"Why, Gal?"
Putting down the coffee cup in her hand, Natalie Portman stared at Gal Gadot and asked, "Why did you do this? I don't believe I've ever done anything to wrong you."
"Why?" Gal Gadot curved her lips into a faint smile and sighed softly. "You're so smart, Natalie—you must already know why."
The two women locked eyes, yet neither spoke another word. The air in the booth seemed to freeze solid.
After a long silence, Natalie Portman finally spoke. "I thought something like this would never happen between you and me."
Gal Gadot's long eyes fluttered a few times. "I can only say I'm sorry, Nat. This is Duke Rosenberg we're talking about. Between him and you, I don't think anyone would choose you."
At the mention of that name—like a curse—Natalie Portman, who had been struggling to stay calm and composed, finally showed some agitation. "You're working with the devil," she said sharply. "You won't have a good ending!"
Watching Natalie Portman's changing expression, Gal Gadot suddenly laughed. "I've already signed with ICM."
"So what?" Natalie Portman couldn't stop her voice from taking on a mocking tone. "I was once very close to Duke Rosenberg, and he made me promises too—but he never fulfilled them. Do you really think everything he says will come true?"
Gal Gadot took a good, long look at Natalie Portman. She had never known that there was such an entanglement between her and Duke Rosenberg…
But thinking about those absurd stories about Duke Rosenberg's youth that had circulated within the industry, she figured he had probably just treated Natalie Portman as a plaything back then.
She had no interest in digging further, nor did she want to get involved in such personal grudges.
"How unfortunate, Nat—but your words won't come true."
Taking a step back, Gal Gadot folded her arms across her chest and looked down at Natalie Portman from above. "I've already been confirmed to star in Duke Rosenberg's next film. It's a two-hundred-million-dollar blockbuster, and I'm the leading female role!"
Though her upbringing prevented Natalie Portman from doing anything too rude, she still said mockingly, "Not every Duke Rosenberg film is guaranteed to succeed."
Gal Gadot only shrugged indifferently.
Natalie Portman added, "His film already lost to Fast & Furious 5 this Friday!"
"Nat, your information is outdated!"
With the same mocking tone, Gal Gadot replied, "That was Friday. It's Sunday now. I checked Saturday's box office stats before coming here. The Avengers made 39.16 million dollars yesterday, while Fast & Furious 5 only made 29.27 million!"
After saying that, Gal Gadot stood up. "Haven't you heard the saying? Winning first doesn't mean winning in the end."
With her long legs moving gracefully, she left the booth and walked out of the café, ending the relationship completely.
Natalie Portman sat there, staring blankly in the direction Gal Gadot had gone. The depression that had lingered in her heart since that year's Oscars was still weighing her down. She wanted to scream, to go to Malibu and kill that devil herself…
He was her nightmare. Natalie felt that if she kept suppressing it any longer, she would definitely fall into depression.
Almost at the same time, Duke had finished his trip to China and was preparing to board his private jet to leave Shanghai.
Due to the weather, their party couldn't take off immediately after arriving at the airport, so they had to wait patiently in the VIP lounge.
By the time Duke returned to Los Angeles from Shanghai, the second weekend box office numbers for The Avengers had arrived in his hands.
The first weekend box office for The Avengers had been so terrifyingly high that it was an unprecedented record in film history. There was no way the second weekend could maintain such a small decline—especially with a strong competitor like Fast & Furious 5 in theaters.
Fast & Furious 5, due to the serious lack of female audience members, suffered a classic high-opening, low-hold performance. The film raked in $48.65 million on Friday, dropped to $29.27 million on Saturday, and fell again on Sunday, earning only $23.89 million.
Over its first three-day weekend, Fast & Furious 5 grossed $101.81 million in North America!
Although it only ranked second at last weekend's North American box office, such results were still quite impressive.
Duke vaguely remembered that only the last two films in this series had an opening weekend of around $100 million in North America—Vin Diesel still played a major role.
