Chapter 685: So Unique

Because of his status, Duke could not say much, nor was it certain how much the other party would listen to. As someone who remained highly rational most of the time, this was just a brief moment of sentimentality brought on by old nostalgia. Duke knew perfectly well that he was not going to be the one to lead the development of Chinese cinema.

Moreover, he would not go out of his way to accommodate Chinese films and filmmakers, and he certainly did not have water in the brain; he had no foolish intentions of handpicking Chinese actors to mold them into Hollywood superstars.

It was impossible now, and it would still be impossible years down the line.

Hollywood's exclusion and implicit discrimination against actors and other film professionals from outside the Anglosphere was quite obvious.

The problems caused by the overall social environment were simply not something one person could change. Anyone with a bit of sense understood this.

After touching on the development of Chinese cinema, Duke rarely spoke again. Mountain Eagle and Phil shifted the conversation to the various issues involved in introducing Warner Brothers films to the Chinese market.

Though he did not participate much, Duke still paid close attention to what they were discussing; after all, this would also involve his own future films.

Phil first brought up the release dates for Warner's films, arguing that once the China Film Group imported a movie, a concrete release date should be confirmed as early as possible to avoid schedule clashes between different films.

The local Domestic Protection Month had also always been a problem, and Warner eagerly wanted to enter the Chinese market during this period as well.

On another front, marketing was the key to a film's life or death. If Warner could lock down a film's release date in China, they could send their stars to China for interviews to drum up publicity for the movie.

"The Chinese theaters and the film itself can both benefit from this, and tax revenues can also increase. It is a triple-win scenario, provided the marketing can be prepared in advance."

Phil had clearly come adequately prepared.

"Transparency is also highly important, to ensure that theater box office revenues can make their way back to the China Film Group, the production side, and the investors."

The conversation between Mountain Eagle and Phil basically revolved around these four issues—the Domestic Protection Month, release dates, marketing, and transparency.

In truth, Warner and the China Film Group had been constantly discussing and trying to resolve these four problems, but they had not made much progress.

Furthermore, the two men also discussed the matter of co-productions, which involved not just Hollywood-style films, but also Chinese-language films.

The explosive popularity of Transformers had also allowed Warner to fully realize just how massive the potential of this market was. Capital always sought to maximize profit, and Warner wanted to genuinely enter the Chinese-language film industry.

The number of imported films each year was strictly limited. Never mind Mountain Eagle, even the entire China Film Group was powerless to change it; this was part of the WTO agreement between China and the United States.

Therefore, not every big-budget Warner production could be introduced to the Chinese market.

Compared to producing films, Duke paid far less attention to this aspect. Although he had his own representatives at both Warner Brothers and Time Warner, and would voice strong opinions on matters involving his own interests, for a significant portion of the time, he did not participate much in Warner's operations.

Shooting a movie and running a film company were two completely different professions.

The group of people actually involved in film production in Hollywood was relatively small. Filmmakers were all familiar with one another; a look at their resumes would show that they had worked on many different crews, and even held positions in different departments across various crews. So in many respects, this was a small, tight-knit circle.

This ability to collaborate in a high-pressure environment was necessary to build a film. It might take a year or even longer, but once production finished, people arrived quickly and scattered just as fast. It carried a gypsy-like feeling and was highly challenging; strangers gathered together, and the time they spent side by side making a movie could be quite extensive.

Regardless, in this world, anyone who built something hoped that people would like it, so they could then move on and build their next work.

Duke was a typical example of this; the films he shot were never meant just for himself or a small handful of people to watch.

Just as he had told Mountain Eagle earlier, the cost of making movies was very high. While some films indeed required very little capital, the vast majority of excellent films needed large-scale investment to be made well, and involved the participation of a massive amount of personnel. That was true in America, and it was equally true in China.

Roughly ninety-five percent of film industry professionals never had the chance to walk a red carpet or appear on the cover of a movie magazine. These people worked diligently behind the scenes, putting in hard work every single day.

Electricians, carpenters, makeup artists, truck drivers, plumbers... they all poured their efforts into crafting the film. If one simply sat for a little while longer after the movie ended, they would see all those names in the end credits.

To gather so many people together and have them work hard, what was needed was never art and ideals, but tangible cash. Without sufficient financial returns, how could there be outstanding film production?

For example, films like The Shawshank Redemption were hailed by many as classics and certainly possessed enough quality assurance, but it took over a decade for it to generate a profit. If they had known this would happen, the Castle Rock Company of that era would definitely have vetoed the project.

