After a brief moment of contemplation, Matthew realized that Guillermo del Toro was aiming to carve out a new niche in commercial filmmaking. While monster movies had been done before, with examples like King Kong and Godzilla, a giant robot piloted by humans—or "mechas," as they were called—had never taken the lead role in a major Hollywood blockbuster. These robots, built to battle monsters, were much closer to Gundams rather than humanoid robots like Robocop or autonomous beings like Transformers.
"Guillermo, is this an original work?" Matthew asked, getting straight to what he saw as the key issue.
"Yes, it's something I came up with, inspired by Japanese monster and Gundam manga," Guillermo del Toro responded directly. "It's not an adaptation—it's an original concept."
Upon hearing that, Matthew's initial spark of excitement quickly cooled.
An original science fiction blockbuster with a budget of $200 million! How risky would that be? It could easily turn into another Brad Pitt disaster.
Christopher Nolan had managed to pull off original blockbusters, but how many Nolans were there in Hollywood?
Even as someone who hadn't always followed the behind-the-scenes world of Hollywood, Matthew knew who Christopher Nolan was, but Guillermo del Toro's name didn't carry the same weight.
Granted, Matthew had worked with Guillermo del Toro before and knew he was a talented and capable director, but the risk of a $200 million-budget original film was too high.
"Matthew..." Guillermo del Toro began to say something more, but Matthew didn't respond, still considering the investment risk.
He didn't know the box office performance of Pacific Rim in the past, only that it was a hot topic on pirated websites overseas.
But the inherent risks of an original film reminded him of another instance—movies that were popular across the Pacific but flopped in North America, such as Warcraft.
What if this turned out to be another Warcraft? If he invested, wouldn't he regret it?
The revenue share from overseas was only about 25%, which would never be enough to recoup a $200 million production budget.
Moreover, Warcraft was based on an established franchise with a dedicated fanbase willing to pay out of nostalgia.
But Pacific Rim was entirely original!
It wasn't that Matthew had anything against original films, but all of Hollywood was wary of original big-budget productions. Ask any of the executives at the big six studios—how many would easily greenlight a $200 million budget for an original movie?
After the success of Inception, the media declared it a victory for original filmmaking, predicting that Hollywood would become more interested in long-forgotten original stories from directors and writers. But Matthew, like other decision-makers in the industry, knew better—Hollywood's skepticism toward original films wasn't going away. Sequels and adaptations remained the core of big-budget blockbusters.
"Guillermo," Matthew finally spoke, "A budget of around $200 million isn't a small number. I can't give you an answer right now. I need to think about it carefully."
Even if Pacific Rim had been a hit sequel, he wouldn't have agreed right away. That would have been foolish.
This was $200 million, not 200 million yen.
Guillermo del Toro was a little disappointed, but since Matthew hadn't outright refused, he knew there was still a chance. He nodded and said, "Alright, I hope we can work together again."
Matthew smiled, "Even if you don't work with me, I'm sure you won't have trouble finding investors."
His tone carried a subtle but polite rejection, and Guillermo del Toro picked up on it. After exchanging pleasantries, he left.
Matthew hadn't completely dismissed the idea, though. Since he had worked with Guillermo before and knew what to expect, he asked Bella Anderson to conduct a targeted investigation into the potential of the project.
When past memories couldn't provide him with answers, Matthew had to rely on the skills and experience he had honed in Hollywood in this life.
While no one can predict with 100% certainty whether a movie will succeed or fail before its release, the industry had developed enough by then that experienced insiders, like Matthew, could avoid some obvious pitfalls based on repeated patterns of success and failure.
After reviewing Bella Anderson's findings, it didn't take long for Matthew to decide to pass on Guillermo del Toro's project.
He discovered that something like Gundam simply didn't have a broad enough audience in North America.
This presented an unchangeable reality: no matter how grand the film's visuals or effects, a robot-versus-monster movie was inherently a niche genre. You could even argue that Gundam fighting kaiju bordered on cult status.
Guillermo del Toro was trying to treat this quasi-cult genre as a mainstream blockbuster, with a planned budget of around $200 million. Would mainstream audiences buy into it?
