The trailer began to play, and the chaotic venue instantly fell silent. Everyone's eyes were fixed on the alloy screen at the front, afraid of missing a single frame.
As the entertainment editor of the Los Angeles Times, Sally naturally sat in the front row of the media section, arms crossed, intently watching the mysterious trailer.
The trailer opened with the Warner Bros. logo and the dark backdrop of The Dark Knight. Then the screen showed Gotham's iconic architecture and cityscape, with subtitles reading: "Every hero has their own journey."
Next, Bruce Wayne appeared, walking through a village, seemingly tracking the whereabouts of the main villain.
The subtitles continued: "Every hero also has their own ending."
Then the voice of the first villain, the leader of the ninja group—the Ninja Master—sounded off-screen: "If you allow yourself to be more than just a person, if you faithfully uphold your ideals, you will completely transform, and you will become a legend, Mr. Wayne, a legend!"
The shot turned to a hospital bed, where Gary Oldman's Jim Gordon lay injured, his expression and voice full of pain. He said to the person opposite: "We fought side by side in the past, then you left… but now evil forces have grown. It's time for Batman… to return."
At this moment, Gordon's voice was pained and suppressed.
The person opposite, never shown in the shot, replied: "What if he no longer exists?"
This seemed to echo the ending of the second film?
Sally could not help but lift her chin. At the end of The Dark Knight, Batman became a departing warrior, a hidden hero. However, actors, cinematographers, and writers had more or less mentioned in interviews that Duke's Batman trilogy was a complete series, and the third film would serve as an essential summary and reflection of the first two.
The previous dialogue lacked narrative connection, giving it a somewhat significant feeling. Then came fast-cut shots revealing hints: Batman's motorcycle, Gordon destroying Batman's symbol, and in a rapid flash, the face of this film's main villain, "Bane the Destroyer."
Next, the shot returned to a previously released poster: a crumbling skyscraper, a destroyed industrial city, and a splash of bright-colored Batman design. The camera gradually zoomed in on the brightness, and in flashing white, the title appeared.
After watching the trailer, Sally recalled the first Batman Begins, whose poster also used a giant bat shadowing Gotham, but that poster had an orange background and flat design. In the final installment's poster, Batman faces an apocalyptic, collapsing Gotham.
Every hero has their journey and beginning: why do we fall? So that we can learn to stand again. Every hero also has their ending: who you are is not important; what you do matters.
This is not the end. It is the beginning of the promotional explosion for The Dark Knight Rises.
Half a month before the film's release, Warner released a 13-minute ultra-long production featurette. For fans eager to learn about every aspect of the film's production, this video was the ultimate feast.
In the featurette, Duke appeared with the film's creators and lead actors, detailing everything from story origin to stunt filming, set construction, visual effects, large-scale shoots, and more, including a wealth of never-before-seen behind-the-scenes footage and work photos.
In addition, fans could visit The Dark Knight Rises official website to download a 49-page official production note, including cast and crew interviews, revised scripts, film design sketches, and more.
The Dark Knight Rises also held its first round of media screenings in North America. The film received unanimous praise from attending media, and Warner Bros. announced it would release in 97 overseas markets concurrently with North America during the first weekend of May.
Of course, The Dark Knight Rises could not win everyone's favor. Some criticized the film as a silly and dumb Hollywood industrial product.
Duke never denied this. Almost all of his films have been assembly-line products. And not just these commercial blockbusters—even Oscar Best Picture winners or The Shawshank Redemption, praised by niche fans, are also outputs of Hollywood's industrial line.
Warner Bros. spared no effort promoting The Dark Knight Rises. In fact, for many years, major Hollywood studios had adopted the "big film mentality": treating secondary films as first-tier, heavily promoting them, releasing them widely, and earning substantial profits.
With the summer season approaching, another wave of summer films arrived, along with artistic-minded audiences complaining about sequels, superheroes, and excessive effects. They grumbled about the films while lining up to buy tickets.
In their mouths, all commercial films are brainless.
When tracing the long summer film season, these people consistently identified the scapegoats: Steven Spielberg's Jaws and, two years later, George Lucas's Star Wars.