In Hollywood, regardless of the genre of the film, the reason film companies were willing to invest in production was to turn a profit, and to generate that profit as quickly as possible.

Time was also a cost, not to mention the undeniable bite of inflation.

If Hollywood companies were forced to choose between Cars and Robot WALL-E today, one hundred percent of them would choose the former over the more classic latter.

Later on, Duke also chimed in with a few words regarding the Domestic Protection Month and release dates.

For any film, the further its overseas release date was from its North American premiere, the greater the possibility of suffering losses.

Anyone whose film could appear in the Chinese market naturally wanted to secure a slot in the July and August Summer Season, the December New Year release season, or the Spring Festival Release Window. The May Day and National Day holidays were also decent secondary options. If a massive Hollywood blockbuster could screen during these timeframes, it would undoubtedly generate even higher box office numbers.

But for now, that was impossible. The Domestic Protection Month prohibited the premiere of major foreign commercial films. That meant imported films already screening could continue to be shown, but no new imported films were permitted to open during this period.

Of course, this excluded the imported films whose theatrical distribution rights had been directly bought out by the China Film Group.

Duke certainly wanted his own films to enter these release windows, but this all took time and would be difficult to resolve in the short term.

Following his meeting with Mountain Eagle, Duke participated in promotional activities across several other major Chinese cities. After spending his third weekend in China, he boarded a corporate jet and flew to Tokyo.

Transformers had also been playing in Chinese theaters for two full weeks.

After a monstrous opening week that raked in 325.6 million RMB at the box office, the theatrical momentum for Transformers cooled slightly in its second week, yet it still steamrolled everything in the Chinese film market, effortlessly pulling in another 296.24 million RMB over those seven days.

In just two weeks of release, Transformers had already set the highest box office record in Chinese cinematic history—621.84 million RMB.

The China Film Group and the Chinese media also quietly revised their box office projections for the film up to 1 billion RMB.

Just as Duke touched down in Tokyo, the latest news arrived from the Warner Greater China Region. It was highly likely that the China Film Group would secure an extension key for Transformers' theatrical run, which meant the film could go on to generate a terrifying box office number in China.

The film's explosive success in China was no exception to its performance across the rest of the globe. Although it was not a sequel like The Dark Knight, as the opening chapter of a franchise, Transformers featured a breezier tone and more explosive spectacle, making it much easier to attract audiences.

Even in the relatively mature North America market, this heavily popcorn-oriented film was no exception.

Moreover, slightly more rational media outlets would not treat a commercial blockbuster like this with the same attitude they used for award-bait films.

Coupled with Warner Brothers' public relations efforts, compared to the largely ignored professional film critics, the major mainstream media were unanimous in their praise for the movie's 3D and visual effects.

The Chicago Tribune claimed that watching Transformers would let modern viewers understand exactly how audiences felt when they first saw King Kong back in 1933. The Los Angeles Times believed that whether viewers chose the 3D or standard format, the shock and awe brought by Transformers was well worth seeing, delivering an unprecedented visual impact. The Detroit News praised that in terms of genuine cinematic special effects, Transformers could be considered unrivaled. Empire praised Transformers for bringing audiences a massively surprising experience, noting that the new technology allowed the director to shoot a movie like running a sandbox simulation...

The latest issue of the North American edition of Time magazine featured Optimus Prime on its cover, and commented as follows—Transformers was, in fact, a film they had seen before, but its bold production methods made it feel like something they had never witnessed; it was the Star Wars of their era.

A blazing sun baked the campus of the University of Southern California Film School. Two students in their twenties hurried rapidly through the brownish-red colonnades, speed-walking toward their classroom. Unlike their usual practical courses, today they were attending a theory lecture.

The USC Film School was one of the most important reserve talent bases for Hollywood, and academic life here was closely linked with the studio ecosystem operating right on its doorstep.

The two students chatted as they walked, and the focus of their discussion was the very figure they would be discussing and studying in this theory lecture, as well as his movies.

"Joseph, if Transformers raking in 311.21 million dollars in North America and over 670 million dollars globally in just two weeks makes it a failure, then what exactly counts as a successful movie?"

The one named Joseph merely shrugged.

"Carter, is that even a movie?" he retorted. "It's simply a commercial piled high with special effects technology!"

Carter originally wanted to say something more, but the two had already arrived at the classroom. Forced to hold his tongue for the time being, he chose a seat near the front and sat down. He then looked up at the projection screen at the front of the room, which displayed the exact theme of today's theory lecture—What Makes Duke Rosenberg So Unique!