hollywood melon man

Chapter 537 Tony Shit Starts

In its fourth week of release, "Batman Begins" took in $1563.4 million, pushing its North American box office to $1 million.

In the second week of overseas release, the film was released in dozens of new markets, but these markets were small and their contributions were limited.

Overseas this week, it earned $8939.5 million, pushing the film's global total over $4 million to $1608 million.

By this time, "Batman Begins" had basically recovered its investment through box office revenue and even made a profit.

Of course, what is surprising is the surrounding area. The Batmobile, which has a minimum price of $100,000, has sold more than 157 units, with 83 sold in North America alone.

The rest were bought by wealthy people from Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

The most amazing thing is that, because the Batmobile is not sold in mainland China, a local tycoon couldn't help but smuggle one in, but it was seized by customs.

This incident was even reported on TV news and became an interesting story.

The sales of these 1600 Batmobiles alone exceeded million US dollars. Although they had to share the profits with Lamborghini, it was definitely a huge profit.

Other products such as dolls, mechanical models, Batman suits, and co-branded watches, mobile phones, computers, sunglasses, etc. generated a total value of US$1 million.

Following the release of the film, the new Batman story published by DC Comics sold over four million copies in the United States.

This is the commercial effect of a hit commercial movie, and the peripheral products of superhero movies have always sold well, and the profit scale is very considerable.

The top executives of Warner Bros. were all smiling because the film not only performed well at the box office, but more importantly, it also performed quite well in the surrounding markets.

In the future, there will be copyright income and a steady stream of peripheral income, which will bring the Batman IP back to life.

DC is also very happy. They have already started planning the League of Justice League and are planning to create a movie universe like Marvel next door.

But at that time, no one knew whether the movie universe model could be successful. Everyone was crossing the river by feeling the stones, but little Gilbert was the only one who was confident.

But he was not sure whether the DC Universe could succeed because there had not been any successful cases in the past.

Besides, the version of Batman he shot is not suitable for integration into the Justice Universe because of its overly realistic style.

After all, in the movies, Batman's abilities were greatly weakened. If Superman appeared in the second "Dark Knight", it would be a dimensionality reduction attack.

So DC's idea is to restart the Superman movie first, and then shoot solo movies for heroes such as Wonder Woman, Flash, Cyborg, etc. bit by bit.

After the Dark Knight trilogy is completed, DC will add Batman to tell the story of the league of justice.

From a certain perspective, Gilbert Jr. actually ruined DC's Justice Universe plan because his realistic Batman movies were successful, which made it quite difficult for Batman to integrate into the Justice Universe.

But there is no way, saving the Batman IP is important.

You know, before Gilbert Jr. took over the Batman project, Warner and DC were pessimistic about their own superhero movies.

Sometimes you can't have the best of both worlds. If you want one, you have to give up the other.

However, Warner Bros. is still confident, and they plan to wait and see how the Marvel Studios movie universe starts. Anyway, superhero movies are either DC or Marvel, and there are no other competitors.

After paying some attention to the follow-up of "Batman Begins", Gilbert Jr. devoted his energy to the preparation of "The Last of Us" and "Iron Man".

This is the first time Marvel Studios has made a movie, so they are inevitably a little inexperienced, so Gilbert Jr. needs to be more involved.

First of all, the first problem is the choice of actors.

As expected, Robert Downey Jr. made it to the final audition, as did Kate Beckinsale, who was recommended by Sheena Boone.

Before the final audition, Marvel Studios held a press conference, where Gilbert Jr., the film's director Jon Favreau, Kevin Feige, screenwriters Avi Arad and Stan Lee all attended.

First of all, the first question is why we choose Iron Man as the hero.

Gilbert's explanation is simple and realistic: "Without Peter Parker and the X-Men, Tony Stark is undoubtedly the most popular Marvel superhero.

It is based on practical considerations that led us to choose to shoot the story of Iron Man. "

Gilbert Jr. left it to director Jon Favreau to answer questions about how to create an Iron Man movie.

Jon Favreau said: "Tony Stark is different from a mutant or superhero with divine powers. His abilities come from his genius brain and the super armor he developed.

Frankly speaking, Tony Stark is a flawed superhero. If he hadn't grown up, he would probably still be a playboy.

So the film focuses on the story of how Tony Stark became Iron Man.”

A reporter asked: "Will the film be the same as 'Batman Begins'? After all, both are about the origins of superheroes."

Gilbert Jr. replied: "I promise, it will be a completely different story. The thing I hate most is to repeat the same experience over and over again.

So Tony Stark will not be a heavy hero like Bruce Wayne. I guarantee that the audience will see a sufficiently optimistic and venomous superhero. "

The press conference was held to build momentum for the movie "Iron Man". The quality of the films produced by Gilbert Jr. in recent years has generally been good.

When audiences see Gilbert Jr.'s name listed as the producer, they always feel an inexplicable sense of trust, and many of them will choose to go to the cinema to watch it.

Marvel Studios raised $1 million in funding for the film, as Tom Cruise was initially considered.

But after Tang expressed her lack of interest, she saved herself the high salary expense.

This investment of 1 million US dollars was calculated a few years ago. If you want to achieve very good special effects, you must invest so much money.

But now special effects technology is more advanced, and the corresponding investment has decreased.

Marvel Studios adopted Gilbert Jr.'s suggestion and invested funds in stages. The first stage of 40 million US dollars was immediately transferred to the account of a third-party insurance company, allowing the film to begin early preparations.

The preparatory work went quite smoothly under the guidance of Gilbert Jr., and Orange Studios also undertook the special effects production of the film, and the initial $40 million was enough to spend.

A few days after the press conference, "Iron Man" held the final audition for the male lead.

Robert Downey Jr. was nervously making expressions in front of the mirror. He performed very well in the preliminary audition and thus entered the final audition.

Hearing that it was young Gilbert who named him personally, he was very excited.

Wife Susan Downey accompanied Robert Downey Jr. to the audition and was helping him adjust his suit.

Because he has no agent and can't even afford an assistant, Robert Downey Jr. basically does it all by himself. Susan Downey knows the importance of today and personally accompanies Robert Downey Jr. to the audition.

"Okay," Susan Downey nodded with satisfaction and said, "Your image is very good. I guarantee that Director Gilbert Jr. will be very satisfied after seeing it."

"Really?" Robert Downey Jr. adjusted his tie a little unconfidently.

"Of course it's true. I looked at the audition list. Except for Nicolas Cage, no one else is your competitor. Don't worry." Susan Downey said.

"Yeah," with his wife's encouragement, Robert Downey Jr. finally plucked up the courage to take on the role of Tony Stark.

(End of this chapter)