Chapter 832: A Proud Literary Heart

Regardless, heading into a new weekend, The Avengers was in its second week of release, while Fast & Furious 5 had the natural advantage of its opening weekend. Vin Diesel's fatal car crash had also generated massive buzz for the sequel, drawing an undeniable amount of attention.

Back at their home base in North America, Warner Brothers and Marvel Pictures hadn't relaxed their marketing for The Avengers in the slightest, nor would they settle for their current $350 million box office. Aside from using every available method to continuously smear Vin Diesel and minimize the box office impact of his death, their own promotional campaigns were running in high gear.

With the film being such a massive hit, the Avengers themselves naturally became the center of fan discussion. Guided by Duke's team, both comic readers and newcomers took to the open platform of the internet to share their thoughts, fueling exceptionally heated debates.

The villains went without saying. As the sole major antagonist, Loki's scenes were truly spectacular.

The entire movie was practically a chronicle of Loki's blood and tears.

He yelled, "You are ants!"—and Nick Fury stepped on him.

"I am a ruler!"—Captain America sent him flying.

"I am a king!"—Thor picked him up and shoved him away.

"I am the villain! A very, very bad villain!"—Black Widow tricked him.

"I have an army!"—Iron Man trashed him verbally, proved immune to his abilities, and blasted him.

"I can catch an arrow barehanded! Cool, right!"—Hawkeye blew him up.

"I am a god!"—Hulk gave him a gruesome, "censored" beating.

"Can I get that drink now?"—Everyone beat him up all over again.

Loki was absolutely the ultimate inspirational idol among bosses, the patron saint of self-help!

Aside from that, Warner Brothers and Marvel Pictures began to slightly shift their North American marketing toward Chris Evans.

Due to the unique nature of his character, Chris Evans, who played Captain America, had remained in North America. As the only Avenger left on the continent, Warner Brothers and Marvel Pictures had crafted a highly targeted promotional strategy specifically for him.

To many people, Steve Rogers was nothing more than an experimentally modified super soldier. Now, in 2012, he was an unearthed relic who couldn't grasp the punchline of a conversation. While Tony Stark and Bruce Banner operated high-end, sophisticated systems, all he could do was watch in bewildered confusion. As a result, some people felt sorry for him, finding it tragic that his value seemed compromised.

Duke's paid online shills launched a massive internet discussion centered around Steve Rogers, allowing Warner Brothers to capitalize on it with their "nostalgia marketing" campaign.

"I still vividly remember a scene in Captain America. While they were selecting a soldier for the modification experiment, an officer threw a grenade into a group of training American GIs. Everyone else panicked. Only Steve Rogers charged forward without hesitation, throwing his body over the grenade and curling into a ball."

"He wasn't Captain America then, of course. He was even frailer than an average soldier. According to comic book logic, a hero exposed to nuclear radiation might be transformed. A hero bitten by a spider might scale walls. But I'm saying, if that grenade had been real, it would have exploded. And Private Steve Rogers wouldn't have become some Grenade Man; he would have been blown to pieces—and I don't even know if that would have earned him a medal, considering he hadn't even officially seen a battlefield yet."

"The Steve Rogers who covered that grenade with his own body was just an ordinary guy, a guy who got beaten to a pulp in back alleys and treated like a joke."

"As an ordinary person, Steve Rogers didn't have Chris Evans's gorgeous muscles. Nor did he have the iconic Shield. He was incredibly scrawny. His face was passable, but attached to a body like that, he still came off as a somewhat pathetic, miserable sissy."

"In many common scenarios, people born with physical disadvantages who face constant bullying either grow to hate the world and seek revenge, or decide to stand by and watch this ugly world burn. You rarely see someone still jumping at the chance to enlist and defeat the German Nazi bastards. And you especially rarely see someone who would sacrifice themselves to protect others without a second thought."

"Why was he able to become history's first superhero? It wasn't luck, but because he had the qualifications. It wasn't as if they could just grab any random guy from the army, toss him into an experimental chamber, and have him emerge ready to sprint barefoot after a Nazi agent for blocks."

"Even if a lot of other guys possessed the same abilities and you tossed them the Captain's Shield, they wouldn't do much better than Steve Rogers did back when he was gripping a trash can lid in that alley."

"At the end of Captain America, Steve Rogers crashed his warplane into the vast tundra. A date, delayed for over seventy years, ultimately left unfulfilled!"

"In The Avengers, Captain America only got a few flashbacks and shots of his doomed romance with Peggy Carter. Through those fragments, we can see his era and his lady, but we never truly learn what Steve Rogers feels deep inside."

