Chapter 480: One Billion Worldwide

It had been seven years since Duke first sat down with Charles Roven in Los Angeles to formally begin preparing for The Lord of the Rings Trilogy. With its mountainous scale, an incredibly convoluted pre-production phase, and an unprecedented budget, Duke faced far more than just enormous pressure.

Only those closest to him knew how many nights he spent tossing and turning, and absolutely no one knew about the nightmares that jolted him awake—terrifying visions of the fallout he would face if the project failed.

There was no such thing as easy, guaranteed success in this world. Duke knew perfectly well that while his unique experiences had played a crucial role in getting him this far, his decades of relentless perseverance and careful, daily effort were just as important.

If he hadn't worked hard, pushed through setbacks, constantly learned, and kept his skills sharp, he never could have transformed the fragmented visual memories in his head into one finished film after another.

He only had an ordinary brain with no photographic memory to speak of, but even if he could recall every single detail of a film from start to finish, what difference would it make?

Anyone with half a brain understood that watching a film and making one were two completely different things.

Every single production—especially blockbusters with budgets casually soaring past fifty or a hundred million dollars—forced him to march forward under a crushing weight.

He possessed a resilient character. As anxiety-inducing and sleep-depriving as that mountainous pressure was, it had never once crushed him.

He fought hard. In this world, hard work didn't guarantee success, but a lack of it guaranteed failure.

His goals were crystal clear. For over a decade now, he had known exactly what he was best at and had never stopped chasing it. Neither women nor any other temptation could make him slow his pace.

After twelve years in Hollywood and a long, exhausting grind, Duke finally reached the most glorious moment of his directing career.

Return of the King swept through North America and the global market with unmatched, overwhelming momentum!

Heading into the third weekend of May, Return of the King clashed with a new release from Twentieth Century Fox in North America. On Friday, May 16, Phone Booth officially opened in over 2,400 theaters. The film's fate had been fraught with disasters. First, several studios had rejected both the director and the script. Joel Schumacher, the director who had nearly killed off the Batman franchise, finally scraped together enough funding to shoot it as an independent film. Then, just as it was finished, a string of sniper shootings hit America, prompting the distributor, Twentieth Century Fox, to repeatedly delay the film.

It had finally secured a suitable release window the previous year, only to crash head-on into the newly announced release date for Warner's Return of the King shortly after.

However, Twentieth Century Fox refused to change the date. For one, the film had already been delayed far too long, and for another, such a small-budget release wasn't worth too much of their energy.

Yet upon its release, Joel Schumacher—the director who had nearly killed off the franchise with Batman Forever and Batman and Robin—and his film received unanimous professional praise.

Perhaps in the critics' minds, a commercial director realizing the error of his ways and entering the independent film circle under their endless, scathing attacks and guidance was something inherently worth praising. As for the film's quality, that was secondary.

"The film carries a strong theatrical flavor. The director largely abandoned the rich spatial depth brought by the multi-scene transitions that cinema excels at. Yet, the limitations brought by the camera's framing possess their own profound meaning, allowing the film to strike straight at the heart!"

Roger Ebert gave the film a nine out of ten in his column.

Another prominent film critic, David Denby, was also full of praise for the movie, giving it a high score of 8.5.

"Overall, the script itself can only be called upper-tier second-rate, but the control the director and cast maintain over the pacing elevates the film into an absolutely first-rate piece of work."

On Rotten Tomatoes, a website that specifically compiles professional reviews as a metric, the film boasted an eighty-seven percent freshness rating, while Return of the King sat at only seventy-four percent, a number that was still steadily dropping.

If one looked only at this single metric, Phone Booth was absolutely a film with higher theater counts and screen share than Return of the King.

However, while Phone Booth had over 2,400 screening theaters, all the North American chain theater companies granted it less than a ten percent screen share, and they refused to add any extra screens for the film because they had to guarantee Return of the King its nearly eighty percent screen share!

Theater companies never used critic scores or Rotten Tomatoes freshness ratings as a basis for scheduling. In the metrics that did serve as their basis, Phone Booth was merely performing adequately.

Its CinemaScore audience approval rating was only seventy-one percent, its theater audience grade was a "B+", its popcorn crowd enjoyment rating was sixty-four percent, and its MetaCritic score averaged 67 points from 48 entertainment journalists!

In contrast, as the film completely suppressing it, Return of the King held an absolute advantage in these metrics even half a month into its run: a ninety-two percent CinemaScore audience approval rating, an "A+" audience grade, a ninety-four percent popcorn crowd enjoyment rating, and a MetaCritic score averaging 88 points from 82 entertainment journalists!

