Chapter 667: Blu-ray Disc

At the exhibition, the production crew debuted their second commercial since the Super Bowl. Unlike the first, the Transformers got much more screen time.

A yellow Camaro Sports Car tore down the highway. Behind it, Optimus Prime rumbled forward, shoving a massive mine-clearing vehicle—the Decepticon "Onslaught"—to the side.

Optimus Prime and Onslaught collided with the force of Mars striking Earth. The two spun and plummeted off the overpass. Optimus Prime's car-sized fist slammed into Onslaught's jaw, and in a flash, Onslaught's face shattered into a dazzling swirl of flying fragments.

The trailer ended right there, leaving the live audience feeling the production crew was utterly heartless!

Hundreds of attendees swarmed the front of the Transformers booth, demanding that the crew play the rest. A few reporters, always eager for chaos, hid in the crowd and fanned the flames. If the organizers hadn't dispatched a massive wave of security personnel, the eager fans might have torn the booth apart.

"How can a short thirty-second commercial create that kind of effect?"

Up on the second floor of the convention center, inside a cafe overlooking the Transformers booth, Aerin Lauder sat at a table. Her azure eyes watched everything unfolding below through the glass curtain wall.

"A hardworking crew, dedicated visual effects staff, and incredibly powerful computers."

Duke set down his coffee cup without so much as a glance at the floor below. "You know, my dear, in scenes where multiple Transformers appear, rendering just a single frame takes thirty-eight hours," he said.

Aerin looked away from the window and smiled. "So you've created incredibly convincing transformation effects."

"However..." Her tone suddenly shifted. "I hear a lot of Transformers fans are very upset that Optimus Prime has lips?"

Duke gave a slight shrug. The woman sitting across from him was a good friend, not a reporter, so he didn't need to feed her any empty corporate PR. "I'm the director, so I make the decisions," he said bluntly. "Even if everyone else says a house should be painted white, if I think it looks better green, so what?"

He chuckled.

"True enough. Oh, I haven't congratulated you yet." Aerin Lauder changed the subject, raising her coffee cup toward him. "Congratulations on receiving another Oscar Best Director nomination after all these years."

Although he didn't care much about it himself, Duke still replied, "Thank you."

They both took a sip of their hot coffee before Aerin Lauder asked with genuine curiosity, "Will this year's Oscar Awards Ceremony be held on schedule?"

Duke shook his head. "Who knows."

It was February 2008, and the Hollywood writers' strike had already been going on for over a month. The Golden Globe Awards ceremony had already been canceled, and if the negotiations between the Producers Alliance and the Writers Guild broke down again, the Oscar Awards Ceremony in March was in real danger of being shut down.

"I read in the papers that negotiations have been dragging on for a long time. Why haven't they been able to reach an agreement?"

Tilting her head slightly, Aerin looked at Duke. "I recall the Producers Alliance and the Directors Association signed a new agreement in less than a week at the end of last year."

"No one wants to hand over their share of the profits, and..." Duke pointed out another hard truth. "Writers are not actors or directors."

In truth, the Writers Guild wasn't the only one whose contract had expired; the Directors Association and two actors' unions were in the same boat. But the Producers Alliance had quickly agreed to the terms proposed by those organizations, and both sides had already signed new agreements.

The Writers Guild's demands were largely similar to those of the other unions, but the Producers Alliance simply refused to give ground so easily.

This indirectly reflected the actual status of writers in Hollywood.

Among the fundamental elements that made up this industrial assembly line, writers and screenplays were undoubtedly near the bottom. Although the great strike of 1988 had improved their situation somewhat, it hadn't brought about any fundamental change.

In Hollywood, the most sought-after scripts were never originals; they were adaptations of other popular works. The scenario where a writer produced an original script that made everyone—from actors and directors to producers, agencies, and studios—light up with excitement and rush to use it existed only in fantasy.

Especially in commercial films, a script's role was often drastically diminished. Take Explosion Bay's best work, The Rock, for example. Once the script left the writers' hands, it was altered beyond recognition by Don Simpson, Jerry Bruckheimer, and Michael Bay, ending up vastly different from the original draft...

The biggest dispute between the Writers Guild and the Producers Alliance was over profit-sharing from the internet.

In this regard, the Producers Alliance and the Directors Association had reached an agreement as early as the end of last year.

"Two words can describe that agreement: groundbreaking and substantial," Duke told Aerin Lauder. "The agreement carved out a massive slice of the profit pie for directors and their crews, without requiring any concessions from the directors' side."

The Producers Alliance and the Directors Association had negotiated for a mere six days—a stark contrast to the Writers Guild.

