With the release of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2, three films either invested in or starring Matthew are now showing in the North American market. While the other two films are nearing the end of their run, they can't be overlooked because of their explosive box-office success.
American Sniper, released in mid-September, has been playing for over two months and has grossed $389.56 million in North America alone. Its worldwide box office is now comfortably over $700 million.
Another film, The Conjuring, has reached its fourth weekend in North American theaters, grossing $7.2 million, bringing its total North American box office to $127.83 million.
This film has also been released in many overseas markets and its global box office is approaching $300 million.
Considering its $15 million production budget and similar marketing costs, The Conjuring has been a huge financial success.
Such profitable films, of course, cannot just stop there. After receiving Matthew's initial funding, James Wan has already begun preparations for The Conjuring 2.
Both Nicolas Cage and Vera Farmiga are confirmed to return.
Especially Nicolas Cage, who made a special visit to thank Matthew in person.
Matthew also learned that since taking his advice to go across the Pacific and take on two poorly-received films at a high price, combined with the positive effects of The Conjuring, Cage's debt and reputation are slowly improving. It seems that, before long, he will be able to pull himself out of his financial mess.
Of course, returning to the glory days of the 1990s is impossible.
The era of Nicolas Cage is over, and it will never come back.
Matthew also took some time to visit the set of The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. The film had already started shooting, and as a sequel to a major hit, it was garnering a lot of attention within the industry and beyond.
Patty Jenkins' abilities were unquestionable, and Jennifer Lawrence's character was extremely popular, so the series seemed secure for now.
Additionally, Matthew met with Warner Bros.' distribution team to quickly confirm the release date for Catching Fire.
Spring next year was definitely out of the question, and even the summer slot would need to be pushed to either June or July. It would require a special release window, so Matthew suggested slotting the film into the Thanksgiving release window. Since the Twilight Saga was now complete, the Thanksgiving slot was open and could easily accommodate Catching Fire.
After a few rounds of discussion and several phone calls, they agreed to release The Hunger Games: Catching Fire in next year's Thanksgiving weekend.
After the conclusion of The Twilight Saga, Matthew once again took control of the Thanksgiving release window.
It wasn't exactly "dominating"—he simply announced that Catching Fire would be released on the weekend before Thanksgiving. It was a free market, so any film wanting to release in that period could still come.
Top commercial blockbusters generally aim for the summer, and with The Hunger Games' massive success, smaller films wouldn't dare go head-to-head with such a high-profile sequel.
Warner Bros. also had The Conjuring and Insidious on their release schedule. Insidious 2 was slated for spring next year, while The Conjuring 2 would again occupy the Halloween weekend.
Additionally, Fast & Furious 6 and Fast & Furious 7 had their dates locked in for the Independence Day slots in the next two years.
With the Twilight Saga now wrapped up, Matthew had also moved to adapt some fan fiction based on the series into films.
When the contract was first signed, Matthew had obtained fan fiction rights from Stephenie Meyer. Although Meyer was unhappy with the explicit fan fiction featuring Edward Cullen and Isabella Swan, she didn't pursue the matter further.
This was likely because Matthew promised her that the names of the main characters would be changed soon.
The fan fiction had originally used the names of Edward Cullen and Isabella Swan to ride on the Twilight series' popularity, but once the novel itself gained enough attention, the Twilight connection ceased to be useful.
So, this fan fiction, originally titled The King of the Universe, started undergoing extensive edits in early 2011 under Matthew's direction.
The main characters' names were changed from Edward Cullen and Isabella Swan to Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele, and the novel was renamed Fifty Shades of Grey.
As for the plot, it's essentially a typical romance about a dominant CEO and a naive young woman.
The story follows Anastasia Steele, a 21-year-old college student who interviews 28-year-old entrepreneur Christian Grey for her school newspaper. She encounters a beautiful, intelligent, and intimidating man.
According to the novel's description, the innocent Anastasia is surprised to realize she wants him, despite his mysterious nature. She still yearns to get closer to him.
Grey, too, is unable to resist Anastasia's calm beauty, intelligence, and independence. He wants her badly.
However, Grey has peculiar tastes...
The novel itself is pretty poorly written, but thanks to some of its provocative content, it quickly garnered millions of readers when serialized online. After being renamed and published as Fifty Shades of Grey, the book didn't suffer any negative impact from the title change; in fact, it attracted even more readers.
One particularly explicit passage contributed to its success:
"Do not use fire; do not engage in any activities involving excrement; no needles, knives, or bloodletting; do not use children or animals as props; no permanent scarring on the skin; do not restrict breathing..."
In short, it's a novel heavily focused on BDSM, with detailed depictions of sexual acts. As for the specific plot, it's best left unsaid.
Matthew himself had little cultural sophistication and lacked writing skills. The woman he hired to ghostwrite the novel wasn't great either, otherwise, she wouldn't have agreed to work as an anonymous ghostwriter without even owning the copyright. However, the writer had one strength—she was able to fully immerse herself in the role of Isabella, or Anastasia, writing in the first person and providing detailed descriptions of the sensitive content.
Taboos spark curiosity, and curiosity often drives the desire to buy.
The novel was divided into three parts. After Fifty Shades of Grey, the sequels were titled Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed. The trilogy was fully published in May of that year.
There's no exaggeration in saying that the trilogy created a major wave in the global literary market.
On the first day of sales, the trilogy sold 300,000 copies in Los Angeles and New York alone. A month later, global sales surpassed 30 million copies.
This is a terrifying number, surpassing even the sales of the first three books in the Harry Potter series.
No one expected a book like this to achieve such success, not even Matthew, who found the result astonishing.
As expected, the ghostwriter filed a lawsuit, claiming that Matthew had used fraudulent means to infringe on her copyright. However, the case was settled quickly. Given Matthew's cynical worldview, how could he not anticipate such a reaction?
The ghostwriter was simply a woman who liked to write intimate articles on her blog, not part of any copyright or literary guilds. The contract they signed was not a private agreement but a formal one, backed by a law firm and notarized. There were even public videos of the ghostwriter signing away the rights to the book.
This was destined to be an easy win for the copyright holders.
Matthew had no hesitation, as capital never hesitates in the face of profit. The contract was clear and complete.
Some might argue that asking for 15% of the copyright revenue wasn't unreasonable, but when the book had been published for over two months, Universal Pictures and Focus Features jointly offered Matthew $80 million for the film rights to Fifty Shades of Grey.
The price was almost the same as Sony Columbia's purchase of The Da Vinci Code rights back in the day. When The Da Vinci Code came out, it caused a huge stir, and Sony Columbia claimed they paid $140 million for the rights.
In reality, it was only about $30 million, with over $6 million just for Akiva Goldsman's fee as the screenwriter.
However, Matthew turned down both Universal and Focus Features. Given the movie rating restrictions, the film might not achieve massive box-office success, but the DVD sales would be far less restricted. He believed the DVD release would likely set a record for high sales in recent years.
The trilogy had amassed a large fanbase, and even now, in North America, a set of the three books sold every two seconds. It dominated the Amazon book charts and the New York Times bestseller list, even surpassing The Hunger Games series, holding the top spot for weeks.
Currently, the book has sold nearly 100 million copies worldwide, with Matthew's studio taking home more than 40% of the profits from each book sold.
At $25 per book and $59.90 for the box set, this alone generated astronomical revenue, even without considering the movie.
Matthew also asked Helen Herman to keep an eye out for suitable screenwriters and directors.
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