Chapter 544: A Huge Box Office Gap

The night deepened, but the light in the study remained on. As the early hours of Saturday morning drew to a close, a gray-haired Ridley Scott stubbed out his cigarette. Through the lingering smoke, he gazed out the left window toward the east. The horizon was already turning a pale gray; the sun would soon climb above it, heralding a new day.

Looking away, Ridley Scott let out a heavy sigh, his brows knitted tight. He picked up the phone, dialed a number, asked a few brief questions, and hung up.

Although the official results weren't out yet, the old British director knew perfectly well he was about to take a massive fall—one likely even more disastrous than Black Hawk Down.

In truth, ever since he watched the audience leave the premiere... no, ever since Twentieth Century Fox rejected his cut and re-edited the film into a new version, Ridley Scott had harbored a premonition of failure.

Yesterday's midnight screening figures only proved his point. An opening of $1.98 million could not be considered a success by any metric.

A flawed version released in the wrong window against the wrong opponent—how could Kingdom of Heaven possibly achieve a good result?

Over the past few years, Ridley Scott had been nursing a quiet fury. All of North America, all of Hollywood, and the entire global film industry attributed the revival of the epic entirely to Duke Rosenberg and The Lord of the Rings Trilogy. They completely ignored the pivotal role he and Gladiator had played. Some media outlets even constantly brought up Gladiator just to compare it to The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, treating his work as a mere stepping stone for Duke's success.

Because of this, he desperately wanted a head-to-head showdown with Duke Rosenberg. When Twentieth Century Fox refused to change Kingdom of Heaven's release date, forcing a direct collision with Batman Begins, he secretly harbored hopes. He wanted to use his meticulously prepared epic to properly compete against the younger director's reboot of a failed franchise.

Yes, Ridley Scott admitted the fight was unfair. He was directing a meticulously prepared blockbuster, whereas Duke Rosenberg was producing a film whose reputation and goodwill had already been squandered by Joel Schumacher.

But he also knew exactly how formidable that young director was. This kind of opportunity was likely his only real chance to win.

Yet Twentieth Century Fox had shattered all those hopes into illusions. Fox simply didn't place enough importance on a film funded entirely through presales. The promotional resources they allocated were relatively limited, and most importantly, they had vetoed his cut...

Ridley Scott resented this bitterly, but his hands were tied. After all, even if James Cameron and Duke Rosenberg joined forces, they couldn't contend with the established Hollywood system.

The sun steadily rose. Just as the first ray of sunlight pierced the study, the phone suddenly rang. Ridley Scott picked up the receiver, listened for a few moments, and slowly set it back on the cradle. Across his aged face, weighed down by heavy eye bags, a flash of resentment appeared, quickly followed by a trace of relief.

The opening day box office numbers were out, and all his ambitions had fallen flat. He didn't need to stress over it anymore. Given his reputation and qualifications, finding another opportunity wouldn't be difficult.

"In the end, I'm simply not a director on the same level as Duke Rosenberg."

Ridley Scott slowly stood up. Even if Twentieth Century Fox had used his cut of the film, what difference would it make? Could it really defeat Duke Rosenberg and Batman Begins?

It was absolutely impossible!

On its opening day in North America, Kingdom of Heaven played in 3,216 theaters and pulled in $5.32 million.

On its North American opening day, Batman Begins seized 3,925 theaters and raked in $22.21 million.

The performances of the two films were on entirely different magnitudes.

With the release of the opening day figures, Twentieth Century Fox gradually scaled back their promotional push for Kingdom of Heaven. The production budget had mostly been sourced through presales. Even if the movie flopped, Twentieth Century Fox wouldn't suffer much in production losses. However, the promotional budget came directly out of Fox's own pockets. Knowing the film was doomed to fail, they were never going to maintain a massive marketing investment.

Because Kingdom of Heaven wasn't like those films where latecomers surpass the early ones; it hadn't just failed at the opening day box office, it was also suffering from abysmal audience word-of-mouth.

After the opening day figures were released, the film studios weren't the only ones adjusting their strategies—the major commercial theater chains moved as well. Starting Saturday, exhibition companies led by Regal Entertainment and AMG quietly reduced Kingdom of Heaven's screen share by five percent. Naturally, those repurposed screens were immediately handed over to Batman Begins.

By Saturday evening, in major mainstream commercial theaters across North America, a new screening of Batman Begins started every fifteen to twenty minutes. The ample number of theaters and high screen share guaranteed that audiences could catch the film at almost any time, providing a fundamental guarantee for high box office returns.

