Chapter 546: Where There Are People, There Are Conflicts

With Batman Begins in theaters, Duke's thoughts inevitably turned to the upcoming pre-production for Iron Man. This was the critical promotional window for the Batman film, however, so he continued touring North America to make appearances with the cast and Warner Brothers. He merely kept in close contact with producer Kevin Feige over the phone to hammer out the final direction of the script's narrative.

Although Kevin Feige was the producer, Duke's authority over the project was beyond question. As always, the final cut would belong to him.

Yet Duke was never the type to shut out advice. As long as a suggestion genuinely benefited the film, he wouldn't stubbornly insist on his own way.

Perhaps the studio didn't care enough about Kingdom of Heaven—a film funded through presales and other unconventional methods—or perhaps the reception was simply too abysmal. As Duke returned to Los Angeles and teamed up with Warner Brothers to build hype for Batman Begins across television, radio, print, and the internet, the promotion for Kingdom of Heaven felt incredibly flat by comparison. The internet, which held massive sway over teenagers, was particularly brutal. The sheer volume and intensity of the negative reviews were impossible to suppress, even if the studio rallied every paid online shill that Hollywood PR firms could hire.

Both audience reception and critical reviews for the war epic Kingdom of Heaven hit the lowest point Ridley Scott had seen since Alien. This was undeniably a valley in his directorial career.

Final cut privileges certainly played a part in this, but the directors in Hollywood who could actually secure them could be counted on one hand.

Once the weekdays hit, the difference in market performance between Batman Begins and Kingdom of Heaven far exceeded what they had seen over the weekend. Describing the gap as the difference between heaven and earth was no exaggeration.

In terms of screen share, Kingdom of Heaven plummeted straight below twenty percent in commercial theater chains, with a few locations dropping it under fifteen percent. For a massive production that cost over a hundred million dollars, this essentially meant the theaters had abandoned the film, screening it only at the absolute minimum required by their sliding-scale contracts.

In stark contrast, the screen share for Batman Begins surged past sixty percent in one fell swoop. Following a nearly 70 million dollar opening weekend, the theater chains had completely cast aside their doubts.

"Duke Rosenberg truly is Duke Rosenberg!"

Standing before the massive floor-to-ceiling windows of his office, Regal Entertainment Group CEO Robert Calory turned his back to the executives behind him.

"He so easily revived a film franchise that everyone universally agreed was dead," he noted.

An executive behind him chimed in, "Our initial screen share and screening strategies were a bit too conservative."

"There's nothing wrong with being conservative," Robert Calory said softly.

Although he hadn't been in the CEO seat at Regal Entertainment Group for very long, he had worked in the film industry his entire career. He knew perfectly well that even the most successful directors stumbled sometimes. Not to mention, Duke Rosenberg had picked up a comic book franchise whose reputation and popularity had been nearly drained dry by Joel Schumacher.

Theater chains minimized their risks by taking relatively conservative approaches.

The most classic example was Kingdom of Heaven. Director Ridley Scott was wildly famous. If the company had blindly allocated a massive number of screens based solely on his reputation, their losses last weekend would likely have been an astronomical figure.

A small auditorium only needed six to ten viewers to recoup screening costs, but Kingdom of Heaven opened in nearly 3,300 theaters and brought in just 10.29 million dollars its first weekend. Averaged out per screening, those small auditoriums likely hadn't even hit six viewers.

When it came to money-losing films, the theaters had always had exactly one strategy.

"Starting tomorrow, continue slashing the screen count for Kingdom of Heaven."

Robert Calory made the decision with barely any hesitation, factoring in the opinions of the other executives. "By Thursday, drop the theater count and screen share for Kingdom of Heaven to the absolute minimum allowed by the sliding-scale contract."

No one objected. This was standard treatment for a failed movie.

Robert Calory turned around and added, "As for the freed-up theaters and screens..."

He was just about to instinctively suggest shifting them to Duke Rosenberg's film when someone behind him spoke up.

"Starting Friday, Flyboys is getting a wide release in North America," the executive reminded him. "Walt Disney has poured considerable resources into its promotion. Based on test screening feedback, the film has solid selling points. Michael Ovitz and Michael Eisner have called several times to check on the screening preparations for it."

"Hmm..." Robert Calory nodded. After a brief moment of thought, he said, "Distribute the screens freed up by Kingdom of Heaven between Flyboys and Batman Begins. As for the screen share between the two films..."

Another executive suddenly chimed in, "Duke Rosenberg's films always have strong legs, and Batman Begins is no different. After opening weekend, the CinemaScore audience approval rating is still holding steady above eighty-six percent, and it has an 8.8 rating on IMDB. The praise online completely drowns out any negative buzz."

