"Just yesterday, the second weekend of the 2005 North American summer season came to an end. Due to the poor performance of the only widely released film, Flyboys, the overall box office took a dip. Fortunately, Batman Begins, which entered its second weekend of release, maintained a stable trend, preventing this past weekend from becoming the lowest-grossing second week in summer movie history."
As Monday had just begun, the weekend box office rankings, along with reviews from Premiere, The New York Times, and many other media outlets, were delivered to countless readers.
The media used mostly similar headlines—Batman Begins easily retained its crown last weekend, Flyboys had a disappointing debut, and Kingdom of Heaven slipped out of the top five at the box office.
A box office summary was also delivered to Duke's estate. Scarlett Johansson, who had stayed over the previous night, was sipping morning tea while reading the morning paper, feeling rather relaxed.
In the absence of Leah, Duke allowing her to stay here meant that their relationship had taken a significant step forward.
Of course, seeing their own film winning the competition, while those two annoying rivals failed, also made her happy.
"The second weekend of the summer season saw neither newly released films nor expanded ones making big waves, with the market still dominated by older films. The Batman reboot Batman Begins, directed by famed director Duke Rosenberg, showed excellent performance in its second weekend, dropping only 43% from its debut weekend, pulling in another $39.24 million and easily retaining the weekend box office crown."
"Flyboys, invested in by David Ellison, son of famous IT mogul Larry Ellison, earned only $8.86 million in its opening weekend—far below industry expectations and just one-fourteenth of its massive production cost. Although it ranked second on the box office chart, it's hard to say the producers and investors would be satisfied."
"Flyboys chose to release in the second weekend of Batman Begins, which had already been predicted by many industry insiders to be a terrible decision. But with David Ellison, who had just taken over the trust fund, having ample funds at his disposal, the film was eventually pushed to this extremely poor release window."
"This WWI aviation film went into wide release in North America on Friday. Its midnight screenings only brought in $2.02 million a poor showing. On Friday, it earned $4.12 million from nearly 3,300 theaters across North America, falling far short of Disney's $12 million expectations."
"By Saturday, Flyboys experienced a significant drop in box office due to extremely poor word of mouth, earning only $2.62 million. The film continued to decline on Sunday, taking in only $2.12 million. Based on its poor word-of-mouth reputation, current forecasts predict the film's final North American box office may not even reach $30 million."
"The film's opening weekend had a higher female audience share at 55%. After the first three days, word of mouth plummeted. Audience rating (CinemaScore) was a C, popcorn index only 53%, and Rotten Tomatoes, which collected reviews from 111 media outlets, had its freshness score fall to 23%. The average rating was just 4.5/10. On MetaCritic, 43 major outlets gave it an average of 34."
"In addition, Flyboys was hit by a barrage of negative media reviews."
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch criticized the director as seeming clueless when faced with such a script, failing to inspire any audience interest in the characters. The Oregonian stated that while the film can't be said to lack entertainment value—it's colorful, filled with action scenes and impressive effects, and James Franco's performance is sometimes brilliant, sometimes terrible—it still fails to be truly engaging. Variety slammed the film, saying none of the characters were ever interesting, which is a fatal flaw for a movie."
"Compared to Flyboys, Batman Begins performed strongly, continuing Duke Rosenberg's trend of steady box office results. With another $39.24 million added in its second weekend, the film's total North American gross has reached $143.31 million, and it's expected to ultimately challenge the $250 million mark."
At this point, Scarlett Johansson closed the newspaper. Kingdom of Heaven, which had dropped out of the top five, failed to pique her interest at all.
She picked up a fork, put a few pieces of fruit from her plate into her mouth, swallowed, then took a sip of black tea. Her eyes turned to Duke sitting across from her, who had been on the phone non-stop since breakfast, seemingly dealing with something very important.
In fact, Scarlett had wanted to read him the article from the newspaper, but knowing Duke for over a decade she was definitely one of the people who understood him best—she knew that he absolutely hated being interrupted while in work mode.
"Something urgent?"
Seeing Duke end a call, Scarlett couldn't help but ask out of curiosity, "Busy so early in the morning?"
"Tina called."
Setting his phone aside, Duke picked up his coffee cup and said before taking a sip, "Some business negotiation matters."
"Oh..." Scarlett nodded, wisely not pressing further.
