Chapter 940: An Unpredictable Future

Star Wars: The Force Awakens showed Chinese filmmakers the massive potential and boundless future of the Chinese film market, while simultaneously filling them with a sense of pressure and crisis.

At the Directors Association commendation conference, renowned mainland director Big-Toothed Feng declared his stance.

"Star Wars: The Force Awakens surpassed 400 million at the box office in a single day, and 1 billion in three days. Duke Rosenberg truly has no rivals, but domestic films must hold the line!"

Of course, in a Chinese film market where the number of screens was still growing, these records would likely be broken one after another before long. Just how much meaning and value lay in a so-called "cinematic history record" was a matter of opinion.

But undeniably, these figures indirectly reflected the sheer popularity of Star Wars: The Force Awakens in China. It also allowed Duke to continue dominating the throne of the all-time Chinese box office champion, a position he had held since The Lord of the Rings 3: The Return of the King.

While promoting the film's success in the Chinese market, Duke specifically had Tina Fey gather analysis from North American media to spread across local media and the internet, further boosting the hype around Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

"Star Wars: The Force Awakens has arguably set the benchmark for diversity in a starring cast for all film franchises, featuring a Chinese-American actor like Daniel Wu and a Latino actor like Oscar Isaac... This film also has the weakest 'male dominance' of any blockbuster in its genre, giving actresses an equally excellent opportunity to showcase their skills."

"This is an important lesson for Hollywood to learn. Not only do they have a diverse main cast, but these characters are fleshed out and real. They don't resort to deliberate pandering."

The reports of this nature appearing in the Chinese media also deliberately excerpted some North American data.

"In North America, 49 percent of the audience for Star Wars: The Force Awakens is female. In terms of demographic makeup, 37 percent are Hispanic, 35 percent Caucasian, 24 percent Asian, 10 percent African-American, along with other ethnicities."

In fact, this was also part of the reason Star Wars: The Force Awakens sold so well in North America; the proportion of non-white viewers exceeded 70 percent.

Against the backdrop of the ever-rising proportion of Asian and Latino audiences, highlighting diversity was a highly advantageous strategy.

Everyone who went to the theater to watch Star Wars: The Force Awakens could find a character on the big screen they identified with. The effort Duke poured into the cast's diversity helped the film attract massive numbers of fans in South America and the rest of the world.

By the same logic, if the economies of those black nations had been sufficiently developed, Duke would have created a starring role of African descent as well. Unfortunately, nearly all black-dominated countries were synonymous with chaos and poverty.

In order to drum up publicity and grab attention, the companies and individuals behind a film could always manufacture a multitude of talking points.

As Star Wars: The Force Awakens screened to packed houses in China, Duke kept busy with promotional announcements in the region. The ongoing talking points manufactured in North America were immediately relayed across the Pacific Ocean by Warner Brothers to add to the film's halo.

The one to step forward this time was Stan Lee. What he brought up was an old topic, one that had long since appeared on Duke's desk and among the upper management of Marvel Comics. However, this was the first time it had been made public to the media.

"Crossing over Star Wars and the Marvel Universe—can such an unconstrained, imaginative idea actually be realized?"

As the new week began, this was one of the hottest topics on the internet in both North America and China.

Currently, both Lucasfilm and Marvel Pictures were under Duke's banner. Many fans speculated whether Duke would allow the two major cinematic universes to cross over on the big screen.

During a Marvel promotional event, North American media threw this question at Stan Lee, who held an optimistic attitude toward it.

"I don't know how many characters a single movie can hold, but if Duke thinks it can work, he'll definitely find a way to cross the two universes over."

Having multiple independent characters cross over in the same film was also a Marvel tradition, with The Avengers being the prime example. Stan Lee further stated his thoughts.

"In The Avengers, Duke brought multiple superheroes into a single team, and we can have even more characters join in. If Luke Skywalker were also a member of the Avengers, how fun would that be!"

If the two universe-level IPs of Marvel and Star Wars truly joined forces, the future landscape would be genuinely impossible to predict.

Of course, Stan Lee saying such things was at Duke's behest, and it was also to promote Star Wars: The Force Awakens and The Avengers 2: Age of Ultron, which would be released in May. Judging from Duke's own plans, even if this "crossover" could be realized, it would have to wait for quite a few years.

As for whether doing so was logical or not, that wasn't an issue at all.

As long as the profits were high enough, to hell with what universe it was; Duke would throw in the Calabash Brothers and Ultraman if he could, without worrying about burning through the fans' nostalgia.

The promotional marketing for Star Wars: The Force Awakens had occupied practically all the major fronts of China's internet and traditional media.

