Chapter 898: National Mythology

Beyond skin color, gender and age were also stubborn barriers in Hollywood. Someone once described the Oscars as reflecting the tastes of a group of older, straight white men; this flat sense of aesthetics and values permeated the awards, infecting the entire industry.

Regardless of the final Oscar results, Hollywood's landscape would not fundamentally change in the short term.

After paying a little attention to these matters, Duke turned most of his focus back to the preparation for Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

The IMAX Company specifically modified two IMAX Cameras according to Duke's requirements. After these two cameras were delivered to the crew, Duke named one "Death Star" and the other "Millennium Falcon."

Of course, this was all for promotional needs. Even for massively influential films like the Star Wars Series, promotional work could not be relaxed in the slightest.

As April rolled around, Warner Brothers, Lucasfilm, and UNICEF co-organized a charity event called "Force for Change." It raised over forty million dollars in donations, creating a massive sensation in North America and around the world.

That wasn't all. As the distributor, Warner Brothers deliberately announced that the release date of Star Wars: The Force Awakens in Italy would be three weeks later than the global premiere. They then secretly spurred Duke's Italian fan clubs to stage a protest. Not only did fans stage a sit-in across from the Warner Bros. Italian Subsidiary, but they also organized a petition with over fifty thousand signatures and submitted it to Lucasfilm, demanding that Star Wars: The Force Awakens be released simultaneously in Italy and North America.

Subsequently, Lucasfilm and Warner Brothers held a press conference to announce an adjustment to the Italian release date of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The premiere was moved up to December 16, 2014, making it the earliest opening market in the world.

This news left Italian fans overjoyed and captured widespread public attention.

Meanwhile, relevant institutions on Wall Street and Warner Brothers conducted preliminary estimates of the profits Star Wars: The Force Awakens could drive, and the results were incredibly gratifying.

Put another way, this was about how much revenue the Star Wars Series could generate for Lucasfilm—or rather, Duke—along with Warner Brothers and their other partners, driven by Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

Duke had once said that acquiring the Star Wars Series was one of the most beautiful moments of his life, and that was no exaggeration.

A few years prior, Lucasfilm founder George Lucas had revealed to Duke that he planned to retire and sell the company, along with the franchise rights to Star Wars and Indiana Jones.

Before this, Lucasfilm had enjoyed a long-term collaboration with Duke through Industrial Light and Magic. The two sides hit it off instantly. Soon after, Duke acquired Lucasfilm and its Star Wars property with over four billion dollars in cash. Along with it, he secured all the company's live-action film productions—including Star Wars and Indiana Jones—as well as its consumer products, video games, animation, visual effects, and audio post-production divisions.

But even with Star Wars as part of the dowry, this acquisition had not been a small sum at the time. At least on paper, it was a massive amount of money.

In reality, according to this latest forecast, Star Wars: The Force Awakens alone could generate over nine billion dollars in revenue for Duke's Lucasfilm and its partners. This included box office, television and internet broadcasting rights, merchandise, and toy sales...

Wall Street predicted that as long as Duke maintained the same level of quality in Star Wars: The Force Awakens as he did in his other films, Lucasfilm would see terrifyingly high returns. In less than three years, Duke would not only recoup the more than four billion dollars he had invested in Lucasfilm, but likely also turn a profit.

To be exact, the super "IP" of Duke combined with a super "IP" like Star Wars would create unprecedented commercial value.

Previously, Twentieth Century Fox was the original distributor for the first six Star Wars films. To this day, they still retained the distribution rights to the first two Star Wars trilogies, the permanent distribution rights to the 1977 Star Wars film, and the theatrical and home Videotape distribution rights for Star Wars episodes one, two, three, five, and six until May 2020.

Lucasfilm, meanwhile, owned the television and digital distribution rights to Star Wars, as well as the film distribution rights to all but the first installment.

Starting with Star Wars: The Force Awakens, all subsequent related productions would be jointly branded by Warner Brothers and Lucasfilm. Similar to the co-branding between Warner Brothers and Pixar Studio, the new Star Wars Series would no longer have any ties with Twentieth Century Fox.

This meant that all copyright revenues from the new Star Wars Series would go directly to Lucasfilm and the distributor, Warner Brothers, with the biggest beneficiary being Duke.

Although filming for Star Wars: The Force Awakens had not yet begun, Duke had been building hype for the new movie ever since acquiring Lucasfilm. The driving effect of Star Wars 7 was remarkably obvious. According to Lucasfilm's statistics, in 2012 and 2013, merchandise centered around the Star Wars IP brought in roughly 2.2 billion and over 2.4 billion dollars in revenue, respectively, making it one of the most profitable series in Hollywood film merchandise sales.

