After Halle Berry joined the cast, the remaining main roles were confirmed one after another—mostly seasoned Hollywood actors with solid acting skills, leaving no concerns in that regard.
With Tom Cruise, a bona fide superstar, on board, there was naturally no need to worry about box-office appeal.
Besides, this was Gilbert's project, and his name alone was already a brand.
Since the film would include plenty of action sequences, even though Tom Cruise was already well-versed in stunts, he still underwent training after signing his contract.
The other actors involved in action scenes also trained together, and even those without any action scenes volunteered to participate, hoping to make Gilbert feel that they, too, were giving their best.
As for the zombies in the movie, aside from special effects work, most were played by real people in makeup. Since the film was being shot in Australia, there was no shortage of professional extras available, so there was no need to bring them from Los Angeles.
For Gilbert, however, the biggest challenge lay in determining the right length and structure for telling the story—that was the key question.
After all, The Last of Us was originally a video game, and the game had enough length to accommodate both combat and narrative.
A film, however, was different—anything over three hours would leave audiences restless in their seats. So during the initial scriptwriting stage, the screenwriters at Melon Studio suggested splitting the story into two parts.
But Gilbert disagreed. He believed that a film's story should be complete in itself and adhere to the traditional three-act structure—beginning, middle, and end.
Setting aside the much-debated The Last of Us Part II, the first The Last of Us already told a self-contained story, making it unsuitable for a split adaptation.
Thus, Gilbert ultimately decided that even if it made the film longer, the entire The Last of Us narrative must be told in a single movie.
This posed a considerable challenge for the writers, but everyone worked hard to find solutions. In the end, they delivered a script that met Gilbert's standards.
The script's structure was extremely tight, and if filmed as written, the movie would be packed with information at an intense pace.
Of course, to prevent viewers from getting bored or fatigued, the story naturally included plenty of action scenes—and all the classic shots one would expect from a zombie film.
Unlike most zombie movies, which were typically low- to mid-budget and often appeared rough or cheap, The Last of Us was different—it was a $120 million production, with potential for additional investment later.
That money wasn't just going toward actors' salaries—it was being poured into set construction, visual effects, and model creation. The combined effect of all that spending would become one of the film's biggest selling points.
Naturally, with so many intense and frightening scenes, The Last of Us was inevitably going to be rated R.
But that didn't mean it couldn't be a hit—after all, The Matrix was also rated R, and it became both a sci-fi classic and a commercial benchmark.
As long as the rating wasn't excessively restrictive, even an R-rated movie could perform exceptionally well at the box office.
By the time all the major cast members were finalized, it was already July. The auditions for Ellie were scheduled for mid-month but something major also happened that same month.
Gilbert had previously told Scarlett that The Island had a high chance of flopping.
Sure enough, even though he attended the premiere for Scarlett's sake, the film's quality turned out exactly as Gilbert had predicted.
Michael Bay, who had been recycling his old formulas, finally stumbled badly. The movie grossed only $12.54 million in its opening weekend—performing even worse than Kingdom of Heaven's debut.
Its second weekend brought in just over $4 million, and at that rate, The Island's North American total wouldn't even surpass $50 million.
For Scarlett, this was a heavy blow. It was her first time transitioning from art-house films to commercial blockbusters as the lead actress and the production had a budget exceeding $100 million.
The box-office failure completely shattered her hopes of breaking into Hollywood's top tier of leading ladies.
Fortunately, she still had Gilbert to rely on. The role of Natasha Romanoff would help her achieve that dream.
As for Michael Bay, he still had prospects ahead. Despite The Island's failure, he had already signed a directing contract with Sky Flim Studios to helm Transformers.
The film's male lead, Ewan McGregor, was less fortunate. His first major commercial blockbuster had crashed and burned. Luckily, he also had Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith released that same year.
So far, Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith had grossed $322.305 million in North America and over $700 million worldwide—an impressive result indeed.
However, to be honest, when watching the Star Wars series, most people don't really pay attention to who the actors are.
Even Harrison Ford became widely known more through his other roles, such as Indiana Jones in the Indiana Jones series.
Among the failures of The Island, the unluckiest party was actually DreamWorks, which served as both producer and distributor.
DreamWorks had already been struggling over the past few years, and last year, DreamWorks Animation separated from the parent company.
Jeffrey Katzenberg and Steven Spielberg parted ways, with Katzenberg taking the animation division into Paramount's distribution system.
Meanwhile, DreamWorks Animation released Madagascar at the end of June this year. The film earned 50.31 million dollars in its opening weekend and has now surpassed 100 million dollars at the North American box office.
Having lost its only profitable division—DreamWorks Animation—combined with the fact that Spielberg's War of the Worlds didn't perform as well as expected, The Island became the final straw that broke the camel's back.
In mid-July, DreamWorks announced bankruptcy restructuring, closing its heavily loss-making television and record departments. Most importantly, it gave up its distribution rights.
This point is crucial—distribution rights were the main reason Hollywood's major studios united to besiege DreamWorks.
David Geffen, one of DreamWorks' three founders, took hundreds of millions of dollars in separation fees and officially announced his retirement from Hollywood to focus on his charitable endeavors.
The live-action film division of DreamWorks, on the other hand, fell into Spielberg's hands.
Looking back, it's hard to forget the grand ambitions at DreamWorks' founding. The three giants were full of confidence, determined to challenge the traditional powers of Hollywood.
Many who were dissatisfied with the dominance of the major studios placed their hopes on DreamWorks, seeing it as the vanguard that could stand against the Hollywood oligarchy.
At the beginning, DreamWorks indeed achieved some success, but under the relentless siege of the major studios, it suffered one defeat after another.
Moreover, the three founders often clashed over creative and business philosophies. Such differences might not have mattered if DreamWorks had continued to prosper, but since the company's development faltered, those ideological divisions became fatal—and ultimately led to the separation of DreamWorks Animation.
Now, Spielberg is once again searching for a suitable distributor, which shows that he has returned to his old path.
Having abandoned the dream of contending with Hollywood's giants, Spielberg remains one of the most beloved directors in the entire industry.
Yet whether the Spielberg of today can ever return to his former glory—no one can say for sure.
Frankly speaking, although Gilbert and Spielberg are nominally teacher and student, he too bears some responsibility for DreamWorks' disintegration.
There was no helping it—friendship is one thing, but when it comes to interests and positions, there can be no compromise.
...
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