If someone had opened any kind of app this week, they might be astonished to find posters for Star Wars: The Force Awakens dominating their splash screen ads. From Ele.me and Moji Weather to QQ Zone and Sina Weibo, all the way to Didi and Kuaidi ride-hailing apps, almost none were spared.

On the streets, one could similarly see all sorts of Star Wars elements.

From mall decorations to store merchandise, if one happened to pass by Le Royal Méridien Shanghai these past two days, they could even see two lightsabers towering over the roof, pointing straight into the clouds.

Currently, any film screening in China would carry the high hopes of Hollywood production and distribution companies. With only so many quotas for revenue-sharing imported films each year, since they had gone through immense hardship to bring the film to China, Duke and Lucasfilm naturally hoped it would earn a strong return.

Back when Star Wars was initially exploding in popularity, the scale of the Chinese film market was still very small. Coupled with the fact that the Star Wars franchise itself was getting a bit old, and its sci-fi elements and grand worldview lacked the soil to develop in China, Star Wars had thus become a film series with absolutely no audience foundation in the country.

A few years ago, the seemingly widespread quote "May the Force be with you" held no practical meaning for the vast majority of Chinese audiences.

What kind of demographic made up the moviegoing audience in China now? For the past few years, Duke had constantly tasked professional firms with collecting relevant data. The post-80s and post-90s youth—a generation that had completely missed the Star Wars era—contributed 77 percent of the Chinese box office.

Five years ago, an enormous chasm undoubtedly existed between mainstream Chinese audiences and Star Wars.

Back then, the biggest mission Duke had given Katherine Kennedy and Lucasfilm was to use every imaginable marketing resource to fill that chasm, in coordination with Time Warner.

At the very least, all those diverse marketing tactics had to arouse people's curiosity enough to get them into a movie theater and experience the baptism of the Force.

Therefore, Lucasfilm's strategy was to let Star Wars elements dominate the public's entire field of vision through all kinds of promotions and derivative products, utilizing various KOLs and fans to spark conversations.

In short, everywhere they looked and everything they heard was Star Wars.

It could be said that all of this had been premeditated for a long time, starting from the moment Duke purchased Lucasfilm.

And this long-term, relentless effort was also one of the foundational conditions for Star Wars: The Force Awakens exploding at the Chinese box office.

Furthermore, the film's success in China was also inseparable from the promotional efforts of its partners. Among the many partners of Duke and Lucasfilm, some were multinational corporations with whom Duke had maintained long-term relationships. For instance, the toy maker Lego had always been a major manufacturer and vendor for Duke's movie merchandise, and China's Yili had been one of his main sponsors ever since he filmed and produced Transformers.

Whether it was Lego or Yili, they shared a common characteristic: they both possessed formidable retail channels, as well as the capital and capability to execute high-intensity, high-density marketing. They could all provide some level of support for Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

Thus, it wasn't hard to imagine what a grand spectacle it would be when Star Wars: The Force Awakens premiered in China, with all these businesses launching their promotions in coordination with the pre-set release date established by Lucasfilm and the Warner Greater China Region.

Among all the partner manufacturers, Yili likely boasted the largest scale in building momentum for the Star Wars release in China. The dairy company printed the images of Stormtroopers and BB-8 onto its advertisements and placed them in practically every ad space available—from subway stations, bus stops, newspapers, supermarkets, malls, and convenience stores to various mobile apps and WeChat Moments.

Yili even sought out comedic influencers on Weibo as well as many Chinese celebrities to do product placements.

Naturally, this was equally an excellent promotional opportunity for Yili.

From a channel perspective, this was the most comprehensive campaign Yili had ever executed. Aside from Weikezi missing the window due to scheduling, every single category under Yili's banner participated in this collaboration, and the attention their ads received was more than a dozen times the usual amount.

Over the following days, Star Wars: The Force Awakens continued to charge forward triumphantly in China. Its single-day box office never dropped below 100 million RMB, and by the end of its first full week in theaters, its cumulative Chinese box office had already surpassed 1.5 billion RMB.

This was also the fastest record in Chinese film history to break the 1.5 billion mark.

Faced with such sky-high box office numbers, local filmmakers also flocked to the theaters to watch it, though many viewed it through a lens of prejudice.

For example, Big-Toothed Feng publicly claimed during an interview that Star Wars: The Force Awakens was completely unwatchable. Twenty minutes into the opening, he simply couldn't stand it anymore and chose to leave early.

From certain perspectives, such criticism was actually a good thing. After all, no promotional campaign could hype up the same talking point indefinitely.