Dominating Hollywood: Starting with Scarlett

Chapter 287 9 million box office

The first to bear the brunt were other film companies.

Not only Marvel, but also Warner, which owns the DC copyright, has chosen to use its own superhero IP to compete with Norton Eye and Marvel for the market after realizing the threat of Norton Eye.

When the news came out that Zack Snyder was filming a movie for Norton's Eye, Warner responded quickly and immediately announced the project of "Batman v Superman".

At present, anyone can see that the film market is becoming a chaotic duel arena for superheroes. The audience's demand for superheroes is growing, and the trend of IP production has also arrived. In the new era, whoever owns more IP series can attract more box office.

However, in addition to the three-way fight in the film market, in the comics market, Warrior Comics is also competing with the two major IPs for market share.

Although Warriors Comics could not compete with the two major IPs in traditional superhero themes, under Tang De's command, they bought multiple comic IPs such as "The Boys" and successfully acquired the image copyright of "Homelander".

This extremely violent and cruel guy with an Oedipus complex will undoubtedly become the leader of future TV dramas, so Tang De took the initiative and recruited his screenwriters and cartoonists under his command.

At the same time, Norton's Eye blocked all news about the movie "Dark Shadows", and while advancing the filming according to the pre-determined plan, it was also producing special effects simultaneously without anyone knowing.

Many times the box office success of a movie depends on only one thing, and that is speed.

By grabbing the first wave of audiences, you can reap the most benefits.

To this end, Norton Eye released several smoke bombs, such as the official start of filming of the first film in the "John Wick" series. This script, which has been shelved for many years, finally welcomed the most suitable actor for it, Keanu Reeves.

For example, the second part of "Twilight" started filming. While the male and female protagonists remained unchanged, the supporting cast was more luxurious than the first one.

For example, the new spin-off movie of "Saw" has been officially launched, and it will be linked with the Conjuring series to create the Conjuring universe.

After a series of movie announcements, news related to "Dark Shadows" seems less prominent.

Moreover, during this period, "Dark Shadows" encountered frequent problems, such as conflicts between the protagonist and the director; props went wrong and the entire scene had to be reshot; the script was temporarily changed and the director expressed dissatisfaction with the plot.

These news all come from small media, and it is difficult to tell whether they are true or false, but there is no doubt that there must be conflicts within the "Dark Shadows" crew.

This made Marvel and DC breathe a sigh of relief, waiting to see Tang De make a fool of himself.

However, no one expected that Dark Shadows would take only four months to complete the filming and complete most of the post-production special effects.

After all, the control of the company is in Tang De's hands, and concealing the news is just a matter of words from him.

At this time, Marvel's "Black Panther" had just started filming and it was still a long way from post-production.

So when Norton's Eye announced that "Dark Shadows" was about to be released, Marvel realized that its own "Black Panther" had no chance to compete with "Dark Shadows" and was directly eliminated.

In any case, the audience's attention will only be focused on the upcoming movies, so after the release of several trailers, Norton's Eye's "Dark Shadows" directly caused a lot of heat in the United States and even the world.

Because no one has ever seen a superhero movie starring a black person, everyone is naturally curious.

Moreover, people are not yet disgusted with the process of superhero-themed movies. Even the classic three-act upgrade and monster-fighting plot is watched with gusto.

Therefore, as soon as "Dark Shadows" was released, the box office soared to the highest point of the same period of the whole year.

A large number of black people came to the cinema with their families to watch the movie. In addition, a small number of black people tried to climb over the windows and walls and chose to support the movie with standing tickets.

In this regard, Tang De can only say that the intention is good, but the quality is poor.

So he launched many free ticket grabbing activities. As long as you invite other people to learn about the movie and watch the movie through the link, you can watch the movie for free.

This aroused even greater enthusiasm among the black community. In order to watch the movie for free, children in some poor neighborhoods posted posters everywhere and forced their own parents and other people's parents to learn about and watch the movie.

This led to a "battle to protect my mother" in the community, meaning that my mother could only be invited by me and not by anyone else.

However, although there is some confusion, the box office can only be said to be rising steadily.

