In the internal screening room of Melon Studio, Gilbert and Nolan finished watching the carefully crafted District 9.
"Well?" Nolan's eyes were full of anticipation as he asked for Gilbert's opinion.
"Very good," Gilbert said with clear satisfaction. "Compared to the initial script, the scale of the story has expanded by an entire level. The theme and core haven't changed, but it's far more engaging."
Hearing Gilbert say this, Nolan finally felt relieved. "That's great. The hard work of the creative team wasn't in vain—we've delivered a good story."
"Arrange the marketing and promotion. I'll persuade Disney to invest resources," Gilbert said.
After Warner withdrew from investing in and producing Melon Studio's films, Disney became the sole distributor of movies produced by Melon Studio.
For both Disney and Melon Studio, this undoubtedly reduced a lot of trouble in terms of workflow.
At present, the equity swap between Warner Bros. and Melon Studio was progressing slowly. The shares of Melon Studio that had returned to Gilbert's hands had reached only 16.8%.
The reason only this small portion had flowed back was related to the fact previously mentioned—that someone on Wall Street wanted to take over.
Certain Wall Street interests wanted to enter Melon Studio and become one of its shareholders.
This was something Gilbert could not accept. He had already made his position clear to Warner: once Melon Studio's shares were sold to others, he would not give up the Warner shares in his own hands.
He would even support figures within Warner who sided with him in order to safeguard his own interests.
When that time came, whether Warner would still be Warner, or would instead carry Gilbert's surname, would be an open question.
For this reason, Warner was still hesitating. As long as Gilbert still held Warner shares, talking about eliminating his influence over Warner was nothing but a pipe dream.
Unless Wall Street could persuade Gilbert to accept a cash buyback of the shares.
But Gilbert was no fool. He would definitely choose the option most beneficial to himself.
Moreover, Wall Street, the medical-industrial complex, and those old SB financial conglomerates had only just gone after him—what leverage did they have to persuade Gilbert?
Only at this point did Warner realize that things were not as simple as they had imagined.
The promised benefits from Wall Street, the old financial groups, and the medical-industrial complex were not so easy to obtain. Instead, Warner had now become a topic of after-dinner gossip among Hollywood professionals, and its reputation was not very good either.
The boss of Universal Pictures, and also the CEO of Universal's parent company Comcast, Brian Roberts, publicly criticized them.
"I really don't know what Warner's management is thinking," he said. "They finally managed to establish a partnership with the greatest and most talented director in Hollywood history.
And now, in the blink of an eye, they've destroyed all of it. For some vague, illusory promises, they paid such a heavy price.
I truly can't understand it. This is not the intelligence or way of thinking a business operator should have."
"Luckily, Gilbert thought as a film artist and made The Dark Knight for Warner. Otherwise, Warner's performance this year would have collapsed disastrously."
Why would Brian Roberts say this? It had to do with the fact that Universal Pictures once had a brief "marriage" with Gilbert.
When Gilbert first debuted, his work was The Shallows, which was invested in and distributed by Universal Pictures. But later, internal management chaos at Universal caused them to fail to maintain their cooperation with Gilbert.
From then on, Gilbert turned to Disney and Warner Bros., gradually growing into a world-class director.
Universal Pictures changed hands several times. When Disney and Warner were watching Gilbert rake in enormous profits with The Lord of the Rings series, Universal had already fallen under Comcast's control.
At that time, although Gilbert had left Universal for more than ten years, Universal still couldn't let him go.
In this world, the most painful thing is realizing that someone you once didn't care about—a small figure who belonged to your company—later grew up and achieved truly, truly great accomplishments.
Universal Pictures is the one suffering the most. They once had a great director as a partner, yet they failed to cherish him.
If time could be turned back, Universal's executives would all want to shout at Gilbert: "Don't leave—whatever you want, we'll support you!"
And if they had to put a time limit on it, the executives would make a heartfelt confession: "Until the world is destroyed, until the end of the universe, we will never abandon Gilbert."
Once you understand this, you can see why Brian Roberts reacted so strongly to Warner's actions.
But that was fine too. Brian Roberts gave an order to Universal's executives to go make contact with Gilbert.
Since Warner wanted to let go, Universal could take him back!
However, up to now, Gilbert had shown no intention of returning to Universal Pictures, and that bastard Robert Iger from New York had firmly blocked Universal at the gates of Melon Studios.
Thinking about it carefully, the whole situation was rather absurd. Watching Warner's management operate, you'd start to wonder whether this company was just a bunch of amateurs held together by tape.
But in reality, this wasn't the first time Warner's management had done something stupid—this incompetence was hereditary.
In the late 1960s, cinema was hit hard by television, a rising new form of entertainment. Coupled with anti-war movements, hippies, and the spread of new ideas of liberation, some people even put forward the slogan that film was dead.
That period happened to mark the end of Hollywood's Golden Age, and every studio was desperately trying to find a way forward.
It was also from that time that the concept of commercial films gradually took shape. The summer blockbuster season likewise began to gain importance among the major studios.
What truly popularized commercial films were Steven Spielberg's Jaws and George Lucas's Star Wars.
The success of these two films brought audiences back into theaters and showed Hollywood studios a clear direction.
As a result, studios across the board shifted toward commercial films—except Warner Bros., which stubbornly clung to its old ideas. When preparing to produce the first Superman film in 1973, Warner wanted to develop it in the style of Golden Age cinema.
At that time, Steven Spielberg, still a rookie director, volunteered himself, hoping to direct Superman, and personally presented his filmmaking plan to Warner.
Viewed from today's perspective, it was a very standard commercial film production model.
But in that era, Warner's management couldn't accept it, and the two sides parted on bad terms. Warner then approached other directors, but no one was willing to take on the project.
It wasn't until 1975, after Spielberg's Jaws became a success, that Warner—whose thinking had stagnated for several years—finally made up its mind to shift toward commercial films.
By then, after a string of failed film investments, Warner had already reached a very dangerous point.
It could be said that the success of Superman saved Warner's life, allowing the studio to successfully survive the post–Golden Age decline.
This was not the first time Warner's management had done something foolish, nor would it be the last.
Gilbert remembered that in his previous life, Warner Bros. had driven Nolan away during the era of streaming media.
When Nolan left, he was furious: "I thought I was working with the greatest film company in the world. Now it seems I was mistaken."
...
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