Award season made Hollywood abuzz, but the entire entertainment industry still ran in an orderly manner. In early February, Inception ended its run in Syria, officially coming off screens in all global markets. After nearly a year in theaters, the film ultimately grossed $1.12114 billion worldwide.
At the same time, the release configuration of the film's upcoming limited edition DVD/Blu-ray set was also leaked through unofficial channels.
As early as last year, Inception's DVD was already released in North America. Even in a continually declining industry environment, it has still sold nearly $130 million to date.
This time, the limited edition DVD/Blu-ray set differs from the previous releases, carrying certain collectible value.
The limited edition set includes several memorabilia items: a limited edition aluminum dream machine briefcase, a user manual for the portable automatic Somnacin IV injector, a set of postcards, a top, and three discs a DVD, a Blu-ray, and a digital copy.
Once this product hit the market, it was met with fervent pursuit by Inception fans. In just ten days, it sold over $35 million in North America alone.
For blockbuster films like Inception, there are too many profitable peripheral projects.
With Inception off the screens, the heat surrounding Duke's other film has also somewhat diminished. Gravity had just completed its fifth weekend in North America, with the weekend box office dropping to $12.15 million. Although the North American gross has exceeded $330 million, its market potential was clearly close to exhaustion.
However, Tron: Legacy, in only its second weekend, saw an even steeper decline. Affected by poor audience word-of-mouth, the film's second weekend box office plummeted nearly 60% compared to the first weekend. It brought in $19 million over the weekend, and earned $87.37 million in ten days in North America.
Compared to Robin Hood, this could be considered a relatively successful commercial blockbuster.
As for whether Walt Disney and David Ellison would see it that way, Duke didn't know. What he cared about now was the Oscar nomination list.
Due to staying in San Francisco for final negotiations with Lucasfilm, Duke didn't attend the nominees luncheon held on Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills. Scarlett Johansson represented him instead. As soon as the luncheon ended, the nomination list was sent to Tina Fey in Los Angeles.
"The nominations have been announced."
Taking advantage of a break in the negotiations, Tina Fey walked up to Duke, sat on the chair beside him, and whispered, "We are the biggest winners on the nomination list."
After months of effort, this was the day they had been working for. Duke couldn't help but ask with concern, "What have we been nominated for?"
"Inception received eight nominations!"
Looking at the email on her phone, Tina Fey read them out one by one. "They are Best Cinematography, Best Sound Mixing, Best Sound Editing, Best Visual Effects, Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay, Best Art Direction, and Best Original Score."
Duke nodded slightly. These nominations were mainly technical awards, which aligned perfectly with the Academy's usual style. As for awards like Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay, Inception was doomed to be a bystander.
Tina Fey continued, "Gravity, which we focused our PR efforts on, got nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Visual Effects, Best Sound Mixing, Best Sound Editing, Best Art Direction, and Best Score. Ten nominations in total."
"We received eighteen nominations in all," Tina Fey said with a touch of regret. "Too bad you didn't get a double nomination for Best Director."
Not getting a double nomination was, in some ways, a good thing. Double nominations could easily split the votes of the judges Duke was well aware of this. He shook his head and directly said to Tina Fey, "Now that the nomination list is out, tell Nancy and Panny to scale back their activities a little."
According to Academy rules, after the nomination list is announced, film companies are not allowed to continue their PR efforts. But this is clearly impossible. Not to mention anything else, many Academy members are themselves part of the Hollywood industry. It's completely unavoidable for certain Oscar-contending studios to come into contact with Academy members during filming or preparation.
As for what's discussed in private, the Academy simply can't control it.
However, some things still shouldn't be done too blatantly. If the Academy decides to make an example out of someone, it would be a major loss.
The Academy's executive committee understands this too. As long as it's not too over-the-top, they often turn a blind eye.
This is, after all, a game of money and fame. If you take those factors out of the game, there's no point in playing at all.
Temporarily setting aside Oscar nominations, Duke then threw himself fully into the acquisition negotiations with Lucasfilm.
After over half a year of tug-of-war and evaluation, the acquisition group jointly formed by Duke and Warner Bros. had become the first choice for Lucasfilm. Warner Bros. could provide a broad and well-established platform for Lucasfilm, and the large amount of capital Duke held could meet the shareholders' pricing expectations.
