Things really heated up this time. Media from Australia, the United Kingdom, France, and even Germany—major influential outlets across the Western world—all joined in, launching a massive public debate.
Among them was also the involvement of Indian media.
The Hindustan Times outright invited Gilbert: "Since Hollywood doesn't need Gilbert anymore, why not come to India!
India's Bollywood is also a global center of the film industry and can fully accommodate Gilbert."
Of course, these remarks from The Hindustan Times were naturally met with ridicule and sarcasm from other Western media. But Indians are thick-skinned and didn't really care about such accusations.
Even more interestingly, Indian netizens had already begun treating Gilbert as one of their own, which naturally sparked dissatisfaction among North American netizens.
As a result, the two sides started a war of words across the internet, making the situation extremely lively.
However, the combat effectiveness of Indian netizens was astonishing. North American netizens were actually no match for them, which was truly eye-opening.
Other Western media outlets also offered various commentaries on the matter, each backed by different organizations and driven by different agendas. But most neutral media generally believed that if Gilbert were to leave North America, it would be a loss for Hollywood.
With the momentum growing this large, North American officials had no choice but to step forward.
At the latest press conference, the donkey publicly stated: "Gilbert is a representative of the American Dream and American culture. Any malicious slander or attack against him is a challenge to the American Dream itself."
Well then. Although Gilbert and the California faction were fighting fiercely, the California faction also understood clearly that Hollywood and North America could not afford to lose Gilbert.
In today's globalized society, Gilbert's importance was comparable to that of Jerusalem and FIFA.
Even if the California faction and Gilbert fought to the death, they still could not bear the consequences of losing him, and thus had no choice but to placate Gilbert's emotions.
Wasn't that so? Soon afterward, the California faction sent a representative to meet with Gilbert.
"Mr. Wilson, you should know how much damage this incident has caused to my reputation."
Gilbert held a teacup in his hand and gestured for Mr. Wilson to have some tea.
Mr. Wilson took a sip and frowned slightly. He still wasn't used to this kind of tea; coffee suited him better.
For someone like Gilbert, any flowery words were useless. He asked directly, "What are your conditions?"
"Very simple. Get those people on Wall Street to stop inflating prices. And while you're at it, tell them that if they acquire shares of Melon Studio, I'll just start over from scratch.
Trying to bind me with a single studio is impossible."
Gilbert felt that more excessive conditions wouldn't be accepted anyway. Otherwise, he might as well demand that a few seats in the state legislature be vacated so that legislators he sponsored could take them.
Even so, this condition alone was enough to make Mr. Wilson feel troubled.
"Director Gilbert, you should know that we don't have particularly deep ties with Wall Street. They may not necessarily listen to me."
"Where there's a will, there's a way!"
Gilbert didn't seem to care much. "You and I both know I'm not going to leave North America. After all, my career is here, and so are you lovely people."
Hearing Gilbert say this, Mr. Wilson knew that Gilbert's emotions had basically stabilized.
After all, he wasn't the kind of impulsive person who ignored consequences; otherwise, he wouldn't have achieved what he had today.
After this farce-like incident, Mr. Wilson likely spoke with the funds on Wall Street that were seeking to acquire Warner's shares in Melon Studio.
In any case, the recent share exchanges proceeded much more smoothly. According to David, who was in charge of the matter, Melon Studio would completely break away from the Warner system at the latest by the middle of next year.
As for the rights to Harry Potter, Disney and Warner would develop them jointly, with corresponding investments allocated based on each film's historical input.
Meanwhile, Warner Bros. completely gave up the rights to other film projects related to Melon Studio, such as the Fast & Furious series, The Lord of the Rings series, and a whole host of other films.
At the same time, Warner received a portion of cash compensation along with some asset swaps.
This grand and dramatic decoupling case that had lasted for several years was finally coming to an end. Who was right and who was wrong, and who ultimately profited, history would give a fair answer.
However, Warner Bros. Vice President Wassel still made a special visit to Gilbert. He was worried that after the decoupling was complete, Gilbert would no longer cooperate with Warner.
"This doesn't affect my cooperation with Warner, Wassel."
Wassel's heart had just settled, but then Gilbert added another sentence: "The Dark Knight Rises will be my last film in cooperation with Warner—there should be a proper beginning and a proper end."
There was no turning back now. Wassel sighed and could only ask, "Then when will it begin?"
"Right after The Avengers!"
After hearing Gilbert say this, Wassel finally felt reassured.
Given the enormous success of The Dark Knight, Warner obviously wouldn't hand its own signature franchise to an unreliable director. Gilbert was still the best choice.
As for Gilbert, making The Dark Knight Rises was actually quite simple. The reason for waiting was, first, because he was busy with work, and second, because he needed the audience's impression of The Dark Knight to fade just a little.
By now, this film had already been elevated to godlike status, becoming the ceiling of superhero movies.
Fans were all very worried: after making The Dark Knight, how could a sequel possibly surpass The Dark Knight Rises?
In fact, in his previous life, Nolan himself already had an answer—let the Joker return. But unfortunately, Heath Ledger passed away tragically, and that plan ultimately never came to fruition.
But in this timeline, Heath Ledger did not die and was living just fine.
Gilbert could, of course, let the Joker return again, but he did not do so.
First, he did not know how that version of the Joker's story should develop. If he rashly wrote the script according to his own ideas, the risk of failure would be very high.
After so many years in Hollywood, Gilbert understood one truth: he had to guard against becoming overly confident, believing himself invincible, and then rashly attempting things he was unfamiliar with or didn't truly understand.
Countless facts had told him that if he did so, the likelihood of eventual failure would be extremely high.
Of course, he could also go talk to Christopher Nolan and see how Nolan would handle the continuation of the story.
But there was a problem. After all, this Batman series was not personally directed by Christopher Nolan. Without sufficient familiarity with a project, one usually couldn't give very good advice.
So Gilbert quickly put the idea of the Joker's return aside and continued to use the setting of the original version from his previous life, bringing Bane onto the stage.
Of course, that didn't prevent the film from using the Joker for hype—for example, teasing the Joker's return to add attention to the movie.
However, Gilbert's current task was still to focus on The Avengers first.
Time moved into June, and Melon Studio's new film The Twilight Saga: Eclipse was released, achieving an excellent opening weekend box office of 83.63 million dollars in North America.
However, the film's overseas box office performance fell short of expectations. In its first week of release across forty countries and regions, it only earned 92.05 million dollars.
Originally, the overseas opening week was expected to surpass 100 million dollars, but it failed to do so.
That was normal, though, because the South Africa World Cup cycle was approaching. During the World Cup, aside from football-desert North America, the entire world would go crazy for football.
Naturally, the World Cup cycle would also affect box office performance in overseas markets.
...
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