She knew that apart from making films, Duke had many other business ventures, and Tina Fey was undoubtedly his agent.
Duke didn't eat much, and this breakfast ended quickly. He stood up and walked out of the dining room, with Scarlett Johansson following behind, staying just half a step behind and closely walking beside him.
"Don't you have work today?"
Turning his head to glance at Scarlett, Duke asked in a soft voice, "I remember your training just started."
"No need to go today."
Walking out of the eye-shaped villa, Scarlett naturally linked arms with Duke. "Jimmy Carter is training my two stunt doubles and gave me the day off."
At that moment, the black Bentley slowly drove up. Scarlett looked at Duke and asked, "Are you going to work?"
"To the studio," Duke looked at Scarlett's hand tightly holding his arm, but in the end, said nothing. "Then I'm going to Warner and Marvel Studios as well."
Scarlett immediately showed interest. "Is the preparation for Iron Man about to start?"
She had been waiting for this movie—waiting for a third collaboration with Duke. Aside from her two minor childhood roles, she had never officially starred in one of Duke's films.
To Scarlett Johansson, who had watched Duke climb step-by-step from a regular director to one of the best in the world, this was her biggest regret.
Actually, she knew well that if she had acted as spoiled as she did as a child, she could have appeared in Duke's films a long time ago. But at that time, due to her talkativeness and other issues, their relationship wasn't as harmonious as it was now. Even if Duke had let her act for Madam Leah's sake, they would have grown distant afterward.
And that wasn't the outcome Scarlett Johansson wanted.
"Can I come with you?" she asked tentatively.
Duke turned his head and looked at the blonde girl. Scarlett, not yet twenty-one, had long since lost her childhood mischief. Most of the time, she behaved like a tame lamb in front of him.
But Duke was well aware that this was just a façade. Otherwise, she wouldn't have done what she did on Oscar night, which became the catalyst for his breakup with Ivanka Trump.
Of course, at this point, Duke didn't blame Scarlett for it. Just like she said, his problems with Ivanka were never about Scarlett or any other woman. Even without that incident, the two of them would've drifted further apart.
"I promise!" Scarlett raised one hand. "I absolutely won't cause trouble."
At this, her eyes suddenly shifted, and she used the tone she had ten years ago. "I'll definitely be an egg."
Hearing this line, Duke thought of the childhood Scarlett and couldn't help but shake his head as he walked toward the car already waiting at the door. Scarlett Johansson immediately followed.
They first went to the Duke Studio, then to the Warner Building. Since his movie was still in theaters and because of Scarlett Johansson's presence, there were inevitably paparazzi and reporters secretly taking photos. Duke didn't mind and kept his focus on work.
Scarlett, however, observed closely—especially after entering the Warner Building. The way Warner employees looked at Duke was as if they were seeing an all-powerful savior. Those who thought they had a chance to speak with him all scrambled to greet him, and every time Duke nodded slightly in return, those people showed satisfied smiles, as if his acknowledgement was something worth bragging about.
Wasn't it natural for someone who saved a failed movie franchise from the edge of a cliff to be respected?
Scarlett understood Duke's status at Warner. Setting aside his stakeholding, his influence in filmmaking was something no other director working with Warner could catch up to even if they drove a car. One could even say that he could affect the choice of Warner's CEO, and it wouldn't be an exaggeration.
After all, having grown up beside Madam Leah, Scarlett knew a bit about business. She was sure that without Duke's support, no Warner CEO could hold their seat for long.
Duke Studio, Warner Bros., Marvel Studios… Duke switched locations all day. Besides matters concerning the official prep for Iron Man, there were also negotiations involving Walt Disney and the other side, as well as talks with Pixar Studio.
Warner Bros. accepted Duke's suggestions, and the people at the Far East branch had already made formal contact with the other party.
Of course, such matters wouldn't yield immediate results, especially since the investment involved was quite large.
Besides, the fame of Warner World couldn't compare with Disneyland in that region.
As for the Pixar talks, after prolonged haggling, Duke's side, Steve Jobs, and Time Warner had found many points of agreement. Although no deal had been signed yet, their differences had narrowed down to pricing.
Additionally, there was the matter of Batman:Begins's overseas release. Perhaps deliberately arranged by David Ellison, both Flyboys and Batman: War Begins would start large-scale international rollouts next weekend.
...
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