Chapter 757: A Diamond Brand

"This is a movie that isn't afraid of spoilers! This is a movie for people who like to use their brains!"

"Leonardo and Duke Rosenberg lead a team to steal dreams—a film unafraid of spoilers that will push your IQ to the limit?"

These were the promotional slogans Inception rolled out across overseas markets. Paired with word-of-mouth and viral marketing, they achieved excellent results, a fact made abundantly clear by the film's overseas box office.

During its first weekend of wide overseas release, Inception took the weekly box office crown in nearly every territory with almost no suspense. In particular, many media outlets opened their coverage of the film with the line, "This is a movie meant to be worshiped."

"The tight plot leaves you no time to blink. Over 120 minutes of non-stop brilliance, and by the time the movie ends, it feels like it went by in a flash." A French moviegoer's interview response effectively reflected the consensus of most audiences walking into the theater. "You have to keep your eyes glued to the screen, catch every single detail, and think it over again and again. It feels like watching The Matrix plus The Dark Knight—it gives you a headache, but it's incredibly satisfying."

Driven by outstanding marketing and explosive word of mouth, the overseas box office numbers for Inception came pouring in.

In China, Inception pulled in nearly $20 million over the three-day weekend, marking the best three-day box office haul in the Chinese film market since Avatar and Transformers.

In other territories, Inception also opened high and kept climbing in its first week: Britain brought in over $16 million, France took in over $12 million, Germany grossed nearly $15 million, and Australia secured over $9 million...

In its first week of overseas release, Inception raked in nearly $185 million!

These box office figures also proved that the marketing strategy devised and adopted by Duke and Warner Brothers was correct; this word-of-mouth campaign had achieved an initial victory.

Meanwhile, in North America, Inception maintained a sufficiently strong box office momentum, just as the outside world had expected.

In a mansion in Los Angeles Beverly Hills, Angelina Jolie finished dinner and sat down on the sofa with a newspaper. She did not look pleased, and whenever she glanced up and caught sight of Brad Pitt, her expression grew even darker.

Clearly, she was in a bad mood.

The movie she starred in had fallen short of box office expectations, and her boyfriend had run off to attend a rival's Premiere. Anyone in her shoes would be in a foul mood.

Squeezed by Inception, her major release of the year, Salt, had only managed over $19 million in North America on its opening weekend. Although Sony Columbia Pictures subsequently ramped up promotion, with many media outlets even hyping her up as "the strongest action star in the universe," Salt stood absolutely no chance of a comeback in the face of the massive wave of debate and analysis sparked by Inception.

Angelina Jolie flipped through the copy of the Los Angeles Times in her hands and quickly found last weekend's box office bulletin.

"Duke Rosenberg's Masterpiece Scores Back-to-Back Box Office Crowns!"

This headline alone rubbed Angelina Jolie the wrong way, but she patiently read on.

"The second-weekend box office numbers for Inception are finally in. Across the three days of its second weekend, it grossed $25.62 million, $24.21 million, and $21.61 million respectively, maintaining a very healthy and steady Friday-to-Sunday curve. Combined with an average take of $10 million on Thursday and Friday, it has easily crossed the $200 million mark in just 10 days, reaching $229.65 million!"

"One thing is certain: Inception is guaranteed to have a long run in this fiercely competitive summer season. As it stands, hitting $250 million is no longer in question, and if it reaches $300 million, the film will surpass the North America box office target set by Duke Rosenberg and Warner Brothers."

"Before this, the idea that a sci-fi, thriller, and crime film—one that isn't a sequel and isn't based on a bestselling novel or a superhero comic—could top $100 million in its first week in North America and go on to pass $300 million in total box office was nothing short of a pipe dream. Now, it looks like Inception will reach that mark with ease."

"Whether Inception ultimately passes $300 million at the North America box office actually doesn't matter anymore. The film's greatest value lies in the fact that Duke Rosenberg was the first to take the plunge, giving confidence to those who follow—as long as the casting is right, the director is reliable, the script is high-quality, the investment is robust, and the marketing hits the mark, an original crime film with a touch of sci-fi can still be a massive box office hit!"

"Following the success of Inception, we can expect more directors to bring out their long-shelved original stories and convince investors to turn them into films, which is also a great thing for moviegoers."

"Currently, with 171,248 audience ratings on IMDB, its score still stands at a sky-high 9.3, sitting firmly in second place on the Top 250. Can this film really surpass The Godfather and rank second only to The Dark Knight? That actually doesn't matter. What matters is that this fervent score shows that the Duke Rosenberg brand is not just gold-plated—it has probably reached the "diamond" tier."

