Chapter 754: An Unnoticed Hundred-Million-Dollar Opening Week

Duke and Warner Brothers had also formulated a targeted strategy for this. Articles similar to an "Inception Viewing Guide" appeared across many media outlets and websites.

"First, the movie is genuinely fantastic. Second, it isn't as hard to understand as you might imagine—believe in yourself. Third, there will definitely be a scene you'll remember for the rest of your life. Fourth, please lower your expectations. Fifth, please go to the restroom beforehand. Sixth, remember to turn off your phone. Seventh, you absolutely must see it in a theater, because a theater is also a dream-making machine. Eighth, remember to listen to the ending music all the way through, because it is responsible for waking you up. Ninth, it is highly likely to be the best movie you've seen in a theater in recent years. Finally, let's time-travel together with the film!"

Regardless, the initial word-of-mouth marketing for the film had gone a bit too far. Duke and Warner Brothers were well aware of this, which was why they were adjusting their strategy in a timely manner.

"If we don't manage it well, it might affect the subsequent box office trend."

On a private beach in Malibu, Duke sat on the edge of the small pier's dock, gripping a fishing rod.

Speaking to Scarlett, who was fishing beside him, he said, "Therefore, our promotional strategy is shifting toward guiding the audience into discussing the plot of Inception."

Scarlett tossed her bait into the water bit by bit.

"Forget the general audience—even after I watched the movie, I unconsciously wanted to analyze it..." she said to Duke.

She shook her head as she spoke.

As the person sharing his bed, Scarlett knew perfectly well that the film hadn't included so many deliberately mystifying plot points for the sake of depth or inner meaning. Most of them were simply required for marketing and promotion.

Duke raised his fishing rod. The hook was completely empty, so he baited it again and cast it back into the sea.

"The more interpretations the movie generates, and the more heated the debates it sparks, the more beneficial it is for our subsequent box office trends," he added.

Scarlett Johansson had been by Duke's side for several years, so she was naturally perceptive. She nodded continuously in agreement.

Because they would soon be preparing for a new film, neither Duke nor Scarlett intended to participate heavily in the post-release promotion for Inception. They would only attend a few appropriate promotional events. Besides, the movie's cast was formidable; the star-studded lineup led by Leonardo DiCaprio was more than enough to attract the attention of the media and the public.

Xiao Li also knew to cooperate with Duke and the crew. He had originally planned to break up with Bar Refaeli, but he dragged it out until now to officially end the relationship. The tabloids had been hyping up the gossip about the two of them recently, drawing quite a few eyeballs.

The click of high heels rang out on the dock. Tina Fey walked over at a leisurely pace, clutching a file folder. She sat down under the parasol and poured herself a glass of water first.

"Saturday's box office statistics have been sent over," she said.

Scarlett immediately asked, "Did it go up or down?"

Duke also turned to look. If Saturday's box office dropped compared to Friday's, Inception's opening-week box office would inevitably fail to break the $100 million mark.

"It increased by thirteen percent compared to Friday," Tina Fey said quickly. "It pulled in $36.78 million on Saturday!"

"Not bad." Duke nodded slightly. "Looks like there's hope to surpass $100 million."

As long as today's box office didn't suffer a massive slide, Inception was highly likely to achieve a breakthrough.

Of course, the opening week was crucial, but the movie's long-term trend was equally important. Regardless of the methods used, Inception had already built up an excellent word-of-mouth reputation among audiences. How to make the film even more appealing—thereby keeping the box office trend running high—was something they had to consider in their upcoming promotions.

Furthermore, Inception had not adopted a simultaneous global release strategy. Allowing the film's influence to spread further into overseas markets was also an unignorable task.

As early as the preparation and filming stages, Duke had formulated a strategy for audience participation. Now was the best time to bring this strategy into play: get the audience to actively analyze the film and let this trend spread overseas. As long as a portion of the fans remained highly enthusiastic, it would be enough for Inception to rake in beautiful box office numbers.

Today's internet, while not completely connecting every corner of the globe, had no problem linking the entire Western world with major markets like Japan and South Korea. Moreover, Warner Brothers had comprehensive marketing networks in key markets all over the world. Pushing the enthusiasm for analyzing Inception to the rest of the world wouldn't be too difficult a task.

Online and in real life, fueled both by spontaneous interest and the guidance of paid online shills, the analysis of Inception had gradually formed a massive trend.

As Inception continued its hot theatrical run, the film became an indispensable topic of conversation for the North American public. Meanwhile, Duke—the one responsible for "building the dream"—refused to elaborate on the public's theories, no matter how reporters pressed him. He simply threw out the line, "Even I can't explain the ending of the movie," as his answer.

