Chapter 618 The Beginning of the Game Empire
As an original movie, "The Last of Us" has been in theaters for nine weeks as of July 2, and its popularity has long passed.
At present, the North American box office of "The Last of Us" has reached US$263.35 million, and the global box office has reached US$593.04 million, which is considered a pretty good level.
For an original movie, this box office result is even more impressive.
At present, films have entered a stage where they rely on time to accumulate box office. However, in today's fast-paced consumption era, it is difficult for a film to survive in theaters for a long time.
The highest-grossing original film is "Titanic", which stayed in North American theaters for a year and a half, with a screening cycle of almost 70 weeks.
But nowadays, if a summer commercial movie can stay in theaters for three or four months, it is quite good. Once the box office fails to meet the expectations of the theater, the theater will immediately adjust the film schedule until the movie is released.
Of course, development on The Last of Us isn't quite over yet. Although others don’t know it, The Last of Us is a game-turned-movie, so it can be turned back into a game.
In fact, things about adapting movies into games have been going on. For example, "Middle-earth: Shadow of War" is currently under development, and Warner's game department is responsible for it.
In addition, a game about "Harry Potter" is also planned. However, because the studio responsible for the production is not satisfied with the performance of this generation of consoles, it is currently just creating a new folder.
The other one is "Mystery of the Talisman". The movie is finished, but there is still great potential to make an adventure-themed game like "Tomb Raider".
Given that Warner's game department is developing "Middle-earth: Shadow of War" and is developing the "Arkham City" game trilogy series, Disney has no game development department.
After discussing with senior executives at Warner and Disney, Gilbert Jr. handed over the development plans for "Spellbound" and "The Last of Us" to Banana's game subsidiary.
Banana's game subsidiary has been established for several years and has produced several games and achieved certain results.
But the biggest achievement is actually participating in the outsourced production of Rockstar's "Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories" and "Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Legends."
Yes, Rockstar also took a fancy to some of Banana Game Company’s technologies and handed over some of the graphics-related work to Banana Game Company.
In addition, Banana also invested in a Polish game company in early 2002 called CDProjekt, or CDPR for short.
At that time, CDPR had just transferred from the field of game agency distribution to the field of game production, and the game it produced was called "The Witcher 1".
Originally, the head of CDPR, Marcin, refused, but Banana offered too much and finally agreed to invest.
Later, Banana gave money and people, not only providing sufficient development funds, the best development tools, but also providing technical support, which made CDPR obsessed with Banana.
Last year, Banana took a controlling stake in CDPR, making CDPR a subsidiary.
The company's first game, "The Witcher 1," will be released next year, and Banana will be responsible for distribution in all regions except Europe.
In fact, Banana also planned to acquire Rockstar with its strong financial resources. However, after the great sales of the "Grand Theft Auto" series, Rockstar became particularly important to Take-Two and they did not give that opportunity.
After the purchase failed, Banana went to Sony to purchase two studios, Santa Monica and Naughty Dog, but was also rejected by Sony.
Later, it was little Gilbert who made a suggestion. If you can't buy it, then poach people. Maybe you can poach a few.
Not to mention, although this trick is shameless, it works. As long as you promise certain conditions, you can attract a lot of talents.
Over a period of time, Banana has poached a lot of talents from other game studios, enriching the studio and allowing it to practice on some difficult projects.
It just so happened that Gilbert Jr. gave them the task of developing the "The Last of Us" game with no upper limit.
Even if the main focus is to accumulate technology first, it is common for a high-quality game to take five or six years to develop, and "The Last of Us" is no exception.
There is still a big difference between game production and film production, but essentially both are content products. Little Gilbert conveniently became a game consultant for "The Mystery of Spell" and "The Last of Us", providing some advice and direction to the game development team.
Although he was not a game professional, he had at least played games and had seen so many good games in his previous life, so it was no problem for him to make suggestions.
If you think back carefully, you will find that Gilbert's stall is quite large, ranging from movies to the Internet to game production. From traditional media industry to Internet media, from software development to hardware manufacturing, everything is included.
He even invested in Tesla, a company that makes cars.
It seems that the stalls are very large, but each field has core competitiveness. Since all operations are carried out through the fruit company, it is nicknamed the fruit consortium by the outside world.
Not to mention, although it is inferior to those top consortiums, the Fruit Consortium is very powerful and has become a huge force that cannot be ignored among Silicon Valley capital.
Gilbert Jr. and Musk met at the last "Iron Man" premiere. And just this weekend, little Gilbert came to visit Musk.
"Look," little Gilbert took Musk to visit the photography base that was being renovated: "This is the Night City I want to build, and it's only a small part.
The base in Toronto is larger and will host various activities in the future. ”
Musk was like Grandma Ma entering the Grand View Garden, with his mouth wide open the whole time, and there was only exclamation in his mouth.
This was his first time visiting a Hollywood studio, especially the studio of a top director. Looking at the huge workload, Musk expressed admiration.
"Is this how you envision the future world?" Musk asked.
"It is a kind of thinking direction, high technology but low quality of life, giant companies control all aspects of human beings.
Night City is an exaggerated version of New York, a metropolis where desires expand and people are trapped in it. ”
When little Gilbert said this, he spoke from a humanistic perspective. But if he were to take a corporate stance, he would only say that fruit companies rule the world.
The two of them were walking and chatting. Little Gilbert said: "Last time you told me that you planned to immigrate to Mars. What was your idea?"
Musk said: "It's like this. With the collapse of the northern power, NASA's resource investment in space exploration has gradually decreased.
I found that Washington began to focus on these small and large matters on the earth, and no longer wanted to look up at the stars.
Although there are many kinds of futures, I believe that the future of mankind is in space.
So I established Space Exploration Technology Company, and I am currently poaching NASA scientists and engineers everywhere, so I need support. ”
In the past life, there were many horse bragging and horse hating on the Internet, and they had a fierce fight because of this space exploration technology company. Others say that SpaceX is actually used to launder money.
But at least at this time, Musk’s desire to immigrate to Mars is real.
Think about his past life, when he was a failed movie director. When little Gilbert went to have barbecue with his friends, he would brag and think about the future of mankind.
Now that he has the ability and opportunity to change the future with his own hands, it is an irresistible temptation for little Gilbert.
Besides, it doesn’t cost much to invest, just treat it as a toy.
So little Gilbert said: "I very much agree with this, Elon, please talk to Ivanka about the details. I hope that one day I can go to Mars to make a movie."
Musk said happily: "Of course, there will be a day when we can realize our dreams."
(End of chapter)