Chapter 515:Conversation with Steve Jobs

The Shanghai Film Festival had not yet concluded when Duke boarded his private jet and flew to Los Angeles. During his trip to China, aside from expanding the brand of Rosenberg-style films through several promotional events, the results were average. Especially with Taken, which had a synchronized release in both China and the U.S., its actual revenue could only be considered modest.

Due to the market scale and the number of cinemas, when Duke left China, Taken had been showing for a full week, grossing 42.28 million RMB at the box office. While this was a decent box office result compared to most films of this era, the 13% revenue share offered very little in terms of actual benefits.

Luckily, the future looked bright. As long as his brand remained strong, there would be plenty of harvests in a few years.

Compared to China, North America was the foundation of Duke's career. Taken had maintained stable performance in its second week, grossing 41.17 million dollars over four working days. Adding the 51.25 million dollars from the opening weekend, the North American box office had reached a total of 92.42 million dollars. Although it didn't break 100 million in its first week, considering the film's genre and investment scale, it was still a remarkable achievement.

Moreover, the audience feedback for the film had been consistently positive. The CinemaScore audience approval rate had remained above 85%, and without much artificial promotion, the IMDB score had reached an impressive 8.5.

However, in its second weekend, Taken encountered Spielberg's The Terminal.

In Hollywood, the genre and investment scale of a commercial film were equally crucial to its market performance, often as important as the director and stars. For instance, even if Duke had directed The Shawshank Redemption instead of The Lord of the Rings, it wouldn't have had the same box office success. Many Hollywood films wouldn't intentionally avoid Taken either.

Duke had carefully chosen this release window. He had an inkling of which films were more likely to succeed, so he aimed for the ones that were softer targets.

Most of the time, Spielberg was not an easy target, but The Terminal was an exception. It was one of Spielberg's rare misfires.

In recent years, DreamWorks had been struggling. Whenever DreamWorks faced difficulties, Spielberg would release a film, resulting in a curious phenomenon in Hollywood—when DreamWorks was in trouble, Spielberg would step in to save it.

However, even the greatest directors couldn't single-handedly prop up a massive company like DreamWorks. Duke couldn't do it, James Cameron couldn't, and even Spielberg couldn't.

Moreover, even the best directors had their failures.

The Terminal was undoubtedly one of Spielberg's failures. Despite starring Tom Hanks, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Spielberg himself, the film underperformed and far exceeded the low expectations of DreamWorks and the public.

During the weekend, The Terminal earned just 19.05 million dollars in North America. Aside from the now-classic line "I've been waiting my whole life, but I don't know who I'm waiting for," it didn't feel like a success.

Although Taken's box office dropped by 40% in its second weekend, it still grossed 30.75 million dollars, enough to keep it at the top of the North American box office and push its total to 123.17 million dollars!

Back in Los Angeles, after a weekend of rest, Duke dove back into work. Taken didn't require too much of his attention; with Warner Brothers handling the promotion, it was bound to turn a substantial profit.

The priority now was to form a negotiating team with Tina Fey and the investment agent David, to begin acquisition talks with Warner Brothers.

Duke's studio owned many valuable film rights, including The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and The Matrix trilogies. Although it wasn't a massive company, it was highly profitable. If Warner Brothers wanted to acquire it, they would need to offer a substantial amount of money. However, Duke wasn't short on cash. What he wanted were equivalent shares in Warner Brothers or Time Warner.

Negotiation was never simple, and this was just the beginning of a drawn-out process. Duke was also involved in another negotiation—the partnership between Pixar Studios and Warner Brothers.

After years of increasing his stake, Duke now owned nearly 9% of Warner Brothers. Their profits were closely tied to his own, and once Duke's studio was acquired, his stake in Warner would only increase.

Moreover, he had other ideas.

With Pixar Studios' current size, if Warner wanted to complete the acquisition, they would need to offer stock-for-stock and cash. Compared to large film companies that needed to maintain huge amounts of liquid assets, Duke had plenty of cash, much of it untouched from the earnings of The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

This was a multi-stage negotiation. Tina Fey and Warner's talks would have a foundational condition closely tied to Pixar Studios.