Because all the black people who have seen the movie said that what happened to Virus in the movie was the plight of the black community, and they also expressed that they were very happy with the scene in the movie where the black protagonist punished the white villain. Although this hero suffered a lot of disasters, he eventually became a superhero who punished evil and promoted good with his own brains and abilities.

The black community expressed great interest in this kind of plot, especially since Tang De changed the plot of the comics.

In the original plot, it was Lucy who gave him the ability to stay awake, but in the movie, it was changed to be Virus who took the initiative to propose this plan and asked Lucy to assist.

Although the change is simple, the relationship between the primary and the secondary has changed.

When the bald black man Madden, a fan of Tang De, saw this scene in the cinema, he couldn't help but burst into tears.

The bespectacled boy Pucci next to him was considerate enough to hand him a tissue.

"Thank you." Madden thanked him, but then Pucci said, "You're welcome. I just finished wiping it."

"FXXKYOU!" Madden raised his middle finger and looked down on his friend.

After they finished watching the movie and were walking out of the theater, they happened to encounter an interview.

"Good afternoon, everyone. What do you think of this movie?" The reporter was a typical white man with a hooked nose and green eyes.

"It's great," Madden said. But before he could tell us how he felt about it, the reporter took back the microphone and asked, "Why do you think it's good? Is it because it suits the tastes of black people?"

"What do you mean by 'fitting your preferences', man?" Madden frowned and said with some disgust.

"Oh, sorry, what I mean is, is it because this movie has a black protagonist that makes you feel more involved?" The reporter seemed to be smiling, but at this moment he was full of sarcasm.

Madden was about to answer, but was pulled back by Pucci.

The reporter looked at the short white man with some confusion.

"It's time for you to interview me." Pucci stared with the wisdom of a Down syndrome child.

After two of them were speechless, the reporter asked, "Well, what do you think of this movie?"

When Pucci heard this, he grinned happily and shouted, "Great!"

The reporter nodded and was about to continue asking, but unexpectedly Pucci added: "I'm talking about your wife."

In an instant, the TV station's director's room exploded, and the reporters' faces immediately turned ugly.

But Pucci kept chattering: "Well, does this mean you feel particularly involved?"

The reporter's expression improved slightly, and he said awkwardly: "Indeed..."

"That's right, because she's really great!" Pucci gave a thumbs up: "Last night's posture was very enjoyable, her big butt was just like a sheep's butt, so bouncy."

The reporter's face turned red with anger: "FXX..." Unexpectedly, Pucci changed the subject: "After adding some descriptive words, do you feel more involved?"

The reporter's emotions were like the ups and downs of an electrocardiogram, and he secretly raised his middle finger, trying to anger Pucci.

But Puqi continued: "But I suggest you take your wife to get the mole on your chest removed. Don't you think that when you hold your hands together, there will be an obstruction that will affect the feel?"

"FXXKYOU!" The reporter was so exhausted that his face turned green. He didn't care about the live broadcast on TV and just rushed forward.

Madden quickly stopped the two men and the scene suddenly became chaotic.

Ten minutes later, the two parties were separated. Madden and Pucci went to a pharmacy to buy a bottle of iodine and wipe the bruises on his face.

"Hey, brother, you don't have to humiliate him like this." Madden said as he wiped it.

But Pucci curled his lips: "A ballless racist piece of shit like him should be severely provoked."

"Okay, but is what you said true? How do you know his wife has a mole on her chest?" Madden looked confused.

Pucci chuckled and said, "You know, I work in a TV station now. Although I haven't seen that guy's wife's breasts, someone else has."

"You mean...Oh my God." Madden understood what he meant. No wonder the reporter wanted to beat Pucci so desperately.

It turns out what he said was true.

"Thanks, man."

After Madden applied the medicine to Pucci, he asked, "It shouldn't affect your work, right?"

"How is that possible? They don't even know who it is!" Pucci said proudly.

But three days later, when Madden saw this brother under the TV station building, he found that he had a sad face.

"What's wrong? Why were you fired?"

