Chapter 514: Communication Interaction

Hollywood movies have now penetrated most countries' markets. Saying they are rampant across the world is not an exaggeration. The first question these students raised, as Duke expected, was related to this.

"Hello, Director Rosenberg."

The questioner was a girl wearing glasses from the third row. "My name is Zhuang Qiwen, a student from the Social Sciences Department. I would like to ask, why have Hollywood movies been so successful worldwide?"

After receiving the microphone from the staff, Duke didn't immediately answer but instead said in Chinese, "What do you think?"

A boy in the first row spoke up, "Continuous innovation! Turning imaginative ideas into movies!"

The girl beside him said, "Hollywood has many hardworking people!"

"Undeniably, what you said are some of the reasons for Hollywood's success, but not the key ones."

After a brief pause, Duke quickly organized his thoughts and, amidst countless curious eyes, said, "In my many years of working experience, the industrialized and procedural filming model, along with the full industry chain from production to screening to marketing, is the key to Hollywood's success. In other words, Hollywood's success is inseparable from its assembly-line production model."

This answer clearly surprised some students in the front row. After a brief pause, one of them asked, "Are you part of that?"

"You're absolutely right." Duke smiled, "The North American professional critics don't like me. They criticize me and my movies as mere assembly-line products."

"Hollywood movies have never been developed as an art form," Duke said without hesitation. "They have been developed as an entertainment industry."

"Hollywood displays a series of elements that the public loves to see, such as the reward for good and the punishment for evil to soothe people's traumatic experiences, stories of 'Cinderella' and 'The Ugly Duckling' where lovers end up together to provide a collective dream, and spectacles and strong sound effects to stimulate people's visual and auditory habits. These form Hollywood's unique dreamlike mechanism, plot structure, spectacle style, emotional rhetoric, and mainstream narrative tradition. These are all part of the assembly line."

"Decades have passed, society has changed, one generation has aged, and another has grown, but Hollywood still persists in its mass-market assembly-line model."

A hand was raised, and Duke nodded towards the person. The person then took the microphone and said, "But Hollywood also has art films."

Duke tried to keep it simple, "Hollywood can wrap popular films with art films and use popular films to promote the film industry, which allows Hollywood films to maintain their mainstream appeal while still maintaining a certain level of artistry. This keeps Hollywood films consumer-friendly!"

Hollywood is universally acknowledged as the world's movie factory, and it truly deserves the title!

"The student with glasses in the second row."

The host chose the second person to ask a question. The boy stood up and asked, "Director Rosenberg, Chinese films are still quite behind. How can they quickly break into the global market? There's a saying here, 'What is national is also global.' Is that the way to success?"

"Do you know Ang Lee?"

Once the hall responded, Duke continued. "As a Chinese person, Ang Lee understands Chinese cinema better than I do. Two years ago, when he visited the Warner Studios, he gave an interview where many Chinese journalists asked him the same question. I believe his perspective is more persuasive than mine."

Then, Duke began to recount what Ang Lee said, "Ang Lee visited all the major Hollywood companies, including Warner, and at every stop, he asked the same question: Why can American films succeed in any corner of the world?"

"I remember clearly that when he was interviewed by Chinese journalists, he said: 'The answers I received were almost unanimous. They said that when making films, they never thought about making them 'American.' In other words, Hollywood does not subscribe to the idea that 'What is national is global.' Many people emphasize the need for films to have national characteristics. This is a difference in philosophy, and it's worth studying. It's not that we shouldn't have national characteristics, but we shouldn't make films just for the sake of national characteristics. If we do that, the film will feel like an experimental film, and no matter how much attention it receives, it will only appeal to a niche audience.'"

"Perhaps my words are not perfectly accurate," Duke added, "But the meaning is clear."

Duke was present during that interview because Ang Lee was selecting a suitable studio for the film The Hulk.

Although Duke knew Ang Lee wasn't suitable for this film, he couldn't stop it. Long before his investment in Marvel, the movie rights for The Hulk had been sold to Universal Pictures. Now that superhero films were becoming increasingly popular, Marvel wanted to reclaim the rights, but Universal wasn't willing to easily give it up.