Duke then traveled to San Francisco to meet with Steve Jobs, who was recovering from an illness.

Of course, Duke wasn't foolish enough to try to convince a stubborn person like Jobs to undergo Western medicine treatment. If Jobs' own family couldn't sway him, why would he listen to an outsider?

This was a conversation about interests.

"Duke, there's no need to beat around the bush," Steve Jobs said, sitting under the vines in the hallway as he poured tea for Duke. "There are six major Hollywood companies. Excluding the weaker Sony Columbia, there are five. Why should I choose Warner Brothers?"

"Five companies?" Duke took a sip of tea and shook his head slightly. "Steve, are you really considering all five options?"

Before Jobs could respond, Duke continued, "Your talks with Disney haven't progressed. The condition you put forward is that Michael Eisner must step down, but given Eisner's control over Disney, I doubt that will happen, don't you think?"

Perhaps triggered by his appearance, Michael Eisner's position at Disney had remained extremely stable.

"20th Century Fox owns Blue Sky Studios and has been cooperating with them for years. They don't lack an animation department. Even if they wanted to collaborate, are you sure Pixar will remain within Disney's framework?"

"Universal Pictures is negotiating with Illumination Entertainment, a promising animation company. Their sincerity is the issue."

"Paramount Pictures is indeed looking for the right animation partner, but have you noticed that DreamWorks has been underperforming, and the three giants are trying to separate DreamWorks Animation? It's rumored that Paramount will become DreamWorks Animation's new distributor."

Steve Jobs quietly looked at Duke without any immediate response.

Undoubtedly, even if everything Duke said was true, he had the upper hand in the negotiations.

"Warner is different," Duke continued. "Warner has extensive distribution channels worldwide and is the number one media company by market value." Duke wasn't naive enough to think a few words would sway someone like Jobs, but he wanted to remind him of Warner's advantages. "Although Warner has an animation department, it's small enough to be almost negligible. We will give Pixar the most creative freedom, more than Disney could ever offer."

Price negotiations were specific details for later, and Duke didn't need to bring them up. To acquire Pixar, a price that satisfied Jobs would have to be offered.

"This tea was brought from India," Jobs suddenly changed the subject to the tea. "How does it taste? Is it fresher and more natural than the red tea we usually drink?"

"It's good," Duke gently swirled the cup. "But not to my taste. I'm more accustomed to Chinese tea."

He abruptly changed the topic. "Steve, your life can only be described as legendary. I'd love to make a biographical film about you in the future."

Jobs' eyes lit up briefly, but he didn't say anything.

For someone in business, the ultimate pursuits were fame and fortune. Duke knew that, for Jobs, money was just a number game, but the allure of leaving a legacy? That was something else entirely.

Just like how Schindler's List immortalized Oscar Schindler, a successful film could create an enduring monument to someone's life.

Getting through to Jobs wasn't easy, and Duke couldn't expect him to be moved by a few words. Even after he left, Jobs didn't give any special indication.

But Duke believed his words would have some impact. If it could make Jobs lean towards Warner, that would be enough.

Duke took the helicopter back to Los Angeles. But before he could reach his destination, news of his meeting with Jobs had already reached the upper levels of Disney.

"Other companies' chances of collaborating with Pixar Studios aren't high."

In a spacious office, Cook Dick sat in his swivel chair, looking at Michael Eisner behind the desk. "Warner and Duke Rosenberg are our biggest competitors."

Eisner crossed his hands on the desk. "What about Marvel Studios?"

"Duke Rosenberg has already agreed to direct Iron Man," Cook Dick replied quickly. "Marvel is more inclined to cooperate with Warner."

He reminded, "Michael, we can't lose Pixar. We must make some concessions in the negotiations."

"No Pixar? We still have Disney Animation Studios."

Since Tarzan, Disney Animation Studios had been focusing on developing 3D computer animation. Their previous successes made Eisner confident that Disney Animation would rise again. "We can make concessions, but we can't let Jobs take full advantage."

A hint of anger flashed in his eyes. Eisner added, "Don't set a release date for the new film with Ovitz and David Ellison. Wait until the new Batman release date is confirmed. We need to save Batman…"

A cold smile curled his lips.

.....

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