Chapter 629: Peaceful Rest

Duke knew perfectly well that while times constantly changed, the film market's mainstream demographic did not. Teenagers would always form the backbone of the market, and they were always willing to open their wallets for their favorite films and merchandise.

Relatively speaking, this demographic's psychological endurance could be an issue. Moreover, as the North American generation born in the nineties grew up, their share of the market was steadily increasing.

These young people did not particularly enjoy films with heavy themes. Excessively bleak and dark movies would be rejected by most of them, potentially even crushing the market's overall tolerance.

Duke was certain of one thing: if The Dark Knight had been delayed by three or four years, until the mainstream moviegoing audience had fully cycled to the next generation, it would be genuinely hard to say whether it could have achieved the same massive success in the North American market.

Ultimately, films were cultural products heavily influenced by the social environment.

Even for a movie like The Dark Knight releasing in the current window, its reception in the relatively mature North American market was absolutely far better than overseas.

In other words, The Dark Knight's success undoubtedly relied heavily on North America.

Of course, the style of The Dark Knight also paved a new path for the film industry itself.

Take I Am Legend, which was set to premiere next weekend. After seeing The Dark Knight and its market reception, David Ellison began to consider tweaking the editing to make the film even darker and more despairing.

"Fran..."

Inside the Sky Film Studio office, David Ellison paced back and forth a few times before speaking to Francis Lawrence, who was seated in an armchair.

"I think we can change the ending. We should use the second version, just like The Dark Knight, and look at the problem from more than just the protagonist's perspective. We also need to view it from the monsters' point of view, just like how the Joker was treated."

After several years of refinement, David Ellison had indeed developed a relatively mature perspective on filmmaking.

Francis Lawrence hesitated. As a relatively traditional commercial director, he preferred endings that adhered to standard blockbuster conventions.

But David Ellison was the film's investor and producer. He thought for a moment.

"Actually, those creatures were once human too," he said. "Even though they've nearly devolved into beasts—and beasts are undoubtedly brutal, naturally revealing their aggressive instincts when they encounter outsiders—that doesn't mean they have no conscience."

"The male lead realizes at that moment that even if we view the mutants as beasts, to them, this is simply their way of life. Should we humans forcibly change them based solely on our own ideology? They just want to live in peace. They have emotions too, their own social circles, and they might even be more united than humanity."

David Ellison understood clearly. The original ending was more realistic and better fit the current commercial film mold: the heroic human dies to save the survivors, and the city ultimately plunges into a truly savage age. The cliché plot of a single person saving the world catered much more to audience tastes; it would leave countless viewers comforted by the idea that humans were a superior, omnipotent race. Thus, hope was always right before their eyes.

In the past, David Ellison would have definitely chosen that ending, but The Dark Knight had brought something different to the table. Looking at the issue from another angle wouldn't necessarily lead to failure.

In Hollywood, even a veteran director like Francis Lawrence had to make compromises.

Per David Ellison's decision, I Am Legend would swap to the alternate ending.

"David..." Francis Lawrence was still somewhat worried. "Is an ending like this really..."

"Don't worry. Looking at the world from the monsters' perspective—I think this kind of darker style might be popular for a while."

David Ellison raised a hand, interrupting whatever Francis Lawrence was about to say next. "Hollywood is a place defined by severe bandwagoning. It's not just the studios, it's the audience too. The Dark Knight just set a new North American single-day box office record, which is proof enough."

Francis Lawrence could only nod before leaving the office.

David Ellison sat back down at his desk. Looking at the data in front of him, he felt a mountain of pressure, to the point that the thought of delaying the release of I Am Legend unconsciously surfaced in his mind.

It was all because that number was simply staggering.

On Friday—just yesterday—The Dark Knight raked in 68.36 million dollars in North America, crushing all past single-day box office records underfoot.

Such single-day box office figures couldn't even be described as "terrifying."

Walt Disney's opening-weekend projection for I Am Legend was a mere 70 million dollars.

Although he was very confident in his film, and the test screenings for I Am Legend had received unanimous praise from both audiences and theater chains, David Ellison knew perfectly well that I Am Legend's opening weekend would inevitably face a massive challenge and threat from The Dark Knight's second weekend.

Even though the thought of delaying the release flashed through his mind, it simply wasn't realistic. David Ellison understood this, and he firmly believed that even if I Am Legend couldn't compare to Duke Rosenberg's The Dark Knight, it would still have enough room to survive, and turning a profit through its box office run was entirely possible.