Jaws was not the first film to have a full North American release.
In 1971, Billy Jack opened in 1,200 theaters, far more than Jaws' 465.
Star Wars initially opened in only 43 theaters—in today's terms, a "big sleeper hit" in 1977. Yet both films were the first to break $100 million in box office revenue, pioneering the "cinema as thrilling journey," attracting repeated viewings, a feat unmatched by The Godfather.
No matter how critics hate commercial films, the success of Jaws and Star Wars is indisputable. The latter's influence dwarfs all Oscar Best Picture winners, with its name even used by one country to strategically fool another.
After years of development, summer films naturally formed distinct patterns.
For example, size now matters.
In Jurassic World, Duke noted, the T-Rex gave way to a larger, more brutal Indominus Rex, because as one character says: "No one is impressed by dinosaurs anymore."
The first Jurassic Park was different. The breakout star was not the T-Rex, but the smaller velociraptor—smart, fast, and deadly.
Early blockbusters relied on stories like David and Goliath, using speed and strategy to counter size. Speed and strategy won.
Spielberg arranged all physical underdogs in Jaws, and Star Wars was essentially a tribute to the small.
Like Jurassic Park and Jurassic World, blockbusters of the 80s and 90s differ markedly from those of the new century, reflecting how earlier commercial films were distinctly American, like an apple pie.
When Jurassic Park screened in France in 1993, the French Minister of Culture claimed it threatened French national character and stated every French citizen had a "patriotic duty" to resist it in favor of French period dramas.
But a year later, Hollywood's overseas profits surpassed domestic profits.
Now, films like Michael Bay's Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and Transformers: Dark of the Moon earn more than half of their profits overseas.
Duke obtained relevant data: China, the fastest-growing film market in the world, is expected to surpass North America by 2020, and Hollywood is adjusting and promoting its production plans accordingly.
In the script of Iron Man 3, Chinese officials are no longer portrayed as so malicious; in the Transformers series, some Chinese banks and other brands appear as product placements. Previously, in Godzilla and Pacific Rim, the monsters traveled across major cities along the Pacific coast. Why? Because China opens about ten new cinemas every day.
Hollywood's business strategies are constantly changing, and if they are not grasped in time, one will stumble.
For example, David Ellison always believed blockbusters were for boys, but he failed to notice changes in the market in recent years, which directly led to Fast & Furious 5 losing momentum.
In the past, Hollywood had a term specifically describing its core consumers—fanboys. From this name, one can see the predominant gender of this group.
These are sci-fi fans who collect related merchandise, arrange DVDs in alphabetical order, look pale, dislike shaking hands, and are said to rush out from rooms filled with Nintendo consoles to make Marvel's new releases top the box office.
Indeed, since Star Wars, major studios have targeted teenage boys. Michael Bay once said, "I make movies for teenage boys."
But that was before Twilight was released. The misconception that only boys could make blockbusters popular has been repeatedly shattered. Films like The Hunger Games now have nearly two-thirds of their audience female.
However, does that mean these blockbusters are really brainless?
"Opening with all unknown characters, yet ultimately each becomes a superhero.
At this year's Oscars, the one-shot director whom Duke had rejected finally won Best Director with Birdman, appearing ahead of schedule, calling comic-book movies a "cultural extinction" in his film.
This film, in terms of quality and content, is rather ordinary, and both audiences and professional critics were not impressed.
Its victory precisely reflects how deeply rooted the Academy's prejudice against box-office blockbusters is.
The Oscars may always mistakenly consider themselves the Nobel Peace Prize, looking down on films that cater to the lowest common denominator, yet how different in essence are Hollywood's assembly-line productions?
In short, they are all assembly-line products. The only difference is that commercial films cater to the masses, while Oscar films cater to niche audiences.
Today's mindless entertainment often becomes tomorrow's beloved classics.
Inception is like a master watchmaker's delicate work; the exhilarating filmmaking of Mad Max is in no way inferior to any previous film; Pixar's artistry, skill, and dedication in filmmaking are no less than those of any Oscar Best Picture winner.
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