When Duke raised the acquisition offer to $4 billion, only he and Walt Disney remained as interested buyers in all of Hollywood.
Lucasfilm's assets were indeed attractive, but it also had divisions like Lucas Animation, Lucas Online, and LucasArts that were operating at a loss. When it comes to acquisitions involving such massive funds, every investor must consider the input-output ratio. The high price of $4 billion had already exceeded the bottom lines of companies like 20th Century Fox, Sony Columbia, and Paramount Pictures.
In the minds of those companies, Lucasfilm wasn't worth that much. There was still huge uncertainty about whether such a big investment could be recouped.
Looking at all of Hollywood, including the final competitor Walt Disney, only Duke truly believed that the Star Wars series had boundless power and potential. He was convinced it would shine brilliantly in the future. As long as there were no major missteps in execution, the sales of Star Wars merchandise alone would soon offset the huge acquisition cost.
So, facing his last competitor, Duke raised the offer again to $4.1 billion. Walt Disney, already internally unstable, finally withdrew. Lucasfilm had basically become Duke's for the taking.
This visit to San Francisco was to finalize the deal. The two parties had already agreed on the acquisition price, and now they were discussing more detailed issues.
Such as Duke's future plans for the main operations of Lucasfilm.
Since the end of the Star Wars prequel series, Lucasfilm had only produced Indiana Jones 4, and with George Lucas being semi-retired, the company's performance naturally couldn't be called outstanding. This directly affected the income of many employees and executives at Lucasfilm.
If even income couldn't be guaranteed, then talking to employees about ideals or feeding them spiritual chicken soup was meaningless and of no practical use.
Duke understood this very clearly. After a private conversation with George Lucas, he directly wrote the plan to reboot the Star Wars series into the negotiation agreement, and promised that if necessary, he would personally serve as the director of this reboot film.
Given his past achievements and his reputation and appeal in the film market, this was undoubtedly a shot of adrenaline for Lucasfilm's management. After reaching an agreement on this point, the remaining detailed negotiations became much smoother.
In mid-February, Duke, Warner Bros., and Lucasfilm jointly held a press conference in San Francisco, officially announcing the acquisition of Lucasfilm, with a deal amount reaching 4.1 billion USD!
In the new Lucasfilm, Duke held absolute controlling shares, while Warner Bros. held symbolic equity and would become the distributor of the new Star Wars series. Kathleen Kennedy, whose philosophy aligned with George Lucas, was hired by Duke as the new CEO of Lucasfilm.
With the deal complete, Duke was well aware that he now held a massive treasure trove Star Wars!
He himself also enjoyed nearly one-third of all profits from the Harry Potter series in various aspects. Now, with the Star Wars series added, the two most commercially valuable film franchises in history could basically be considered his.
Correspondingly, once Lucasfilm returned to form, the new Star Wars plans would also be put on the agenda.
In this regard, Duke already had some ideas. The new Star Wars didn't necessarily need to be highly creative or technologically revolutionary.
In Duke's view, the most important thing for the new Star Wars was to avoid obvious flaws like Anakin Skywalker's transformation arc.
In terms of special effects, the new Star Wars didn't need to go overboard. As long as the effects surpassed the standard level of Hollywood blockbusters, that would suffice. Breakthrough technological revolutions were James Cameron's job, not something this new installment should risk attempting. Even if R2D2-style droids were redesigned, their main function would still be "cuteness."
In some ways, Duke just wanted to use modern Hollywood technology to repackage the new Star Wars, making it a retro film with a decent story!
Duke had discussed this with George Lucas. Lucas was not satisfied with his idea of a new Star Wars lacking creativity and imagination. In Lucas's view, "novelty" was the Force of Star Wars.
However, George Lucas had always admired Duke's grasp of the market and did not insist on his own opinion.
Launching the new Star Wars was something for the coming years. After completing the acquisition of Lucasfilm, Duke still needed to make the necessary adjustments. He stayed in San Francisco for a full half month before returning to Los Angeles just in time for the 83rd Academy Awards to begin!
...
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