Chapter 699: Market Appeal

Duke spent all of July on vacation and didn't think about work for most of August either. Since the turn of the new century, he had released a new movie almost every year. Aside from Taken, every single one was a commercial blockbuster with a production budget exceeding 100 million dollars.

Although filmmaking was Duke's greatest passion, and aligning work with his passion kept things from growing dull, he still felt exhausted after several years.

This exhaustion wasn't physical, but mental.

A director was a film's overall coordinator, needing to manage far too many aspects. From pre-production through post-production, they could rarely step away from the crew. The mental pressure brought on by this prolonged process was easy to imagine.

Pressure wasn't something that would disappear just because you wanted it to.

In the early days, Duke had relied on the usual methods of this circle to vent and relieve stress. Women, especially beautiful and sexy women, were undoubtedly an excellent outlet.

But in recent years, he had bid farewell to his old lifestyle. As his experience grew, he became accustomed to working under pressure. Even when he felt the strain, he could promptly adjust his mindset by taking a vacation or heading out to sea.

So, as soon as Duke felt mentally fatigued, he had given himself this long vacation.

However, taking a long vacation didn't mean completely detaching from his work.

He had successively finalized the key acquisition projects for his film fund in Los Angeles and resolved the troubles the Harry Potter crew encountered in London.

The latter was resolved before he returned to Los Angeles, and the former yielded results after he attended Spielberg's charity party.

With the current economic situation so dire, even massive, long-standing Wall Street firms like Lehman Brothers were forced into bankruptcy. The situation for small funds like Relativity and Dune Capital was no better. What they needed most was undoubtedly a large amount of cash to stabilize their investors' emotions.

But all of Hollywood was facing a cash shortage, and almost every film company was tightening its purse strings. Companies like Paramount and DreamWorks still needed to seek help everywhere, leaving Relativity and Dune Capital with very few potential buyers.

The four projects taken over by David Ellison's Sky Studio gave the two companies a slight breather, but it wasn't enough to solve their problems. Over the past few years, they had thrown too much investment into Hollywood. And in all of Hollywood, it was impossible to find a second director like Duke, who produced films at such an incredibly fast pace. Very few of the films they invested in had actually made it to theaters.

As everyone knew, the film industry wasn't a short-term profit venture. Under normal circumstances, major productions with an investment of around 100 million dollars required two to three years, or even longer, to produce...

Even a film like The Shawshank Redemption had only just recovered its investment costs, over ten years after its release.

Of course, Duke wouldn't even touch that type of film.

He only wanted to acquire the films he could roughly remember. The investment shares held by Relativity and Dune Capital in those projects were bound to generate massive profits.

What was more, Relativity and Dune Capital weren't selling these shares at their original investment price, but at a discount.

Duke's offer was only thirty percent of their initial investment, while Relativity and Dune Capital stubbornly clung to their bottom line of fifty percent. The price was arguably their biggest point of contention.

However, in early August, after the two companies received subpoenas from the court along with a request for investigative cooperation from the FBI, they finally gave in.

The two sides reached an agreement during negotiations. Duke's film fund would acquire Relativity and Dune Capital's corresponding shares in six projects at forty percent of the original investment price: Twentieth Century Fox's Avatar and X-Men: First Class, DreamWorks Animation Studio's The Croods and How to Train Your Dragon, and Walt Disney's Alice in Wonderland and Pirates of the Caribbean 4.

Although all payments had to be made in a lump sum, Duke had long since prepared for this. The funds could be transferred within three days of Tina Fey signing the formal agreement on his behalf.

Compared to the four massive projects bought by David Ellison, these were the ones Duke truly wanted to get his hands on.

As for TRON: Legacy, Robin Hood, Alien Battlefield, and Battleship, perhaps a miracle would happen...

"I recently got some news."

Out on the terrace adjoining the living room, Nancy Josephson, who had just rushed over, picked up a glass of water, took a sip, and said, "Walt Disney intends to invite Andrew Stanton to direct Alien Battlefield."

Tina Fey frowned. "Is Michael Eisner trying to poach talent?"

"He might not be able to poach anyone from Pixar Studio." Duke pulled his gaze back from the ocean, shook his head, and said, "Andrew Stanton isn't stupid either. He should know that Disney couldn't possibly give him the same creative freedom he has at Pixar Studio."

Nancy Josephson set down her glass and pointed out, "From what I've heard, Andrew Stanton is very tempted, and he is considering the feasibility of directing it."