"Damn white supremacy, damn balls!" Pucci yelled, then complained to Madden.

It turned out that the reporter confronted his wife after he returned. His wife originally did not intend to admit it, but the reporter said that she was having an affair with a dwarf, which made the woman's self-esteem a little bit overwhelmed.

So she came clean and stopped pretending, and told the reporter about her adulterer.

The reporter confronted the adulterer at the TV station, but he didn't expect that the adulterer was a leader and he couldn't deal with him.

So when he saw Puchi watching, he took out his anger on Bespectacled and filed a complaint with Puchi's immediate superior.

Although they belonged to different departments, out of protection for the TV station and the fact that the reporter was a senior veteran, in the end only Pucci was unlucky in the whole incident.

"So you got kicked out of the TV station, oh, damn it." Madden was a little annoyed. If he had said these words at the time, so many things would not have happened.

"It's okay, brother." Pucci patted Madden on the shoulder and consoled him, "At worst, I can apply for Norton's Eye. I've wanted to work for my idol's company for a long time."

"But your resume." Madden was a little worried.

“It doesn’t matter.” Pucci shook his head, then gritted his teeth and said, “Since those guys fired me, I won’t show them any mercy. I’m going to expose everything on the Internet.”

"Ah?" Madden was shocked: "What are you going to expose?"

"Humph, I haven't been here for nothing for the past six months, brother. I have all the dirt on everyone from top to bottom!" Pucci sneered, "I'm going to discredit them!"

Not long after, a video blogger named Sharp Four Eyes appeared on Youtube. He exposed the TV station's dirty laundry and became a cyber mouthpiece for many netizens with his foul language.

Of course, he failed the interview at Norton Eye because he wanted to apply for the position of photographer of the company, but was rejected by HR due to his height.

After all this noisy stuff ended, the box office of "Dark Shadows" finally came to an end, with $9.18 million, becoming its most brilliant record.

Although it didn't break the billion dollar mark, if Norton's Eye delays its release date a bit, it will probably reach that mark in two months.

This movie became the only one of Tang De's several superhero movies that did not break the billion dollar mark, but even so, no one dared to underestimate this movie.

Because this is not a problem of the plot, it is just a problem of the audience.

Tang De was not affected by the box office. Soon, The Eye of Norton was announced, and the masterpiece of the Super Sek universe worldview was about to debut.

This movie, titled "Lucy: War of the Veil", will bring together all the current superheroes of Norton's Eye to uncover the truth about the Earth being isolated by the Milky Way. At the same time, the villain Adam Hammer will also appear again in this movie.

When fans learned about the movie, they were collectively excited.

"Oh my god! It's actually coming! I thought it was so cool when I first read the comics, and I can't imagine how cool it will be to see it in the theaters."

"God, I have the money ready, can anyone tell me when this movie will be released!"

"I think this movie is going to break box office records unless The Avengers collides with it."

“I can’t wait to see this movie.”

While fans were looking forward to it, Tang De had also finalized the script and cast.

In fact, since the actors used in the film had all appeared in previous films, everyone had no objections and accepted to continue starring in this film.

But just when Tang De was signing the contract with them, someone suddenly jumped out and posed a problem to Norton's Eye.

"Want to increase the pay?" Tang De sat in the office, listening to You Fei's report: "Who is it?"

"It's Wellington Edu, the actor who plays Rean, who wants a 30% pay increase."

"Thirty percent... that's 8.3 million US dollars." Tang De was very good at mental arithmetic and he told the actor's salary right away.

This actor was also discovered by Tang De. Like Rob Surrey, he was originally an unknown actor. Since he played Rean, his net worth has doubled and he has become a hot and handsome actor in Hollywood.

But Tang De didn't expect that this guy would dare to ask for a pay increase. Apparently, after becoming famous, he began to desire more money.

After thinking for a while, Tang De said, "Then let the producer talk to him. Ten percent is the bottom line I can accept."

"Understood." Yufei turned and left.

However, after the secretary disappeared, Tang De picked up his phone and dialed the number again, saying, "Send me those photos of Wellington. Maybe they will be useful later."

(End of this chapter)