"I know."

Robert Calory understood exactly what his subordinate meant and stated bluntly, "Squeeze Kingdom of Heaven's screen share as much as possible."

Without a doubt, Kingdom of Heaven had become the sacrificial lamb.

And it wasn't just Regal Entertainment Group; other theater companies were undoubtedly making similar decisions.

With theater chains making adjustments across the board, Kingdom of Heaven—which barely had any competitive edge to begin with—saw weekday performances that weren't even worth mentioning next to Batman Begins.

Starting Monday, Duke led the main cast—including Liam Neeson, Anne Hathaway, Gary Oldman, and Christian Bale—on a North American promotional tour. Daily box office reports were promptly delivered from Warner straight into Tina Fey's hands.

On Monday, Kingdom of Heaven's daily box office plummeted straight out of the seven-figure range, scraping together a mere 882,566 dollars. On that exact same day, the North American box office for Batman Begins was more than ten times that of Kingdom of Heaven, sweeping up 8.92 million dollars.

When Tuesday arrived, Kingdom of Heaven bounced back slightly, its daily box office returning to the seven-figure ranks with 1.03 million dollars. But it slid again on Wednesday, bringing in only 810,000 dollars.

Meanwhile, Batman Begins raked in 9.15 million and 8.56 million dollars over those same two days.

At this point, six days into its run, Batman Begins had reached a cumulative North American box office of 95.48 million dollars, while the concurrently released Kingdom of Heaven sat at a pitiful 13.02 million dollars.

Against a production budget of over a hundred million dollars, Kingdom of Heaven had zero chance of recouping its costs—even factoring in television rights, physical discs, and online streaming revenues.

A film with mediocre box office reception couldn't possibly sell those subsidiary rights for a high price, either. This was the simplest rule of the market; television networks and video sites weren't fools.

In this day and age, it was incredibly difficult for a film to turn a profit purely through the box office, so why did film studios still place such heavy importance on those numbers? Because the box office was often the most fundamental metric for measuring a movie's commercial value.

A film that exploded with critical acclaim and swept every award in sight still wouldn't match the backend rights revenue of a massive box office hit.

Perhaps the exhibition and distribution models for films would undergo an earth-shattering revolution in the future, but for now, the importance of the box office went without saying.

Before the second weekend arrived, Duke led the crew to New York. As one of the largest cities in the world, the Big Apple was a prime target that every Hollywood cast and crew focused on during their promotional tours.

Even though the format and content of their appearances were largely the same, a full day of being surrounded by far more fans than anywhere else still left Duke feeling fatigued. This was especially true of the Batman plaza parade they organized in Times Square with Time Warner. It drew hundreds of thousands of spectators and nearly turned all of Manhattan Island into a parking lot.

He had just returned to his suite at the Waldorf Grand Hotel when Tina Fey informed him he had a visitor.

Because Mrs. Leah lived in New York, Duke had plenty of acquaintances here. Yet the man who showed up at his door was somewhat unexpected.

"Long time no see, Bob."

The man Duke was shaking hands with was of Jewish descent, around fifty years old, and an old acquaintance of his.

"It's really great to see you. I didn't expect to run into you in New York," Duke said.

Giving Duke's hand a firm shake, Robert Iger sat down on the sofa across from him and replied, "I think you've forgotten. I'm a New Yorker."

During the honeymoon period of Duke's collaboration with Walt Disney, Robert Iger had been his direct point of contact. The two had built up a decent rapport over that time.

In the past, Robert Iger had climbed all the way into the top tiers of Walt Disney's senior management. But as his talents grew increasingly apparent and Michael Eisner's power expanded, his position grew difficult. Eisner even ousted him from his post as CEO of Touchstone Pictures, tossing him into a relatively idle department.

"Michael's desire for power is steadily growing..."

Speaking of Disney naturally brought up particular emotions for Robert Iger. "He will not tolerate the existence of anyone who threatens his power. After your brief collaboration with Disney ended, I became persona non grata as well."

"Why not just leave Disney?" Duke asked.

"I've thought about it," Robert Iger considered for a moment before answering bluntly. "But I don't want to leave as a loser. Even if I leave Disney, I'm going to wait for Michael Eisner to step down first."

No company's interior was ever a monolith; where there are people, there are conflicts. It was glaringly obvious that Michael Eisner did not care for Robert Iger.

Duke also wasn't entirely sure whether this future helmsman of Disney had done anything behind the scenes when Eisner was eventually driven out of the company in disgrace in his past life.