"It doesn't matter." Duke didn't particularly care.

Steve Jobs was likely paying closer attention to this issue than he was. Besides, it was no secret that Pixar's five tiger generals wanted to branch out into live-action films. Brad Bird had already been confirmed to direct Mission: Impossible 4, starring Tom Cruise and backed by Duke's investment. Even if Andrew Stanton signed a directing contract with Disney, it didn't mean he wanted to leave Pixar Studio.

Indeed, in this commercial society, as long as one paid a high enough price, they could always poach people. But the question was, would Michael Eisner pay an unimaginable price just for Andrew Stanton?

Movies had never been the product of individual heroism. Pixar Studio's current success owed a great deal to its famous five tiger generals—John Lasseter, Brad Bird, Pete Docter, Andrew Stanton, and Lee Unkrich—but Duke had never overlooked the hundreds of technicians and production staff. Their existence was the true foundation of Pixar's success.

Pixar Studio was the quintessential example of team success. Simply poaching a few key figures wouldn't replicate Pixar's success, nor would it cause Pixar Studio to permanently collapse.

After a brief discussion about Pixar Studio, the topic gradually shifted to Scarlett Johansson.

"Scar is still very satisfied with her eight-million-dollar salary."

There were things Scarlett couldn't easily say directly to Duke, but Nancy had no need to sugarcoat them. "I just went to visit her on set in New Mexico a few days ago. Although she has some grievances, Duke, Scar is still grateful for everything you've done for her."

Duke smiled but didn't say much. Back then, all he had done was make a single phone call.

An eight-million-dollar salary was indeed a bit high for the current Scarlett Johansson, but Iron Man 2 was already her third Marvel Pictures film. Asking for a high price to appear in a sequel was practically a Hollywood tradition.

Furthermore, thanks to Duke's intervention, Natasha Romanoff had a heavier role and greater importance than before. It wouldn't be long before Marvel Pictures would likely have to compromise on box office and merchandise revenue sharing.

Anyone familiar with the previous Marvel Series could see that as the franchise deepened, Black Widow's screen time consistently increased. Scarlett Johansson had even secured twenty million dollars in backend cuts from Avengers 2: Age of Ultron.

Among the six core members of The Avengers, this was the second-highest income tier, trailing only Robert Downey Jr.

Although Duke didn't know what kind of compensation agreements Marvel Pictures had reached with the core Avengers actors at the time, in his eyes, Scarlett Johansson absolutely deserved that twenty million dollars in backend cuts.

There were two main reasons for saying this.

First, in this superhero universe built by Marvel—which mainly consisted of white men—there was a genuine lack of female characters. Black Widow was arguably the only female superhero to gear up for action in the Marvel Universe, making her extremely valuable and irreplaceable in the short term.

Under these circumstances, her value as a member of The Avengers far exceeded any potential solo female superhero movie. Purely from the perspective of the fans or the media, replacing Black Widow would inevitably cause a massive uproar. Just like how Duke had handled the Harry Potter crew, that could only be a last resort.

On the other hand, Scarlett becoming the second-highest paid actor after Robert Downey Jr. wasn't unrelated to her performance in other films. When Robert Downey Jr. stepped away from Iron Man, he had an endless stream of flops, though he did have a decently successful franchise in Sherlock Holmes. Meanwhile, Lucy, starring Scarlett as the solo lead, raked in nearly 500 million dollars worldwide. This was capital.

In contrast, others like Jeremy Renner and Chris Evans had never truly been able to carry a film's box office outside of the Marvel Series.

The former had been nominated for the Oscar for Best Actor, but everyone knew that the Oscars and market appeal were basically two different things. The commercial blockbuster he truly headlined, The Bourne Legacy, ended in failure, and he wasn't the main character in Mission: Impossible 4 at all...

The latter was in the same boat. His only genuinely somewhat famous film outside of Marvel was Snowpiercer. However, no matter how much the media hyped up the film, its ultimate failure at the box office was an indisputable fact.

As for Chris Hemsworth and Mark Ruffalo, how many people knew what films they had starred in outside of the Marvel Series?

Market appeal was sneered at by critics, as if mentioning it was incredibly vulgar, yet it was the truest reflection of an actor's status and position in Hollywood and on a film set.

Even if an actor won Oscar best actor, if they hadn't proven themselves in the market, they could forget about joining the twenty million club for their next film.

Hollywood had always been very realistic.