Chapter 530: The Key to Success or Failure

"The film we're collaborating on will finish post-production by March at the latest," Michael Ovitz told David Ellison as they walked out of their rented editing room at Disney Studios. "I've already seen a few of the edited sequences, and the quality is absolutely guaranteed."

"I believe that," David Ellison said with utmost confidence. "Otherwise, I wouldn't have starred in the movie myself."

This was an aviation war film brimming with romanticism. Before production even began, David Ellison had commissioned Vito's specialized firm to conduct market research. War films had been trending in Hollywood over the past few years, and judging by the performance of The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, fantasy war scenes filled with romanticism were incredibly marketable.

Indeed, his first film investment completely abandoned the realistic style of Saving Private Ryan. In the eyes of countless people, realistic commercial films were already synonymous with being outdated. Take the war scenes in The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, for instance—did anyone actually believe that in a real war, a charge by six thousand Rohan light cavalry against an army of a hundred thousand spear-wielding Orcs would result in victory rather than mass suicide?

Realism wasn't important. The key to a popular war film was unleashing romantic imagination upon a foundation of reality.

Following Michael Ovitz into an adjacent office, David Ellison's thoughts continued to race. His mind drifted to the movie Duke Rosenberg was currently producing. Shooting a superhero film in a realistic style was an absolute joke. The man had clearly let his past successes go to his head.

But that was fine. He could finally teach that guy—who had rejected him without a second thought—a profound lesson.

At that thought, he suddenly turned to Ovitz. "Michael, why did you and Disney veto my proposed release date?"

"David, calm down," Michael Ovitz explained patiently. "You suggested releasing on the first weekend of May, but that weekend isn't just the premiere of Duke Rosenberg's Batman Begins; Twentieth Century Fox hasn't pulled Kingdom of Heaven from that slot either. If we jump into the fray, that weekend will be far too crowded. Even if we poured in massive resources, we wouldn't be able to secure an ideal number of theaters or screen share."

"Even Disney can't do it?" David Ellison frowned deeply.

Michael Ovitz could only sigh. "Duke Rosenberg is still Duke Rosenberg."

David Ellison's frown deepened, but he said nothing more. As arrogant as he was, even he understood what the name Duke Rosenberg represented in the realm of commercial film.

It was true that the theater chains wouldn't just blindly pour unlimited resources into Batman Begins the way they had with The Lord of the Rings 3: The Return of the King. After all, the disastrous failure of the previous Batman films still felt like yesterday. No one could guarantee that a movie Duke Rosenberg claimed to be making with a realistic approach would definitively win over audiences. However, over the past few years, Duke Rosenberg had become a golden brand in Hollywood. His box office appeal as a director completely crushed every other filmmaker in the industry.

Under these circumstances, theater resources were bound to heavily favor his movie.

After thinking it over for a long while, David Ellison finally abandoned his original plan. "Then what date did we choose? Michael, you know exactly why I invested a hundred million dollars to produce this film."

He hadn't produced this aerial warfare blockbuster merely to step into the film industry. He wanted to reclaim the face he lost when Duke Rosenberg rejected him, and teach the man a lesson at the same time.

"The second weekend of May," Michael Ovitz said, clearly having planned this far in advance. "We can sit back and watch Kingdom of Heaven and Batman Begins battle it out during the first weekend, then adjust our strategy according to the situation. Our goal is to snipe the second-weekend box office of Batman Begins."

His confidence mirrored David Ellison's. "Trust me, David, a realistic superhero movie is going to have a hard time winning over the audience and the market. People might flood the theaters on opening weekend purely because of Duke Rosenberg's star power, but once they realize the film's tone is nothing like the wildly popular Spider-Man and X-Men, the second weekend of Batman Begins will inevitably take a hit."

"What if the realistic style is just a smokescreen he put out...?"

Hearing David Ellison's worried remark, Michael Ovitz raised a hand to cut him off. "I know Duke Rosenberg, and I've had people look into the crew's production situation. There's no need to worry about that."

David Ellison nodded. He had watched plenty of superhero movies, and he genuinely couldn't fathom what kind of mismatched mess a realistic Batman would turn out to be.

Batman did have a realistic comic book version by Frank Miller, but comics and movies were completely different mediums.

"Michael, are we just going to sit and watch Batman Begins run its promotional campaign for release?" David Ellison asked again.