It wasn't hard to guess the outcome.
Movies with a heavy anime influence had little to no market in North America. How many Americans had watched something like Gundam? Teens in the U.S. were far more likely to be into American comics.
Even among anime fans, the audience wasn't very large.
If this project had a budget of $30–60 million, it might not have been a problem, but using a top-tier production scale meant taking on far too much risk.
It wasn't a question of the film being bad. Plenty of bad movies had made money in North America. It wasn't wise to overestimate the taste of the average American moviegoer.
The bigger issue was the genre. The market's tolerance for this kind of content was still very limited.
And it wasn't just North America. The audience for mecha and kaiju in Western markets was sparse overall.
Having made this assessment, Matthew didn't delay any longer. He quickly responded to Guillermo del Toro, explaining that his cash flow was tight, and due to scheduling conflicts, he wouldn't be able to invest or star in Pacific Rim.
This was a way of letting Guillermo del Toro know not to waste time waiting around for him and to start looking for other investors.
Even though they didn't end up working together, Matthew wasn't going to hold Guillermo back. The Mexican director had been straightforward and professional when they met.
Hollywood had plenty of directors and producers who would promise investors that they could make a film for $80 million, only to come back asking for an extra $50 million once production was underway. Investors, not wanting to lose their initial investment, would often begrudgingly cough up the additional funds.
One of the most famous examples of this was James Cameron with Titanic. Initially, Cameron had proposed a budget of just over $100 million, but midway through production, he essentially held 20th Century Fox hostage, forcing them to add more funding.
According to a former Fox executive, Cameron's demands for more money nearly drove the board to "sell their souls" to get the necessary funds.
Fox had wanted to replace Cameron several times, but no one wanted to take the blame for what could have been a colossal failure.
In contrast, Guillermo del Toro had been upfront with Matthew, providing a realistic estimate of the film's budget from the start, rather than lowballing him.
Of course, there was still a chance Pacific Rim could succeed, but based on his market analysis, Matthew judged that even if it did, the potential returns wouldn't justify the risks of a $200 million investment.
Compared to the huge financial risk and pressure, the possible returns were simply too small.
Matthew would rather invest in Zack Snyder and Warner Bros.' Man of Steel than throw that much money into a mecha-versus-kaiju film.
As far as emotional investments go, Matthew's robot nostalgia was with the Autobots and Decepticons, not Gundams.
Having turned down Guillermo del Toro, Matthew checked in on the progress of three other projects: The Hunger Games, Twilight, and Insidious. The first had already begun filming, while the other two were in the final stages of marketing and preparation for release.
Insidious was set for a pre-Halloween release, a time when ten or more horror films were typically jockeying for box-office attention. It was still unclear which films would sink or swim in that crowded field.
However, every year, one or two low-budget horror films would emerge as Halloween box-office hits. This was the main reason so many small-budget productions packed into that same release window.
If a film failed, the financial loss wasn't significant. And outside the theater, there was always the home video and rental market to slowly recoup costs.
But if it succeeded, the profits could easily multiply the initial investment several times over.
Among Insidious's many potential competitors, Matthew spotted one film that caught his attention: Piranha 3D, produced by The Weinstein Company.
That film was shaping up to be the "colossus" of the Halloween release window, with a production budget of $24 million—far higher than most of the other horror films, few of which had even cracked $10 million in production costs.
This larger budget translated into a wider release, but fortunately, Insidious would hit theaters a little earlier, dodging a direct clash.
Because of its low budget, even with Warner Bros. as its distributor, Insidious would open in a limited release, and only after gauging audience reception would more resources be committed.
This cautious approach was the safest option—no one wanted to waste resources.
Another film nearing release was The Twilight Saga: Eclipse. Scheduled to debut during the Thanksgiving holiday, it was under far less pressure than Insidious.
Everyone knew Eclipse would perform well at the box office. The only question was whether it would surpass the previous installments in the franchise.
After checking
in on all three projects, Matthew turned his attention to G.I. Joe 2: Retaliation, where he was set to begin final preparations for filming.
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