From the failure of his last project, David Ellison learned a lot of lessons and experience. He fully realized that achieving success in Hollywood is definitely not easy, and it's not something that can be done just by having money and a script.
After the complete failure of Flyboys, he went silent for a while not because he had lost confidence, but because he needed to think through a few things. For instance, why did Flyboys lose so miserably to Batman Begins? Aside from differences in directors and other aspects, what other factors affected market response?
David Ellison soon made a discovery: Flyboys was an original film, with no existing audience or fanbase, whereas Batman Begins, despite being a reboot of a failed franchise, had Bruce Wayne a character with tens of millions of fans across the U.S.
That alone created a significant gap between the two films from the outset.
Later, David Ellison uncovered another fact: Hollywood studios rarely give original scripts a chance, while they show massive enthusiasm for popular novels and comics.
Given Ellison's intellect, it wasn't hard for him to understand the reasoning originals come with no audience base and huge investment risks, whereas popular novels and comics already have a built-in fanbase. Even if adaptations face some fan backlash, they still manage to attract a lot of attention.
So, he decided to steer the direction of his second film toward adapting a well-known work.
After a series of evaluations and competitions, David Ellison obtained the film adaptation rights to a famous science fiction novel and raised a massive budget of $150 million to begin production.
To ensure the success of this investment and to compete with Duke Rosenberg's new film, David Ellison despite strong objections from his collaborator Michael Ovitz—went to CAA and cast Will Smith, who had strong box office appeal, as the lead.
Additionally, he observed Duke's past marketing hype tactics and deliberately invited Will Smith's daughter to co-star as father and daughter in the film.
Moreover, this novel by Richard Matheson was well-known and had previously been adapted to the big screen twice, in 1964 and 1971. This time, Ellison spared no expense in hiring Akiva Goldsman, who had won an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for A Beautiful Mind, to write the script—fully preparing in every possible way.
Once filming began, everything progressed smoothly. All signs pointed to this being a profitable and even blockbuster film.
Standing in the center of Washington Square, after watching Will Smith's performance for a while, David Ellison walked over to a trailer and found Michael Ovitz, who continued to collaborate with him.
He asked directly, "Michael, did you get the answer I asked for? When is Duke Rosenberg's new film releasing?"
Michael Ovitz frowned slightly, somewhat displeased, but still answered, "Warner Bros. and Duke Studio haven't announced a specific date, but based on Duke Rosenberg's pattern over the past few years, The Dark Knight should be released at the beginning of next summer's blockbuster season."
"Early May next year?" David Ellison folded his arms and thought for a moment before saying, "Make sure our film is completely finished before April next year."
Although he didn't like David Ellison's tone, Michael Ovitz held back his displeasure. "It'll definitely be finished."
After speaking, he walked toward the filming area.
David Ellison watched his back and gently shook his head.
From the failure of Flyboys, he saw something else that the legendary Michael Ovitz was already outdated. His view on films and projects was seriously behind the times, stuck in the last century.
After realizing this, David Ellison naturally wasn't going to let Michael Ovitz take full control of his projects anymore. For this new film, he directly vetoed Ovitz's package deal policies. For instance, the lead actor was Will Smith, who had only joined CAA last year, and the director was Francis Lawrence from William Morris.
Because he still needed to use Ovitz and his Artists Management Company, David Ellison gave him a decent enough position.
But deep down, he had already made plans. After this project, his team would have gained enough experience. By then, it would be time to discard this outdated management company.
He also disliked package deal policies. In fact, anyone with even slightly stronger control tendencies would not be fond of such policies.
Take Martin Scorsese, for example. Hollywood has been circulating a rumor that to follow Michael Ovitz in his jump from CAA to Artists Management Company, old Martin had endured enough of both the package deal policy and the company's severely declining Oscar campaign capabilities and was preparing to jump ship again.
Within Hollywood circles, everyone knew that the Artists Management Company—meant to carry Ovitz's second entrepreneurial ambition had never grown into a top-tier entertainment agency. After years of ups and downs, there was almost no hope of resurgence. Promising actors and directors under its banner were all preparing to leave.