Bolstered by excellent audience word-of-mouth and facing competitors with practically zero market traction, Batman Begins naturally saw its single-day box office surge on Saturday, pulling in $24.26 million.

On that same day, the box office for Kingdom of Heaven showed a downward trend, earning only $4.67 million.

With the battle between the two films decisively settled by an overwhelming margin, much of the hostile rhetoric surrounding Batman Begins instantly plummeted, especially regarding Anne Hathaway's fraud scandal.

Around the time of the film's release, media outlets backed by Twentieth Century Fox and Walt Disney had relentlessly hammered away at the incident between Anne Hathaway and her Italian ex-boyfriend. Now that there was no profit to be wrung from it, Twentieth Century Fox naturally backed out of the attacks, instantly lifting a tremendous weight off the heavily pressured Anne Hathaway.

Although her role as Rachel Dawes didn't have an overwhelming amount of screen time, her performance was solid. She left a deep impression on many viewers who watched Batman Begins. The former Disney teen idol also garnered praise from various media outlets, and her transition path had smoothly begun.

"Duke, I really don't know how to thank you."

Inside the office at Duke Studio, Anne Hathaway looked at Duke behind his desk with a face full of gratitude. "Without you, I wouldn't have made it through this."

She kept her eyes locked squarely on Duke, her gaze heavily implying that she would do absolutely anything he asked of her.

But Duke had been through too much to be the person he once was. He slowly shook his head and said lightly, "Don't do anything stupid again before the second movie is finished."

Anne Hathaway was slightly taken aback, completely unexpecting a man with Duke's playboy reputation to say something like this. It wasn't as if she hadn't considered completely ditching that Italian and finding a more prominent man. The director sitting across from her was undoubtedly the perfect candidate, possessing enough wealth to support her luxurious lifestyle while simultaneously offering a massive boost to her career...

Duke couldn't care less what Anne Hathaway was thinking about. He shot a glance at Tina Fey nearby. The female assistant walked over without hesitation and whispered a few words, prompting Anne Hathaway to leave his office with obvious reluctance.

Duke naturally understood the underlying meaning in Anne Hathaway's words, but the only reason he and Warner Brothers had helped fish her out from the Federal Bureau of Investigation was to protect the market prospects for Batman Begins. It had absolutely nothing to do with personal preferences.

Their relationship was strictly a business partnership, and every decision stemmed purely from commercial profit.

Still, the actress did work incredibly hard, and her performance in the film was countless times better than the previous Mrs. Cruise's. Duke had already decided to keep Anne Hathaway for the sequel, The Dark Knight—provided, of course, that she didn't embroil herself in another messy scandal like the fraud incident. Otherwise, he would definitely replace her.

In Duke's eyes, even in a superhero franchise sequel, absolutely no actor was indispensable.

Even though Batman Begins had performed strongly for two consecutive days, Duke and Warner Brothers weren't about to relax. All their promotional work continued according to plan.

On Sunday evening, a program on the NBC Television Network brought George Lucas on as a guest. Aside from promoting his own Star Wars Prequel: Revenge of the Sith, the legendary director also highly praised Batman Begins.

This, of course, had all been negotiated in advance. Duke had also made numerous promotional appearances for the Star Wars Prequel Series.

"George, everyone knows you were the one who brought Duke into Hollywood. What are your thoughts on his latest work, Batman Begins?"

Facing the host's question, George Lucas offered the following response.

"Before this Batman, there were four prior Batman films. In the beginning, Tim Burton created a fantasy-colored Gotham City where Batman punished evil. But the further the franchise went, the more Batman fell into cliché. The studios began relying too much on massive star power and enormous special effects while neglecting the story itself. This drove the Batman films into a dead end they couldn't escape from. The subsequent failures at the box office and in word-of-mouth were natural consequences. The impression the entire series gave was that the cast of characters just kept expanding, but the quality kept plummeting."

"After years of silence, Duke decided to take over Batman. Honestly, it was a massive challenge because he was inheriting a complete mess, like an unfinished building built very high but entirely out of step with modern trends. When dealing with an unfinished building, there are really only two options. The first is to patch it up on the existing foundation. This avoids damaging the original base and saves a lot of money, but the consequence is that you never truly know the quality of the original foundation, or whether it can continue supporting the building. The second method is also simple: tear it down and rebuild. That way, the entire building can be executed entirely according to your own vision, from foundation to style. But the cost is staggering, and you will face pressure from all sides."

"When Duke took over Batman, he clearly chose the second method. He wanted to completely subvert the image that Batman previously held, so the immense pressure on him was imaginable. But he succeeded. Batman has been resurrected..."