Chapter 605: Ellison's New Film

David Ellison had learned plenty of lessons from his last failure. He now completely understood that succeeding in Hollywood was no easy task; it certainly wasn't something he could achieve just by having money and a script.

After the total failure of Flyboys, he laid low for a while. He hadn't lost confidence, but he needed to figure a few things out. Why, for instance, had Flyboys lost to Batman Begins so miserably? Aside from the disparity in directors, what other factors had influenced the market's reaction?

David Ellison quickly found his answer. Flyboys was an original film with zero pre-existing audience. Meanwhile, even though Batman Begins was the reboot of a failed franchise, Bruce Wayne boasted tens of millions of fans across the United States...

That point alone created an innate gap between the two films.

David Ellison subsequently realized something else: Hollywood studios rarely took a chance on original scripts, pouring their enthusiasm into popular novels and comic books instead.

With his intellect, the logic wasn't hard to grasp. An original story meant zero built-in audience and massive investment risk. In contrast, popular novels and comics already had established fan bases. Even if some purists rejected a film adaptation, it would still draw substantial attention.

Therefore, he shifted the production direction for his second film toward adapting a famous work.

After a series of investigations and bidding wars, David Ellison secured the film adaptation rights to a famous science fiction novel. He raised a massive 150 million dollars and commenced production.

To guarantee the success of this investment—and to compete against Duke Rosenberg's new work—David Ellison ignored the fierce objections of his partner, Michael Ovitz, and brought in the highly marketable Will Smith from CAA to star.

Furthermore, having learned from Duke's past promotional and marketing tactics, he specifically cast Will Smith's real-life daughter to play his character's daughter in the film.

Moreover, Richard Matheson's novel possessed ample name recognition, having already been brought to the big screen twice before in 1964 and 1971. This time, he paid a hefty sum to hire Akiva Goldsman, who had won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for A Beautiful Mind, to pen the script. He had made every possible preparation.

Once the crew began filming, everything proceeded smoothly. All signs pointed David Ellison toward an inevitably profitable—and potentially blockbuster—film.

Standing in the center of Washington Square, David Ellison watched Will Smith's performance for a while. Then, he walked over to a trailer and found his ongoing partner, Michael Ovitz.

He asked directly, "Michael, did you get the results for what I asked you to confirm? When is Duke Rosenberg's new film coming out?"

Michael Ovitz frowned slightly, somewhat displeased, but still answered, "Neither Warner Brothers nor Duke Studio has announced a specific date. However, going by Duke Rosenberg's habits over the last few years, The Dark Knight should hit theaters at the beginning of next year's Summer Season."

"Early May of next year?" David Ellison crossed his arms. After thinking it over for a moment, he said, "Make sure our film is fully completed before April of next year."

Although he felt uncomfortable with David Ellison's tone, Michael Ovitz forced down his displeasure and said, "It will definitely be done."

With that said, he headed toward the filming set.

David Ellison stared at his retreating back and shook his head slightly.

He had realized something else from the failure of Flyboys: the renowned Michael Ovitz had fallen behind the times. His eye for films and projects severely lagged behind the current era, and his concepts were entirely stuck in the last century.

Having discovered this, David Ellison naturally wouldn't hand total control of his projects over to Michael Ovitz anymore. In fact, he had outright vetoed Ovitz's packaging policy for this new film. For instance, he had cast Will Smith—who had only joined CAA the previous year—as the lead, while the director was Francis Lawrence from William Morris.

Since he still needed to use Michael Ovitz and his Artists Management Company, David Ellison had left enough positions open for them.

However, he had already made up his mind. Once this project was over, his team would have accumulated plenty of experience, and it would be time to discard this outdated Artists Management Company.

He didn't like the packaging policy either. In truth, anyone with even a moderately strong desire for control despised that policy.

Take Martin Scorsese, for example. A rumor was circulating throughout Hollywood: Old Martin, who had jumped ship from CAA to Artists Management Company for Michael Ovitz's sake, had also had enough of this policy and the company's severely degraded Oscar PR capabilities. He was preparing to jump ship again.

Within Hollywood circles, everyone knew perfectly well that the Artists Management Company—which bore the ambitions of Michael Ovitz's second entrepreneurial venture—had completely failed to develop into a top-tier entertainment agency. After several years of ups and downs, there was almost no hope of it ever rising to prominence. The promising actors and directors under its banner were all preparing to leave.