However, Vin Diesel hadn't exploded in popularity the way Heath Ledger had, and The Avengers' all-around dominance—from marketing to screenings—proved to be the key factor.
During its second weekend, The Avengers didn't post another $40 million single-day gross, but it held steady. After earning $38.77 million on Friday and $39.16 million on Saturday, it took another $33.84 million on Sunday.
Over the three days of its second weekend, The Avengers grossed $111.77 million in North America, setting a new record for the highest second-weekend box office in North American film history.
The film's cumulative North American gross also reached $461.74 million, breaking new records for the fastest to surpass $400 million and $450 million in North American box office history.
Globally, The Avengers broke the $1 billion mark in just ten days—a new record—with a staggering worldwide total of $1.17899 billion, and its unstoppable momentum showed no sign of slowing down.
Similarly, in the global market, Fast & Furious 5 was completely overshadowed by The Avengers, earning roughly $320 million in its first weekend from nearly a hundred countries and regions including North America.
That performance was outstanding enough, but whether David Ellison was satisfied or not was completely outside Duke's concern. After returning to North America, he successively met with the top executives of Marvel Studios and Warner Bros. to discuss how to further expand the profitability of the Marvel series in their next installment.
Superhero films adapted from comic books are not just a few movies—they are part of a massive, integrated cultural and creative industry that spans the virtual and the real. It's not only the triumphant anthem of popular culture but also the victory of highly developed, all-pervasive capital operations.
From the big screen to the smartphone, from T-shirts to rice cookers, virtual or physical, superheroes have filled every corner of today's global village.
In truth, this is a huge business.
The current craze for superhero movies may also be related to humanity's fondness for stories of good versus evil. However, Duke and other studios' appetite for high returns was undoubtedly insatiable.
It's well known that superhero movies not only make money from ticket sales but also from numerous additional revenue streams—such as pay-per-view television, toys, video games, and overseas distribution rights.
The Avengers was thrilling—how could it not be? Fans and audiences around the world had been bombarded by its marketing campaign for years in advance.
As Duke said in an interview with Forbes magazine upon returning to Los Angeles: "Since 2006, every Marvel film has been made for this one ultimate movie."
Then there were the around-the-clock advertisements, as well as Marvel's "partnerships" with numerous companies—Walmart, which sold around 600 different Avengers products; Acura automobiles; Harley-Davidson motorcycles; Hasbro toys; and Target stores, among others.
The audience couldn't escape.
In the first decade and a half of the new century, Hollywood produced more than sixty true superhero films—less than one percent of its total output—but they accounted for more than ten percent of the total market share.
Take The Avengers, for example—this "super" superhero movie featuring six comic book heroes had not only grossed over $1.1 billion worldwide but had also earned an additional $1.2 billion through toys, licensed merchandise, television broadcast rights, and online distribution.
This illustrates the greatest significance of superhero films—they are not merely movies but the most vivid and effective commercials, capable of driving an entire chain of related industries: comics, action figures, toys, stationery, games, amusement parks, household goods, and brand endorsements.
From another perspective, it's not hard to understand why investors like Duke and Warner Bros.—who never act without profit—would spend vast sums to produce and distribute superhero movies. Even when box office calculations occasionally show a "loss," they remain tireless, filming one after another with enthusiasm.
Through "image licensing" and special business development, enormous licensing fees naturally flow in without requiring much effort or resources from the producers and distributors.
That's why, when George Lucas made the Star Wars prequel trilogy, he bluntly said, "I don't care about the box office."
Only by integrating theatrical revenue, television broadcast rights, DVD and Blu-ray sales, soundtracks, video-on-demand, toys, games, and other licensed products and developments can one truly and fully reflect the real achievements of Hollywood commercial cinema.
If one judges the value of Hollywood companies and their systems based solely on box office figures, it's nothing short of a joke.
...
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