Hollywood was in a hustle and bustle season, but the entire entertainment industry was still operating in an orderly manner. In early February, Inception ended its screening in Syria and officially went from all markets around the world. After nearly a year of screening, the film finally earned $1.121.14 million from the world.

At the same time, the release configuration of the video's upcoming limited edition DVD/Blu-ray set was also exposed in advance through unofficial channels.

As early as last year, the DVD of Inception was launched in North America. With the continued decline in the entire industry background, it still sold nearly $130,000 in sales.

The limited edition DVD/Blu-ray set released this time is different from before and has a certain collection value.

The limited edition set includes a number of souvenirs, a limited edition aluminum dream machine suitcase, a portable automatic SNAIN intravenous syringe user manual, a postcard set, a gyroscope, and three discs composed of a DVD, a blue light and a digital copy.

Once this product was launched on the market, it was enthusiastically sought after by "Inception" fans. In just ten days, more than $350,000 were sold in North America alone.

There are too many popular films like "Inception" that can bring profits.

"Inception" is out, and the popularity of another Duke film has also declined. "Gratio" just spent its fifth weekend in North America, and its weekend box office has dropped to $12.15 million. Although the cumulative box office in North America exceeds $330 million, the market potential is obviously consumed.

However, the decline of "Chuang War" which has just arrived in the second weekend is even more intense. Affected by the poor audience's reputation, the box office of the film fell by nearly 60% over the first weekend. When it closed at $190,000 on the weekend, it received $7.37 million in ten days of release in North America.

Compared to "Robin Hood", this can be said to be a relatively successful commercial production.

As for whether Walt Disney and David Ellison think so, Duke is not sure. What he cares about now is the Oscar nomination list.

Because he stayed in San Francisco to participate in the final negotiations of Lucasfilm, Duke did not attend the nominee lunch at Wishiel Street in Beverly Hills. Scarlett Johnson only did it. As soon as the nominee lunch ended, Los Angeles passed the relevant nomination list to Tina Fey.

“The nomination results have been announced.”

Taking advantage of the negotiations, Tina Fey walked to Duke, sat in a chair next to her and whispered. "We are the biggest winners on the nomination list."

After working hard for several months, Duke couldn't help but ask with concern, "What have you obtained?"

“There are eight nominations in Inception!”

After looking at the emails on his phone, Tina Fei said one by one, "There are the best photography, the best sound effect, the best sound effect, the best visual effect, the best video, the best original script, the best art direction and the best original soundtrack."

Duke nodded slightly. These nominations are basically based on technical awards, which are completely in line with the school's usual style. For awards such as Best Picture and Best Original Script, "Inception" is destined to accompany you.

Tina Fey continued. "Our key public relations Gravity won the No. 1 award for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Photography, Best Editing, Best Visual Effects, Best Sound Effects, Best Sound Effects, Best Art Director and Best Soundtrack, and a total of ten awards."

"We have eighteen nominations in total." Tina Fee said with regret, "It's a pity that you didn't get a double nomination for Best Director."

Not getting a double nomination is also a good thing in some ways. The double nomination is extremely easy to distract the judges' votes. Duke is very aware of this, shook his head and said directly to Tina Fei, "Now the nomination list is out, so Nancy and Pani's actions are slightly restrained."

According to the college's regulations, after the nomination list is announced, the film crew cannot start public relations work, but this is obviously impossible. If you don't talk about anything else, many members of the college are part of the Hollywood industry. During the shooting or preparation of many films, it is impossible to avoid the contact between the film crew and the college members who participated in the Oscars.

As for what the two sides will discuss in private, they are not under the control of the academy at all.

However, some things cannot be done too much, otherwise it would be more than worth the effort to really get the Academy to capture typical cases.

The college’s executive committee is also aware of this. As long as what is not done too much, they will turn a blind eye accordingly.

This is a game of money and fame and fortune. If all these factors are eliminated, then there is no need for this game to go on.

Temporarily putting the Oscar nomination aside, Duke then devoted all his energy to the acquisition negotiations with Lucasfilm.

After more than half a year of tug-of-warming and investigation, the acquisition group jointly formed by Duke and Time Warner has become the first of all for Lucasfilm. Time Warner can provide Lucasfilm with a broad and complete platform, and the large amount of funds in Duke can meet the price requirements of Lucasfilm shareholders.