Therefore, those "meddlesome" moviegoers decided to personally shoulder the heavy burden of interpreting the dreams for the masses. Naturally, this wave of enthusiasm was not short on bold speculations and surprising interpretations about the "dreamscapes."

The open-ended conclusion, in particular, gave people plenty of room for imagination.

At the end of the film, the "inception" succeeded. The six members of the Dream Thief team woke up on the airplane, and Saito fulfilled his promise, making a phone call to lift the protagonist's legal charges in America so he could smoothly clear customs. The protagonist finally returned home and saw his two children. After the protagonist spun the Spinning Top capable of distinguishing dreams from reality, the film cut to black. The director never revealed whether the Spinning Top on the table kept spinning or stopped.

As the part with the most room for discussion, did the protagonist, Cobb, return to reality, or was he still living in a dream? Duke was absolutely not foolish enough to give people a definitive ending. Many movie fans fully exercised their imaginations, leading the film toward the conclusion they individually hoped for.

Quite a few fans believed that Cobb had returned to reality in the end. They even discovered that Cobb's two children were actually played by child actors of different ages, and that the children's heights and voices had slightly changed in the final scene. This proved that the children had grown up during the time the protagonist was away, which they used to argue that the ending was definite reality, not a dream.

Many people also expressed disdain toward this reality theory.

"There is no reality at all; this movie is just a dream."

A lot of people firmly believed in this theory. They argued that the so-called dream theft and inception concepts were nothing more than a dream belonging to the film's protagonist, Cobb, and that all of this was simply an endless loop within a dream.

In order to prove their own viewpoints, audiences with different interpretations flocked to theaters one after another to rewatch Inception, aiming to find more evidence to support their claims.

However, the more they watched, the more interpretations they had for the film's various plot points. As the discussions deepened, this frenzy simply could not be stopped.

For instance, the Spinning Top was a totem, Cobb's marker for judging whether he was ultimately in a dream or in reality. If the Spinning Top kept spinning without falling, it meant he was still in a dream; if it fell naturally after spinning, it meant he was in the real world.

"What if he designed a dream where the Spinning Top could fall over?"

The audience clearly didn't trust this "totem" all that much. Every Dream Thief had their own totem—Arthur's "Die" and Ariadne's "Chess Piece"—but no one had ever seen them use theirs.

Moreover, some pointed out that from beginning to end in the movie, only the protagonist, Cobb, repeatedly used the Spinning Top to distinguish reality from dreams, and he had gotten this Spinning Top from his wife.

Consequently, an analysis that appeared in the IMDB review section gained the approval of a considerable number of people.

"Cobb has a ring on his hand in the dreamscapes, but none in reality. This is because in the dream, the protagonist is unwilling to believe that his wife is already dead, whereas in reality, Cobb has already accepted this."

"On the airplane, we clearly see that the protagonist isn't wearing a ring. In all the dreams of the first, second, and third levels, he is constantly wearing his wedding ring."

However, some also argued that if the ring merely represented one of Cobb's psychological knots manifesting in the dream, then in the fourth level of the dream, Cobb had already accepted the reality of his wife's death. Thus, the knot would vanish, and the ring would naturally disappear as well. Looking at it this way, the protagonist and the audience no longer had a standard to distinguish between dream and reality.

These debates all garnered their own supporters. Using the internet as their medium, they continuously listed all kinds of evidence to prove their backed viewpoints. Furthermore, under the manipulation of Duke and Warner Brothers, these interpretations and controversies rapidly broke out of the internet's boundaries and became the focal point of discussions across major media outlets.

What the media feared was never controversy, but rather a lack of it. The more controversial a topic was, the more welcomed it was by the media. Only controversy could bring in sufficient attention.

Many traditional media outlets spontaneously chose the viewpoints they supported, and then, using those viewpoints as starting points, engaged in debates with other media. Just three days after its release, the craze of interpretations triggered by Inception had become one of the most closely watched topics for the North American media and public.

Even when Inception's Sunday box office results came out, making it the first non-sequel, non-adapted film to break the $100 million mark at the North American box office in its opening three-day weekend, it barely attracted much media attention.

The enthusiasm of the media and the public was entirely focused on the various interpretations and controversies surrounding Inception.

From this perspective, the promotional marketing campaign orchestrated by Duke and Warner Brothers had achieved tremendous success.

Even though Inception pulled in $100.99 million in North America over its opening three-day weekend, Duke was not satisfied with just that. Moreover, the film was about to premiere overseas, so he absolutely had to push the frenzy formed in North America into foreign markets.

As the focal point of the interpretations and controversies, Duke was undoubtedly asked various questions about Inception by many media outlets. He opportunely threw out a few statements of his own, pushing this wave of enthusiasm to an even higher peak.