"Of course not." Michael Ovitz gave a cold smile. "Competition is never limited to screens and theaters."

He looked at David Ellison. "Did you really want to confine the competition solely to the theaters?"

Michael Ovitz absolutely didn't believe that. He had already heard from the people around David Ellison that the young man was investigating Duke Rosenberg and several lead actors of Batman Begins.

David Ellison didn't try to hide it, saying with a hint of resignation in his tone, "I had people look into Duke Rosenberg, Christian Bale, and Liam Neeson. He personally only has some trivial gossip, and the news about a potential breakup with Ivanka Trump won't affect the movie. As for the two actors, they're the rare low-profile types in Hollywood..."

He couldn't help but shake his head.

"Then widen the scope!" Michael Ovitz said without hesitation. "Like the female lead and other major actors."

"Yeah, I'll arrange for people to handle it as soon as I get back." David Ellison nodded and added, "The PR department I set up has already established ties with numerous media outlets. As long as there's suitable material, they will definitely follow up on it. Problems that can be solved with money aren't problems to me!"

In truth, David Ellison was doing much more. For instance, his people were also reaching out to Duke Studio. As someone with a measure of talent, he wasn't blind to Duke's value. If the other party was willing to work with him, it would undoubtedly be a powerhouse alliance.

"He still hasn't given up?"

Over at Duke Studio, Duke had just finished working on a sequence of editing. Hearing what Tina Fey came over to say, he said directly, "Send a reply directly to David Ellison. I will not work with him."

The Ellison surname certainly represented a lot, but this was Hollywood, not the IT industry. Unless he had water in the brain, he wouldn't abandon a company like Warner Brothers to foolishly partner with David Ellison.

"I received some news," Tina Fey added. "Rumor has it that Michael Ovitz and Walt Disney intend to release David Ellison's new movie in early May as well, though it hasn't been finalized yet."

"Waiting for my answer?" Duke couldn't help but shake his head and laugh. "Just reject him even more firmly, then."

Tina Fey rolled her eyes helplessly and left the editing room.

Duke had asked Tina Fey to look into the film David Ellison was investing in. It was an aviation film starring James Franco. Although it was appearing a bit earlier than it originally had, he believed the film shouldn't have any massive improvements.

Since the eighties, aside from Tom Cruise's Top Gun, aviation films that managed to become massive hits were exceedingly rare.

Facing Kingdom of Heaven and Flyboys head-on actually made him feel quite relaxed.

Perhaps believing that even in his hands, the new Batman couldn't completely escape the shadow of the disastrous failures from the last century, Twentieth Century Fox still hadn't changed the release date for Kingdom of Heaven up to now.

To put it bluntly, many people in Hollywood actually didn't think highly of his choice. If his past track record hadn't been sitting right there, the media would probably have been awash with doomsaying by now.

The media and Hollywood insiders weren't fools either. With Duke continuously creating brilliant successes, they naturally wouldn't jump out foolishly. Even if they wanted to drag him down, waiting to launch their mockery when Batman Begins underperformed upon release wouldn't be too late.

His short break over, Duke returned to the editing room and threw himself back into post-production. He was still using his dedicated editor, Mike Dawson. After collaborating for so many years, as long as there were no unforeseen circumstances, they both planned to continue their partnership.

For the editing of Batman Begins, aside from the action and car chase sequences, Duke didn't intend to use the sharp editing style of splicing short shots together. He would use long takes extensively to match the film's realistic style and increase its sense of gravitas.

The long takes of Batman standing completely alone in the dark of night would especially highlight the situation and psychological state Bruce Wayne faced.

Overall, Duke was very satisfied with Christian Bale's performance. He had truly met the script's requirements for the character—who Bruce Wayne was on the outside didn't matter, what mattered was what he did.

Furthermore, there were still many scenes in the film that required Liam Neeson and Christian Bale to re-record their lines. This was especially true for the shots where Bruce Wayne transformed into Batman, which basically all required Bale to change his usual speaking cadence to re-record his lines.

Naturally, Batman definitely couldn't use Christian Bale's British accent. No matter the style of the movie, Batman was a standard American superhero.

This was directly tied to the success or failure of the movie. Having lived in North America for so many years, Duke had never underestimated the public's rejection of foreign cultural symbols.