Still, some anxiety on David Ellison's part was inevitable. The Dark Knight's promotional marketing had been too outstanding, and audience word-of-mouth had remained sky-high after its release. These practically guaranteed a strong box office trajectory moving forward.

In contrast, I Am Legend was significantly lacking in promotion. Even though they had manufactured news of a so-called Will Smith marriage crisis, it had struggled to become a hot topic.

Turning on his computer, David Ellison casually searched Google for the latest news on The Dark Knight, then opened IMDB, where the perfect 10 rating for The Dark Knight was glaringly harsh on his eyes.

To an industry insider like him, paid online shills were no secret at all, but he knew that nobody's paid shills would be stupid enough to give their own movie a perfect ten.

However, David Ellison also saw people dropping low scores, but their numbers were simply too small to make a dent against the massive baseline of perfect tens.

He skimmed the reviews from these low-scoring users, and almost without exception, they were subtly praising The Godfather while putting down The Dark Knight.

David Ellison suddenly thought of something, though it wasn't entirely clear. Even though IMDB ratings couldn't reflect a film's true market reception like CinemaScore statistics did, they could still influence the viewing choices of a certain demographic... 'Perhaps something could be done on this front?' he thought.

As Saturday rolled in, The Dark Knight became the most talked-about topic in all of North America. The film attracted not only fans of the Batman comics and the crowd from 2005's Batman Begins, but it also wore a tragic veil of mystery due to the unexpected death of Heath Ledger, the actor behind the film's lead villain, the Joker.

The day after the premiere, eager to grab attention, the media even began hyping up that Heath Ledger was fully qualified to receive an Oscar nomination and take home a golden statuette for acting.

Naturally, the shadow of Warner Brothers was indispensable behind all this hype.

At the same time, Duke also led the cast and crew on a promotional tour. The team was split in two: Charles Roven took Christian Bale, Gary Oldman, and Laurence Fishburne to promote the film overseas, while Duke ran press circuits across North America alongside Nicolas Cage and Anne Hathaway.

"Can I sit here?"

Aboard the private jet chartered by Warner Brothers, the film's female lead, Anne Hathaway, walked over. Seeing Duke nod slightly, she sat down across from him.

"I was hoping to keep working with you," she said in a casual tone. "I never expected Rachel Dawes to just die like that."

"There will be opportunities in the future," Duke replied, his words carrying a touch of distant politeness.

Had this been a few years ago, he definitely would have accepted Anne Hathaway's goodwill. But the environment had changed now, and his way of doing things was changing along with it.

Just like in the past, Duke knew he wasn't a good person, but he was a man with a girlfriend.

A flight attendant brought over two cups of coffee. Duke sipped his as he chatted casually with Anne Hathaway. After being fooled once before, she had clearly gotten much smarter.

Frankly speaking, her performance in the film mostly satisfied Duke. This wasn't to say her acting was exceptionally brilliant; compared to the original Maggie Gyllenhaal, her acting chops weren't necessarily any stronger, perhaps even slightly inferior.

But for an eye-candy role like Rachel Dawes, while the original Maggie Gyllenhaal had great acting skills, her overall presentation hadn't been satisfactory. Perhaps deeper roles suited her better, but for a relatively simple decorative part, Maggie Gyllenhaal hadn't been a fit at all.

Thinking of Maggie Gyllenhaal, a joke decrypting The Dark Knight surfaced in Duke's memory. But without her in the role, this amusing anecdote would never come to exist.

In his past life, after watching Brokeback Mountain and The Dark Knight, he had looked up some related reviews and stumbled upon this exact joke.

"The Dark Knight is actually a sequel to Brokeback Mountain—why did Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist separate back then? It was all because Jack's sister was secretly standing in their way!"

"After Jack's death, a heartbroken and devastated Ennis was overly traumatized, wandering far from home to heal his romantic wounds in a place called Gotham. Who knew it would be such a small world? Ennis ran into Jack's sister, Rachel, right there. Driven insane by a thirst for revenge, Ennis transformed into the Joker, using thick makeup to cover the handsome face his beloved Jack had once kissed."

"He walked into the banquet hall with a gun and viciously squeezed Rachel's face—because he saw the beautiful Jack's features right there on it. He wrought havoc upon Gotham, but his ultimate goal was the revenge in his heart: killing Jack's sister!"

"He achieved his goal and successfully used the pain of eternally losing a lover to retaliate against Rachel's lover, Harvey, driving him insane as well. His grand vengeance complete, Ennis had no lingering attachments left. Early one morning, he took enough pills—enough to reunite him with his departed lover—and closed his eyes in peace."