This movie eventually failed, and according to the supplementary terms of the adaptation agreement, if the movie performed poorly, Marvel had the right to reclaim the rights at a relatively low cost. Currently, the two parties were negotiating, and it wasn't difficult to get The Hulk back.

Actually, this is a very simple matter: in terms of film, what is national is not always global.

Cultural differences are not as simple as they seem.

Anyone with a little sense can understand that China is rapidly rising, but this is still a world dominated by Western culture.

Duke used Ang Lee's words as a more tactful way of expressing this.

Zuo Qiang and Jiang Qingfeng had raised their hands several times but had not been selected, so they couldn't help but exchange glances with the host, whom they knew well. The host had already been informed, so the next question went to Jiang Qingfeng.

"Director Rosenberg, my name is Jiang Qingfeng, a movie enthusiast from the Literature Department."

Duke nodded at the short boy and said, "Hello, Jiang."

Jiang Qingfeng asked his question, "I am interested in screenwriting, but I understand that the position of screenwriters in Chinese cinema is not high. In Hollywood, are screenwriters and scripts taken seriously?"

"Of course, anyone who contributes to a movie's success is taken seriously."

Upon hearing this, Jiang Qingfeng quickly added, "What about new screenwriters? I've seen many rumors and articles stating that if a screenwriter produces an excellent script, it's often fought over by major Hollywood companies. Is this true?"

"It's possible, but the premise is..." Duke raised a finger. "The screenwriter is a gold-plated professional! For new screenwriters..."

Duke shook his head. "Let me put it another way. I am a shareholder and executive director at Warner, and I know a bit about the situation. Every year, about 5,000 to 6,000 scripts are submitted to Warner, but the acceptance rate is less than 0.05%. The chances of a new screenwriter's work being adopted are less than one in ten thousand..."

"Hollywood has never lacked scripts. Warner's script library contains at least 30,000 scripts waiting to gather dust, many of which have new ideas and groundbreaking creativity, but the chances of them being used are extremely low. Let me put it this way: trying to get a script accepted by a Hollywood company is essentially a dream."

"You might not know this, but many Hollywood projects, when seeking funding, have only an idea and a plan, without a script. Only after finding investors and partners do well-known producers seek out famous screenwriters to write the appropriate script. Every Hollywood project undergoes rigorous review, and even a movie studio CEO doesn't have the power to single-handedly approve a project."

"So, don't expect to impress Hollywood with just a script. Don't even think about being hailed as a genius by Hollywood just because of one script."

Zuo Qiang grabbed the microphone from Jiang Qingfeng and asked, "What if it were your company? If you encountered an extremely creative script from a new writer, would you adopt it?"

"99% of the time, no!" Duke replied calmly. "My company only makes commercial films. For Hollywood-style commercial films, innovation equals massive risk, which might result in the inability to recover tens of millions of dollars in investment."

This is the harsh reality in Hollywood. Production companies would rather use known screenwriters and producers with mediocre ideas than take a risk with a new, highly creative script.

The famous creative script list—the Blacklist—contains many scripts that have been up there for years with no company willing to touch them. Very few scripts from the list are turned into movies, and their commercial performance is usually average at best.

Here in China, with Duke being a world-renowned director, the conversation inevitably steered back to Chinese films.

The next male student raised his hand and asked, "What is your favorite Chinese film and Chinese director?"

"My favorite film is Farewell My Concubine. The actor who played the role of Yu Ji still amazes me." Duke thought for a moment, "My favorite director is Zhang Yimou. The colors used in Hero left a lasting impression on me."

Another person stood up and asked, "Director Rosenberg, will you ever make a film with purely Chinese elements?"

"Probably not."

At this point, Duke's tone shifted. "Now, more and more Hollywood movies are starting to incorporate cultural and ethnic elements from around the world. Diversification and the integration of other excellent cultural elements have always been a trend in Hollywood films. I personally love Chinese culture and am using elements of it in my films, such as the kung fu in The Matrix. I will continue exploring this direction in the future."

The live interaction lasted for about twenty minutes, and with the end of the event, Duke's trip to China also came to a close, preparing to return to North America to begin preparations for Batman.