Wall Street analysts predicted that in the first year following the public release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, merchandise sales would range between 3 and 5 billion dollars, and this figure would soar to between 11 and 20 billion dollars after five years.

Aside from selling merchandise, Star Wars Series toys were also a crucial source of income for Lucasfilm.

In mid-April, Lucasfilm held a premiere sales event for Star Wars toys, launching one hundred new Star Wars toys. This immediately became a phenomenal event in the cultural sphere.

Industry insiders estimated that retail toy sales for the Star Wars Series would reach two billion dollars by the end of the year.

Earlier in the year, Lucasfilm had announced the termination of Dark Horse Comics' Star Wars comic licensing, transferring the comic rights to Duke's other holding company, Marvel Comics.

In late April, Marvel Comics rereleased the Star Wars comic books. Within just a single week, they sold nearly one million individual copies. This figure was twenty-five times the sales of the final Star Wars comic released by Dark Horse Comics seven months prior.

Before Star Wars: The Force Awakens had even started filming, it had already brought Duke and Lucasfilm substantial profits.

Preparations were gradually drawing to a close. Even though the crew employed extremely strict confidentiality measures—to the point where, aside from core personnel, the vast majority of the crew hadn't even seen the complete script—Duke had never once relaxed the film's promotional efforts.

"According to the Los Angeles Times, the famous director of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Duke Rosenberg, recently received a special invitation to attend a state dinner at the White House this Tuesday evening. The invitation was issued directly by American President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama."

"This state dinner serves two purposes: first, to welcome the visiting President of France, Hollande; and second, to host Democratic Party donors from across America ahead of the upcoming midterm elections. The total number of invited guests has reached 350. Due to the massive number of invitees, the dinner will be held on the South Lawn of the White House, rather than in the usual State Dining Room..."

This was just one of the many hyped news stories concerning Duke and Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Moreover, Duke did subsequently attend the dinner, becoming a focal point for numerous news media outlets.

Many people might find it difficult to understand why Americans were so obsessed with a sci-fi film. The whole nation, from the president down to ordinary geeks, was fanatical about it.

In a certain sense, Star Wars was a national mythology created by Americans themselves.

America was a young nation of immigrants with a history of just over two hundred years, and, like Britain, it lacked its own systematic mythology. Britain had Tolkien, who could draw upon Northern European mythology to create The Lord of the Rings. But what about America? Sadly, this gap remained unbridged until the explosive debut of Star Wars in 1977.

Anyone who had seen a Star Wars film would definitely have a deep impression of the yellow opening crawl—"A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away" ...What was this? This was the most classic opening to a story! From the very beginning, George Lucas had framed Star Wars as a mythical tale.

Looking closely at the story structure of Star Wars: an ordinary person dreams of escaping their mundane, flat life to adventure in the outside world; a mysterious figure appears, telling them of their extraordinary origins, and brings them into a brand-new world; the protagonist realizes they are the savior of prophecy, and after experiencing a series of trials, they grow into a truly wise, brave, and responsible hero; finally, they save the world and fulfill the prophecy.

Doesn't this sound familiar? In fact, Harry Potter from Harry Potter, Neo from The Matrix, and Frodo from The Lord of the Rings were all exactly like this.

Many classic myths shared this exact story structure.

Someone had once conducted a study, claiming that all of humanity's various stories could be boiled down to a few specific templates, and this statement made perfect sense.

The Star Wars trope of "the weaker side overcoming seemingly insurmountable obstacles to ultimately defeat a powerful enemy" could be traced all the way back to the biblical story of David defeating the giant Goliath.

Furthermore, a national mythology had to be simple, accessible, and geared toward the masses. Star Wars achieved this perfectly.

In the Galactic Republic, black and white, heroes and villains had clear boundaries. Even the most complex character, Darth Vader, could be understood simply as "a good person early on who fell and became bad later." Audiences didn't need to rack their brains to understand the plot.

Woven within were love, family, fear, betrayal, sorrow, defeat, and victory—many basic human emotions. These emotions were expressed in the simplest and most direct ways, which not only satisfied adults but made it incredibly easy for young children to understand.

However, merely possessing a classic story structure and being easy to understand was not enough to make Star Wars America's national mythology. It had to possess something unique of its own.

On this point, Lucas cleverly incorporated Eastern philosophy and culture.

Therefore, the Star Wars Series also had a market in the East; it all came down to how it was utilized. Not only did Duke set his sights on the traditional markets of Japan and South Korea, but he also had no intention of letting go of the China market, despite its lack of a deep-rooted Star Wars cultural foundation.