The subsequent weekend box office results also proved the correctness of the theater chains' choice. Over its three-day opening weekend, Phone Booth pulled in 3.21 million dollars across 2,433 theaters.

In its third weekend of release, Return of the King maintained a theater count of 4,013 in North America, raking in 39.89 million dollars over the three days!

Combined with the 34.21 million dollars earned over the preceding three weekdays, Return of the King's cumulative North American box office had already reached 378.10 million dollars!

The market had once again proven with facts that film critics could go take a hike during the Summer Season.

Overseas, Return of the King raked in another 101.26 million dollars over the past week, pushing the film's global box office past the 1 billion dollar mark to reach 1.02171 billion dollars!

In less than twenty days, The Lord of the Rings 3: The Return of the King had completed the feat of crossing one billion dollars at the global box office!

However, no matter how hot a film was, there would eventually come a time for its popularity to decline. As the new week began, the weekday box office for Return of the King slid to 6.5 million dollars, presenting a trend of slight, continuous drops.

But neither Duke nor Warner felt any dissatisfaction or surprise; this was the normal law of the market.

Of course, continuing to promote the film was still a necessary task. Following a video conference between Duke and Warner Brothers, the promotional budget for Return of the King was increased from 50 million dollars to 80 million dollars, and if necessary, they would continue to increase the investment.

Without enough investment, there would be no greater output. Let alone a massive blockbuster like The Lord of the Rings, which of the successful low-budget hits in Hollywood in recent years didn't have astronomical marketing and promotional budgets backing them?

Right around the time Duke wrapped up a tour in Australia and flew out to Europe with the crew, he received a piece of news forwarded from the Warner UK Branch.

"Because of the massive success of The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, and the contributions you've made to promoting British culture."

Aboard the freshly refueled business jet that had just taken off, Tina Fey said to Duke, "The British Royal Family is currently considering awarding you a knighthood."

"An honorary knighthood?" Duke asked.

"Yes," Tina Fey reminded him. "You aren't British, so they certainly won't give you a higher title."

"Hmm."

Duke nodded. An honorary knighthood was essentially the title of "Sir." He remembered that Ian McKellen had received such a title. Truth be told, while honorary knighthoods weren't exactly overflowing in the sports and entertainment circles, they weren't anything rare either.

If the British Royal Family was willing to give it, Duke would certainly accept it; if they weren't, then he didn't care either.

With his current status and position, it didn't matter if he had one more or one less of these practically dime-a-dozen titles.

"Tina, when we get off the plane, remember to notify Robin." Duke pulled over a blanket, preparing to sleep for a while. Right before dozing off, he instructed, "I'll carve out some time to visit the Harry Potter crew."

This series had paused for a period of time. Now that the young actors had made it through their voice changes, the money-making journey was starting up again. Robin Grande, Joanne Rowling, and the Harry Potter Studio had locked in their new director earlier in the year. Without any surprise, they had once again chosen the Mexican director, Alfonso Cuaron.

Of course, this Mexican director was merely a transitional candidate. Now that Joanne Rowling's say in the crew was constantly growing, Duke and Warner Brothers had also promised her that they would eventually use a British director to finish out the series.

As for who specifically would be chosen, just like with Alfonso Cuaron, Duke didn't intend to directly intervene. After the series succeeded, in truth, as long as the later films didn't produce any disastrous issues, the possibility of failure was incredibly small.

Joanne Rowling had also probed to see if he would take over, but Duke had rejected the idea without hesitation. Nowadays, for a director, this series shared many similarities with 007; very few truly established directors were willing to take it over.

Besides, Duke's next plan was already set, and finishing its execution would take several years anyway.

The Batman trilogy certainly wouldn't be produced using the same method as The Lord of the Rings Trilogy. Duke planned to split the filming into three separate shoots. Moreover, on Warner Brothers' side, in order to avoid risk, they couldn't possibly agree to invest so much money into a single, continuous shoot.

Shooting one film, observing the market's reaction first, and then deciding whether to continue forward was the most sensible choice for the film company.

Upon arriving in London, Duke reunited with the crew who had come over early and began busying himself with press runs again. As the director, he didn't mind using himself as a promotional gimmick at all; from the moment the film's promotional period began, he had been working hard to capture headlines across all kinds of media.

After participating in two events in London and accepting an exclusive interview with the BBC, Duke also received an invitation from some London socialites and attended a celebrity party.

At this party, Duke met a Russian man. Inspired by him, Duke thought of a good method for further hype: a promotional stunt tied to football.