The benefits secured by the Directors Association were mainly threefold: confirming the guild's approval rights over internet broadcasts and promotional programming; doubling the revenue directors and crews received from paid digital downloads; and establishing fixed profit-sharing percentages for directors and producers from ad-supported streaming shows and other made-for-TV films aired online.

Duke had long anticipated that the writers' strike would spiral into a situation nobody wanted to see, and he had prepared for it in advance. The script for Transformers had been finalized in the first half of the previous year, requiring no further input from writers. He had even factored in the possibility of actors joining the strike; the moment the writers' strike began to gain momentum, he wrapped up the film's principal photography and transitioned directly into post-production.

As they were getting ready to leave, Duke added, "Even if the world stops turning, my work has to continue."

Even though the Oscar Awards Ceremony faced a potential shutdown, the attention given to the major nominations hadn't waned in the slightest after the Oscar nominees luncheon. Heath Ledger's nomination for Best Supporting Actor was drawing particular focus from both the media and the public, eclipsing even the four most prestigious awards.

An actor's passing was undoubtedly the best form of public relations. From traditional media to the online masses, voices calling for the School to award Heath Ledger the prize appeared incessantly, gradually swelling into a massive wave.

If it had been anyone else, this kind of pressure might have triggered a rebellious backlash among the core members of the School. But for a dead man, none of that was an issue.

Hollywood, much like society as a whole, was extremely forgiving toward the deceased. Furthermore, Hollywood needed to use this image to promote the glamorous side of the industry.

Riding the wave of its nine Oscar nominations, the theatrical release of The Dark Knight was expanded once again, growing from fewer than 100 theaters to nearly 800. Many fans, influenced by the buzz, chose to head into the cinemas to watch it.

However, this could only generate a brief spike in theatrical interest; it wouldn't lead to a massive surge in box office numbers. Moreover, Duke and Warner Brothers had no intention of leaving The Dark Knight in theaters long enough to exhaust all the fans' enthusiasm. One week after the Oscar nominees luncheon, the film officially ended its run in North America.

After nearly ten months in theaters, The Dark Knight grossed a total of 591.21 million dollars in North America. Ultimately, it failed to surpass The Lord of the Rings 3: The Return of the King and Titanic, settling for third place on the all-time North American box office chart.

Simultaneously, the film had largely concluded its theatrical run in overseas markets. Having appeared in theaters across more than 150 countries and regions, it pulled in a total of 619.87 million dollars at the international box office.

With that, The Dark Knight bid farewell to global cinemas, amassing a cumulative worldwide box office of 1,211.08 million dollars.

In Duke's career, this film ranked just behind The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and The Lord of the Rings 3: The Return of the King, making it his second-highest grossing film.

On the all-time global box office chart, The Dark Knight sat behind Titanic, The Lord of the Rings 3: The Return of the King, and The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, holding strong at fourth place.

The film's genre and somewhat heavy themes caused it to underperform slightly overseas, and that international weakness directly impacted its final overall box office.

However, the standing of The Dark Knight in North America was incredibly prominent. After IMDB opened up its reviews and ratings, the film still dominated the TOP250 chart at number one with a massive 9.4 rating.

Fresh off the film's withdrawal from North American theaters, Warner Brothers seized the lingering hype to launch the DVD box set.

The discs featured a massive collection of exclusive behind-the-scenes footage, deleted scenes from the theatrical cut, and numerous on-set secrets. Additionally, there was a remarkably precious featurette that allowed fans to appreciate the designs of Batman and the Joker from a full 360-degree angle, using magnified shots to showcase the intricate details of both characters. It also catered to the vast audience of original comic fans, presenting the characters' comic-book origins in the form of a short film.

Just two days after the release, the Blu-ray version shattered Blu-ray sales records, becoming the best-selling movie in Blu-ray history.

In its first week on the market, the DVD of The Dark Knight raked in over 132.5 million dollars in sales in North America alone, with global sales estimated at a staggering 250 million dollars.

In an era where DVD sales were generally beginning to slump, this was already an incredibly stellar achievement.

By the time the Oscar Awards Ceremony rolled around in March, North American DVD sales had officially broken the 200 million dollar mark, with global sales approaching 350 million dollars.

Even ignoring other merchandise, the DVD sales alone were enough to bring in massive profits.

According to the profit-sharing agreement Duke had signed with Warner Brothers, he held the right to an eight percent cut of the DVD sales revenue.

For now, however, all of that could be pushed to the back of his mind. After a gap of several years, Duke was finally going to attend the Oscar Awards Ceremony once again.