Even Michael Bay, a director no one cared about after The Island flopped, was preparing to terminate his contract with Michael Ovitz.
Otherwise, once he noticed David Ellison's intentions, Ovitz wouldn't have chosen to remain silent.
After all, it was now extremely rare for him to get his hands on a big-budget project.
While David Ellison was deep in thought, so was Michael Ovitz.
Strictly speaking, he had little say in this project. After years of rivalry with Duke Rosenberg, he gradually felt tired and old. Especially through his cooperation with David Ellison, he noticed that Hollywood was heading in a new direction, and outside capital was changing the rules of the game in this industry.
Thinking of what his old friend Martin Scorsese told him that he planned to leave Artists Management Company Michael Ovitz suddenly wondered: should he retire?
Michael Ovitz and the Artists Management Company's struggles were no secret to Duke either. The competition among talent agencies was even fiercer than among production and distribution companies. Agencies like CAA, ICM, and William Morris had all started reaching into Artists Management Company to poach talent.
"Nancy, aren't you contacting clients of the Artists Management Company?"
In his office, Duke said to his agent, "Try your best to poach Michael Bay."
"Michael Bay?" Nancy Josephson seemed a bit surprised and said, "Ever since the failure of The Island, which directly led to DreamWorks' collapse, Michael Bay has been left out in the cold. He's already widely regarded as a thing of the past."
Duke shook his head. "In Hollywood, directors who can make niche independent films and art films are a dime a dozen, but those who can integrate a variety of commercial elements into large-scale productions are rare."
Nancy Josephson thought for a moment. "I'll have someone reach out to Michael Bay."
Michael Bay could be said to be the director most affected by Duke's emergence, especially since the live-action rights to Transformers were acquired by Duke, which directly caused Michael Bay to lose the opportunity for a comeback.
The Transformers live-action movie was already part of Duke's plan, but since this was a long-term series, he had to find a suitable director for its future.
There was no doubt that no one was more suitable for the series than Michael Bay.
Nancy Josephson, now in control of ICM and the largest partner there, was highly experienced in poaching talent. Duke wasn't too worried either, since Michael Bay was currently at the lowest point in his life.
His main focus remained on film preparation.
As October arrived, the preparations entered their final phase. Including Heath Ledger and Nicolas Cage, all the main actors had joined the cast and were interacting and rehearsing to get ready for the upcoming shoot.
Moreover, all the tasks Duke had assigned were either completed or close to completion.
After conducting extensive tests, Joss found a suitable explosion method; the filming team led by John Schwartzman had become very skilled in operating IMAX cameras; Lamborghini had specifically modified a Batmobile with the front areas capable of mounting the relatively bulky IMAX cameras.
Since the Batman film had already been prepped once before, the second round of preparations went especially smoothly.
Just as The Dark Knight's various preparations were wrapping up, Iron Man also concluded its more than five-month-long theatrical run and officially left North American cinemas.
In fact, starting in August, the box office earnings of Iron Man were negligible. By this point, the ticket sales had barely increased since then. Its final North American box office figure remained at $389.95 million.
However, after being screened for this long, and even before Marvel took any further action, Iron Man had already crossed the $700 million threshold globally, reaching a total of $701.21 million.
The film's international release journey wasn't over yet, so there was still room for growth in its global box office earnings.
With the film exiting North American theaters, the DVD was officially released. Compared to other films with similar box office levels, Iron Man's DVD sales were slightly down due to overall market trends. The standard $19.9 version and deluxe $39.9 version together sold 4.5 million copies in the first week, with total sales just surpassing $100 million.
However, on the online front, the film's video-on-demand revenue showed a clear increase compared to films at the same level last year, earning around $4.2 million through paid streaming in just one week.
Although that figure wasn't particularly eye-catching, the potential for future growth was enormous.
Shortly after Iron Man left theaters, the long-prepared The Dark Knight officially entered its shooting phase
....
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