When Duke raised the acquisition offer to $400 million, he and Walt Disney were the only two interested acquirers left in Hollywood.

The assets in Lucas Pictures are indeed very attractive, but they also have departments such as Lucas Animation, Lucas Online and Lucas Games that have lost performance. When it comes to such huge capital acquisitions, any investor will inevitably consider the input-output ratio. The high price of 4 billion US dollars has exceeded the bottom line of many companies such as Twentieth Century Fox, Sony Columbia and Paramount Pictures.

In the minds of these companies, Lucasfilm is not worth so much money. With such a large amount of money, it is still a huge question whether it can be recovered in the future.

Looking at the entire Hollywood, including Walt Disney, which finally competed with Duke, only Duke firmly believes that the power and potential of the Star Wars series are unlimited and will surely burst into infinite glory in the future. As long as there are no major mistakes in operation, just the sales of Star Wars peripheral products will not take too long to offset this huge acquisition.

So, facing the last competitor, Duke once again raised the price to $4.1 billion. Walt Disney, which was already internally unstable, finally retreated, and Lucasfilm basically became Duke's possession.

This time when we came to San Francisco, the two parties have reached an agreement on the acquisition price and are talking more about details.

For example, where should Duke plan to go for Lucasfilm's main business in the future?

Since the end of the Star Wars Prequel series, Lucasfilm has only produced one film "Raiders of the Lost Ark 4". In addition, George Lucas is in a semi-retired state, so his performance is naturally not very good. This directly affects the income of many employees and executives of Lucasfilm.

If the income cannot be guaranteed, and if you talk about your employees about your beliefs or instill spiritual chicken soup, it will be useless and useless.

Duke knew this very well. After talking with George Lucasmith, he directly wrote the restart of Star Wars series into the negotiation agreement between the two sides, and promised that if needed, he would personally serve as the director of the restarted film.

With his past achievements and fame and appeal in the film market, this undoubtedly gave Lucasfilm management a shot of heart-warming agent. After reaching an agreement on this, the remaining details negotiations became much smoother.

In mid-February, Duke, Time Warner and Lucasfilm convened a press conference in San Francisco to officially announce the change of ownership of Lucasfilm, which involved a transaction amount of up to $4.1 billion!

In the new Lucasfilm, Duke holds an absolute controlling stake, and Time Warner's symbolic holdings will also become the publisher of the new Star Wars series. Catherine Kennedy, who has a similar concept to George Lucas, accepted Duke's employment and became the new CEO of Lucasfilm.

As the deal was completed, Duke knew very well that he had a huge treasure house of wealth in his hand, the Star Wars series!

He himself also enjoys nearly one-third of the revenue share in all aspects of the Harry Potter series. In addition, today's Star Wars series, the two most valuable movie series in history, can be regarded as his favorite.

Correspondingly, the new Star Wars plan will also be put on the agenda after Lucasfilm returns to normal.

In this regard, Duke has already had some ideas. The new Star Wars may not be more creative and technically revolutionary.

In Duke's idea, the most important thing about the New Star Wars is that there are no obvious flaws as obvious as the Anakin Skywalker's transformation.

In terms of special effects, the new Star Wars doesn't have to be too focused. The special effects scenes are as high as Hollywood blockbusters. The breakthrough technological revolution is what James Cameron wants to do, not the risks that this series of new works should take. Even if a robot like D2 is redesigned at that time, its main function will be "cute".

In some ways, Duke just wanted to repackage the new Star Wars with today's Hollywood technology to create a retro film with a good story!

Duke and George Lucas have communicated in this regard. Lucas is not satisfied with the lack of creativity and imagination of his proposed new Star Wars. In his opinion, "newness" should be the force of "Star Wars".

However, George Lucas has always admired Duke for his actions on the market and has not insisted on his own opinions.

Launching the new Star Wars is a matter of the next few years. Duke will make corresponding adjustments to the acquisition of Lucasfilm. He stayed in San Francisco for half a month before he returned to Los Angeles. The 83rd Academy Awards ceremony is about to begin! (To be continued.)
Chapter completed!