"Duke Rosenberg's diamond brand is bound to be the first choice for moviegoers for a long time to come, and this director is only forty years old! For decades to come, working at his steady and dependable pace, Duke will surely keep bringing us more great films, which is undoubtedly a blessing."

"Let us look forward to Duke Rosenberg bringing us yet another surprise in his next film..."

Thinking of how Inception had pulled in over $70 million at the North America box office on its second weekend, while her own film Salt had already tumbled to $10 million over the same period, Angelina Jolie's mood grew even gloomier.

However, her path over the past dozen years had been exceptionally rough and filled with anxiety. She had paid a heavy price for the reckless behavior of her youth. Ever since coming to her senses several years ago, Angelina Jolie had known exactly what she could do—such as continuing her messy private life, which no one cared about—and what she couldn't do, like provoking the true heavyweights of the industry...

Angelina Jolie was very upset about Salt being completely crushed by Inception, but she would only keep that feeling suppressed inside and wouldn't mention it to anyone, not even to Brad Pitt, who lived under the same roof.

Besides, she had never truly believed that the box office of Salt could surpass Inception.

That was Duke Rosenberg, after all!

What the Los Angeles Times said wasn't without merit, though there was one point Angelina Jolie would not accept. The success of Inception might inspire more directors or screenwriters to bring out their long-shelved original stories, but the sluggish state of original Hollywood films would not change because of it. It would only continue to decline; adaptations were the true mainstream in this industry.

The development of the film industry over the past ten years had also proven this point.

It wasn't just the box office—merchandise for Inception was equally popular. For instance, the small prop Leonardo used in the film to distinguish reality from dreams, the Spinning Top, was selling like wildfire.

The limited batch of commemorative Spinning Tops that Warner Brothers supplied to theaters was sold at a price of $12 apiece, and they were completely snatched up on the day the film premiered.

Meanwhile, the commemorative Spinning Tops sold through retail stores and online channels ranged in price from $80 to $130, and hundreds of thousands of units were sold within a single week.

Warner Brothers was highly experienced in developing the movie merchandise market, and the explosive sales of the Inception Spinning Top also benefited from the studio's massive, full-industry-chain operational capabilities.

In fact, in today's Hollywood, merchandise revenue for big-budget commercial films could account for nearly eighty percent of the film's total revenue, far outstripping the box office itself.

Before filming even began on a movie by a director like Duke, Warner Brothers had already drawn up merchandise production and marketing plans, ensuring the products could hit the market at the same time as or even earlier than the film's release, thereby securing sufficient market space.

Of course, a mature North America film market and a relatively sound copyright protection system were among the foundational conditions for movie merchandise to sell so well.

In the China market, the Inception Spinning Top released by Warner also sold well, with a starting price of only 12 RMB. However, compared to the official merchandise sold in theaters, knockoffs could be found everywhere, from the internet to small-commodity markets.

When this news was fed back to Duke, he was not in a hurry. Every market was constantly improving, and the early North America market had experienced the exact same stage the China market was in now.

Besides, compared to the treatment of domestic films over there, his movie's merchandise was actually faring quite well.

Duke remembered clearly from the period he had lived over there that after Zhou Xingxing's CJ7 came out, Qizai became highly sought after, and Qizai plush toys naturally turned into a hot commodity. At the time, street vendors hawking pirated Qizai toys even set up their stalls right outside the front gates of CJ7's producer, the China Film Group, leaving many of the studio's staff not knowing whether to laugh or cry...

A good movie will always produce some unexpected impacts, and Inception was no exception.

After wrapping up his promotional tour in Europe and returning to Los Angeles, Duke saw an interesting piece of news: after watching Inception, Matthew Vaughn, the director of X-Men: First Class, immediately tore up his own script...

According to numerous media reports, Matthew Vaughn, the director in charge of pre-production for X-Men: First Class, recently found time to watch Inception and highly praised how much he liked it. However, when thinking back to his own script, he inevitably stated that he felt "under immense pressure."

"Even if we had some ideas for the big screen, I felt that keeping them would make them look like rip-offs or altered versions, so I simply tore up all 12 pages of the script."

This was what he said during an interview, though he immediately changed the subject: "The new X-Men tells the story of Charles Xavier and Erik Magnus Lehnsherr before they became Professor X and Magneto. At that time, the two of them were not yet irreconcilable adversaries, but rather the closest of partners, working together for world peace..."

Clearly, Twentieth Century Fox was riding the wave of hype generated by Inception to promote its own film.

It wasn't just Twentieth Century Fox; Leonardo's team was also using Inception to build momentum for him.