when massive waves of negative internet comments appeared, the options were either hiring paid online shills to flame the detractors or finding professional companies to scrub the posts. Furthermore, the internet was a relatively open platform; it was utterly impossible for anyone to fully control it, meaning some remarks were bound to surface.

In truth, Duke knew very well that besides himself, Lionsgate Company had already used paid online shills on a massive scale during the promotion of The Blair Witch Project. To Hollywood and other business circles across North America, this tactic was neither mysterious nor brilliant. It was perfectly normal for someone else to use it against him.

Would anyone really think paid online shills were some mystical, genius secret? What a joke. This was North America, where the internet was already highly developed and had permeated every corner of work and life. Strictly speaking, the methods used by the shills shared many similarities with the sensationalist gossip and hype churned out by tabloids.

Duke had never been foolish enough to believe that paid online shills could serve as his trump card. That was simply unrealistic.

Whenever he used paid online shills to smear others, he had also considered what to do when the day came that someone flipped the script and used them against him.

Although there were no foolproof or highly effective methods, Duke had prepared a few countermeasures.

After arriving at The Lord of the Rings Studio and waiting for everyone to gather, Duke led Tina Fey, Penny Kalis, Jamie Jensen, and Nancy Josephson into a conference room, instructing everyone else not to disturb them.

"The situation is quite clear," Penny Kalis said as she flipped through the materials she had prepared. "Even though the IDs posting these negative comments come from all over the United States, this is definitely a premeditated, coordinated operation."

Jamie Jensen's brows had been tightly knit the whole time. He turned to Duke and asked, "You have the team that was the first to use this promotional method in all of Hollywood—and perhaps even across all of America. Don't you have a good solution?"

"Over the past few years, other companies have been learning from us," Nancy Josephson interjected. "For several movies released last year and in the first half of this year, you can see traces of rating manipulation on IMDB and a few other review sites."

Duke nodded. Never mind right now—even a decade into the future, rating manipulation on IMDB would still be utterly rampant.

Nancy Josephson's gaze landed on Duke. "What should we do?"

What exactly were paid online shills? Generally speaking, they were internet users who posted content for a fee. These paid spammers and commentators were mostly hired by PR firms or the competitors of a target company. They were highly active on popular social media sites, forums, and blogs, attempting to sway public opinion.

These paid content publishers would usually post remarks praising their employers' products and services while degrading their competitors. The majority of the "paid online shills" used multiple aliases, and some even employed automated tools to accelerate the spread of such biased statements.

In reality, a real-name registration system would greatly reduce the activity of paid online shills, but obviously, this was not something Duke—or even Warner—could implement.

After thinking for a moment, Duke said, "I'll go over a few points first, and everyone can fill in the gaps if I miss anything."

"First, we need to identify malicious paid online shills on the websites where we hold administrative privileges. The specific methods include analyzing posting frequencies, IP addresses, repetitive content, and accounts that look fake. On our own turf, we will automatically or manually delete these negative comments."

"Another approach is one I don't particularly like—if someone can pay to spread rumors, then there must be a way to pay to delete them. I wonder if such companies exist in North America?"

"The best method, actually, requires us to be strong enough ourselves. The weakness of paid online shills lies in the fact that they rarely have any real followers. Therefore, in the era of internet media, they can't launch highly targeted and effective attacks against truly powerful individuals or projects. Instead, they mostly incite the emotions of netizens, creating an atmosphere that paints the target as terrible and rotten."

"Because of that, our own paid online shills also need to mobilize at the right time to provide necessary guidance to internet public opinion. I'm sure you've all seen the latest statistical data. I believe our Two Towers is absolutely strong in its own right and will attract a massive number of supporters. Those supporters are another branch of our strength. Our people must find a way to guide the movie's fans to become spontaneous promoters on the internet, as well as an opposition to those malicious forces!"

To borrow a phrase from his previous world, it was about turning the supporters of The Two Towers into organic fans.

Duke was completely certain that there were plenty of people who loathed The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, but there were only far more who fanatically supported it!

Over at The Lord of the Rings Studio, Duke and the others were still discussing their next countermeasures.

Far away at the Artists Management Company headquarters on Wilshire Street, Beverly Hills, Martin Bob and Michael Ovitz were also keeping an eye on the latest internet developments.

"In just a single morning, The Two Towers has run into major trouble."

Lifting his head from behind his laptop, Martin Bob seemed to be in a rather good mood. "The IMDB rating has already slipped from 9.6 to 9.3, and it's still dropping. By tonight, it'll very likely fall below 9!"

"Don't get careless," Michael Ovitz said, still wearing a cautious expression. "Have our people keep a close eye on this movie!"

Over the past few years, he had come to see things clearly enough: reconciliation with Duke Rosenberg was completely impossible. The two sides had been tangled up for nearly a decade; without a massive enough mutual interest, their conflict simply couldn't be resolved.

That was why, after the Artists Management Company established its internet promotion department, they directly dragged The Two Towers out for target practice. So far, the results looked quite promising.

Over on the other side, Martin Bob was flipping through various websites again when he suddenly spoke up in confusion. "Negative comments have already launched a massive invasion into Duke's personal website and the official site for The Lord of the Rings Trilogy. I recall the internet promotion department didn't set those two websites as targets, right?"

Michael Ovitz smiled faintly. "You overlooked one point, Martin. Would the other Hollywood companies just stand by and watch The Two Towers sell like hotcakes? Don't forget that Duke Rosenberg and Warner Brothers successively slung mud at Disney's Pearl Harbor, Paramount's Tomb Raider, and Universal's Fast & Furious. Do you really think they're going to sit back and watch Duke Rosenberg and Warner Brothers continue to dominate the summer season?"