"But when Steve Rogers put on his uniform, took up his Shield, and appeared on the heavily bombarded streets with Black Widow and Hawkeye, calmly and forcefully commanding the police, rescuing trapped civilians from buildings, acting as ground control for the other Avengers, and methodically organizing the rhythm of the battle... my mind automatically flashed back to Captain Steve Rogers executing his very first rescue mission, and to Rogers riding his badass motorcycle through a hail of bullets, charging straight into the Nazi lines without hesitation."

"And then I cried. My eyes filled with tears!"

"Outside the emotional shot of all the Avengers assembling, I shed tears separately, just for the Captain!"

"As the team's leader and spiritual core, the Captain is unequivocally indispensable."

"With his wealth of battlefield experience, the Captain knows how to command, ensuring the other heroes fulfill their roles to maximize their abilities. He is the core of the team. When the Avengers assemble, he is the outstanding leader—resolute, calm, and meticulous."

"Eras may progress, and values may shift, but the unwavering human dedication to courage, dreams, and conviction shining through the Avengers remains unchanged."

"People who constantly sneer at superhero movies will never understand what dreams and convictions mean to the rest of us. Those who feign nonchalance and claim, 'This society is realistic, so I must become realistic too,' have simply found a nice, pretty excuse for their own weakness and compromise."

"Captain Steve Rogers has maxed-out positive energy. He is incredibly pure—practically textbook material. Watching his composed stance as he commands the battle, you forget that he, just like the other superheroes, has his own difficult past."

"It's as if he never went through all those rejections at the recruitment office, the beatdowns in back alleys, the loss of his best friend in combat, or missing his chance with the only woman he ever loved to save humanity, only to slowly fade into oblivion over the course of history."

"Captain Rogers has never compromised with reality. One can expect he never will—which is exactly why the Avengers will eventually have their Civil War."

In North America, Warner Brothers and Marvel Pictures could use Captain America to drive their "nostalgia marketing," but that would never work in the Chinese market. Even though Captain America films had played there as early as the 1940s, barely any Chinese viewers would buy into the "nostalgia marketing" angle.

As the most influential Hollywood director in China, Duke was naturally a focal point of their promotions. The other focal point was his traveling companion, Scarlett Johansson.

Big-budget commercial blockbusters undoubtedly possessed far more global influence than independent arthouse films. Having consecutively starred in multiple Marvel movies, as well as Gravity—a film that grossed a billion RMB in China—Scarlett Johansson's widespread fame was a given.

Consequently, her exclusive interview was widely circulated across internet platforms and traditional media alike.

However, when Duke saw the article being frantically shared across countless social media platforms here, he didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

"She rewards her audience by showing off her gorgeous curves, but she also thoughtfully articulates her love for art and her insights into the era, maintaining a clear-headed sense of self within the intoxicating haze of Hollywood. Just like in The Avengers, she is far more than the pretty vase her opponents claim she is. With the alluring body of Monroe and a proud literary heart, this is the dual-faced goddess—Scarlett Johansson."

"The highly anticipated Marvel ultimate blockbuster, The Avengers, hit mainland theaters on May 5th. Framed by a crowd of muscular men, Scarlett Johansson, codenamed 'Black Widow', shines even brighter. From the moment she appears on screen, her portrayal of Agent Natasha Romanoff stuns the audience. Sporting fiery red hair and a skin-tight black bodysuit, she remains incredibly lethal even while tied to a chair. Amid seductive shouts, she casually dispatches three burly men, putting her full, enchanting figure on full display. This mature, sisterly Black Widow is fiercely loyal, brave, and cunning—even her action figure costs 500 RMB more than those of the guys!"

"Jeremy Renner, who plays Hawkeye in The Avengers, noted, 'Her sexy blonde hair and lips give her the air of a Golden Age actress.' That isn't just Renner's opinion. Her mentor, Duke Rosenberg, and the rest of us ordinary folks all agree. She was once the public's undisputed top choice to play Marilyn Monroe, because we can barely imagine anyone besides this 'Modern Monroe' capturing both her form and spirit!"

"As an Oscar-winning Best Actress, she doesn't have Angelina Jolie's condescending, domineering aura, nor does she possess Amber Heard's seemingly Photoshopped figure. She has a full figure, but her height is a flaw, leaving her proportions slightly unbalanced. She has never gone out of her way to correct her slightly crooked teeth, and she certainly wouldn't remove her ribs to achieve a tiny waist the way Monroe did—this allows those nitpicking spectators to find inner balance, and it makes her seem incredibly real. She isn't perfect, and she doesn't sit high up in the clouds. Instead, she exists right here with us in the bustling, mortal world..."