Even Michael Bay, a director who had been completely ignored after the failure of The Island, was making preparations to terminate his contract with Michael Ovitz.

Otherwise, Michael Ovitz wouldn't have chosen to swallow his pride after seeing through some of David Ellison's intentions.

After all, the big-budget projects he could get his hands on nowadays were few and far between.

David Ellison was thinking, and so was Michael Ovitz.

Strictly speaking, Ovitz didn't have much of a say in this project. After fighting against Duke Rosenberg for so many years, he was gradually starting to feel old and tired. Through his collaboration with David Ellison in particular, he realized that Hollywood was heading in new directions, and outside capital was altering the rules of the game.

Recalling how his old friend Martin Scorsese had hinted at leaving the Artists Management Company, Michael Ovitz suddenly wondered if it was time for him to retire.

Duke was naturally well aware of the poor recent state of Michael Ovitz and the Artists Management Company. The competition among talent agencies was even more brutal than among production and distribution companies. Many agencies, like CAA, ICM, and William Morris, had already reached out to poach talent from the Artists Management Company.

"Nancy, aren't you contacting the clients at the Artists Management Company?"

In his office, Duke spoke to his agent. "Do everything you can to poach Michael Bay."

"Michael Bay?" Nancy Josephson found it a bit strange. "Ever since the failure of The Island led directly to the collapse of DreamWorks, nobody has cared about Michael Bay. It's widely acknowledged that he's a thing of the past."

Duke shook his head. "In Hollywood, directors who can shoot niche indie films and art-house movies are a dime a dozen. However, directors who can fuse countless commercial elements into a big-budget production are rare."

Nancy Josephson thought about it for a moment. "I'll have someone reach out to Michael Bay."

It could be said that Explosion Bay was the director most affected by Duke's emergence. In particular, Duke securing the adaptation rights to Transformers had directly caused Michael Bay to lose his chance at a comeback.

A live-action Transformers film was already on Duke's agenda, but it would be a lengthy franchise. He needed to find a suitable director for its future.

Without a doubt, no director was better suited for this franchise than Explosion Bay.

Nancy Josephson now controlled ICM and was its largest partner. She was more than well-versed in poaching clients. Duke wasn't very worried; after all, Michael Bay was currently at the lowest point of his career.

He focused the bulk of his energy on prepping his own film.

As they entered October, the prep work reached its final stages. All the main actors, including the two new cast members, Heath Ledger and Nicolas Cage, had joined the crew. They were communicating and rehearsing with one another, preparing for the imminent start of filming.

Furthermore, the various preparations Duke had ordered were either ready or on the verge of completion.

After conducting a massive number of tests, Joss William had found the right way to handle the explosions. The camera crew, led by John Schwartzman, was highly proficient in operating the IMAX Cameras. Lamborghini had specially modified a Batmobile and a Batcycle, ensuring that the relatively bulky IMAX Cameras could be mounted on their front ends.

Since a Batman film had already been prepped once before, this second round of prep went exceptionally smoothly.

Just as the various prep work for The Dark Knight was drawing to a close, Iron Man ended its theatrical run of over five months and officially exited major theaters across North America.

In truth, starting from August, the box office numbers Iron Man pulled in were better than nothing. Up until the end of its run, the box office hadn't grown too noticeably compared to August, and its final North American box office settled at 389.95 million dollars.

However, after this lengthy screening period, and without waiting for Marvel to make a move, the global box office of Iron Man successfully crossed the 700-million-dollar threshold, reaching 702.11 million dollars.

The film's overseas screening journey had not yet ended, meaning its global box office still had room to grow.

With the film leaving North American theaters, the DVD was officially released. Compared to past films of the same box office tier, Iron Man's DVD sales suffered a slight drop due to overall market trends. The 19.9-dollar standard edition and the 39.9-dollar deluxe edition sold a combined 4.5 million copies in their first week, with sales figures just breaking the 100-million-dollar mark.

On the internet front, however, the film's VOD revenue saw a clear increase compared to films of the same tier from the previous year. In just one week, it pulled in around 4.2 million dollars through paid on-demand streams.

Although this number wasn't dazzling, its future potential was limitless.

Shortly after Iron Man exited theaters, The Dark Knight, having undergone several months of prep, finally reached the filming stage.