For movies, pacing is a crucial aspect that requires perfect control.
A too-fast pace can make the audience lack empathy, while a too-slow pace can make people feel sleepy. Successful Hollywood action blockbusters almost always have a well-controlled pace.
Action scenes, emotional scenes, and occasional humor are interspersed throughout. These elements make up the backbone of the entire movie, and then the plot that drives the story forward is added in other places.
However, it's not just about designing a short segment in a few minutes and then a big segment in over ten minutes. How to grasp this balance must be understood by the director himself. So, Laila can only share some of her experiences with him, and the rest needs him to master through a lot of experimentation.
Nolan is very grateful for Laila's help. In return, he wrote her name in the screenwriting column of "The Prestige." Besides this, he really couldn't find any other way to express his gratitude elsewhere.
Laila directly invested in this movie, not only without setting a cap on the funds but also letting him pick whatever personnel the crew needed from her own company. It's worth noting that her company is full of talented individuals, many of whom have won Oscars.
Regarding this, Nolan could only swear to make "The Prestige" a success and couldn't say anything else to express his gratitude. There is an old saying in the East: "A man will die for a confidant." At this moment, he deeply understands this point.
The busy days continued until the end of the year, and an article summarizing the summer box office drew a lot of attention and debate.
The focus of the report was interesting, highlighting the three movies that exploded at the box office this summer.
Yes, three movies.
Seeing the word "three" suddenly, many fans were stunned because, besides remembering the phenomenal success of "The Lord of the Rings 1" and "Batman Begins" that bravely challenged Laila's authority and managed to snatch the weekly box office champion title, it seemed that there were no other good movies that they could remember.
However, the report pointed out a forgotten blockbuster, directed by Steven Spielberg, "War of the Worlds."
It wasn't until they saw this name that countless people remembered that it was this movie that had exploded on the big screen at the beginning of the summer. Why did people completely forget about it later?
Readers here also wondered in their hearts. Yes, why don't they remember this movie at all?
The newspaper gave an interesting explanation, believing that the reason why people forgot about it was because the distributor of this movie made a mistake.
Initially, "War of the Worlds" was scheduled to be released on June 29th. However, since they knew that Laila's "The Lord of the Rings" was also scheduled around that time, they changed the release date to the first day of the summer box office to avoid directly competing with Laila.
Although it seemed like Spielberg was afraid of Laila, this strategy was not a problem. Regardless of whether they could beat her or not, it was certain that they couldn't face her head-on. Or rather, no one had the confidence to directly compete with Laila's movie.
Since they couldn't compete head-on, it would result in a situation where both sides suffered. Moreover, Laila chose the time to bet with Michael Bay, obviously impossible to negotiate to change to another time, so the distributor of "War of the Worlds" simply coordinated and changed the release date of their movie.
They were not the only ones who did this. Several other movies did the same. As a result, unexpectedly, a vacuum was created at the summer box office this year, so that in the several weeks before and after "The Lord of the Rings," apart from "Batman Begins," there were no other big movies released.
The report stated that it seemed that "War of the Worlds" changed its release date, defeated a bunch of smaller films, got a decent box office, and also received a lot of praise. But compared to "Batman Begins," it was much worse.
Why do people only remember Laila and Nolan's movies when talking about the summer box office? It's because the two movies collided directly!
The explosion of "The Lord of the Rings" not only made fans thrilled but also remembered "Batman Begins" that faced the impact head-on. Perhaps at the beginning, it did lose some revenue due to the influence of "The Lord of the Rings," but with the rise of word of mouth, people got to know this new Batman movie through "The Lord of the Rings."
Using an old saying from the East, this is called "blessing in disguise." When everyone thought Batman was going to be unlucky, "The Lord of the Rings" actually helped promote it. People were curious about "Batman Begins" and wanted to know where its confidence came from, thinking it could collide directly with such a terrifying giant like "The Lord of the Rings" without worrying about being crushed.
So, the part of the box office that might have been lost at the beginning was actually made up for under such circumstances. And because the quality of the movie itself was good, it even attracted a lot of attention.
After the end of the summer box office, when everyone was reminiscing about this box office battle, they only remembered "The Lord of the Rings" and "Batman Begins," while "War of the Worlds" was already forgotten by everyone.
The report ended with a mocking tone towards the distributor of "War of the Worlds," believing that their retreat was a loss-making move. If they had bravely gone head-to-head with Laila's movie like Batman did, they would have ignited the excitement and ultimately become a topic of conversation for the public.
Laila read this report on Demi's suggestion. The arguments in the report were interesting, but the final speculation was just speculation. If "War of the Worlds" had stayed at that time, it would probably have ended very miserably.
It's not that its quality was bad, but with three equally outstanding movies squeezed together, it would have an impact on all three. With just that little box office, fighting over it, no matter how much more you could get, it wouldn't make much of a difference.
The money in the hands of fans also has its limits. Many people can afford to go to the movies just enough to watch one or two. In this way, the three movies would inevitably create a situation of mutual friction. Such a result would not be good for anyone.