hollywood melon man

Chapter 618 The Beginning of the Gaming Empire

As an original movie, "The Last of Us" has been released for nine weeks as of July 7, and its popularity has long passed.

Currently, the North American box office of "The Last of Us" has reached 2 million US dollars, and the global box office has reached 6335 million US dollars, which is a pretty good level.

For an original movie, this box office result is quite impressive.

Currently, the film has entered the stage of accumulating box office revenue over time, but in today's fast-paced consumption era, it is difficult for a film to survive in theaters for a long time.

The original film with the highest box office is "Titanic", which stayed in North American theaters for a year and a half, a screening period of almost seventy weeks.

But nowadays, a commercial summer movie that can stay in theaters for three or four months is considered quite good. Once the box office fails to meet the theater's expectations, the theater will immediately adjust the screening schedule until it is taken off the screen.

Of course, development on The Last of Us isn't done yet. Although others don't know, The Last of Us is a game-turned-movie, so it can be turned back into a game.

In fact, the adaptation of movies into games has been ongoing. For example, "Middle-earth: Shadow of War" is currently under development, which is being managed by Warner's game department.

In addition, a game about Harry Potter is also in the planning. However, because the studio responsible for the production is not satisfied with the performance of this generation of consoles, it is currently just a new folder.

Another one is "Mystery of the Talisman". The movie is finished, but there is great potential to make it into an adventure-themed game like "Tomb Raider".

Given that Warner's gaming division is developing Middle-earth: Shadow of War and the Arkham City trilogy, Disney's game development department is essentially nonexistent.

After discussing with senior executives from Warner and Disney, Gilbert Jr. handed over the development plans of "Mystery of the Spell" 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, achieving certain results.

However, the biggest achievement is actually participating in the outsourcing production of Rockstar's "Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories" and "Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories".

Yes, Rockstar also took a fancy to some of the technologies of Banana Game Company 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 CD Projekt, or CDPR for short.

At that time, CDPR had just moved from the field of game agency and distribution to the field of game production, and the game it produced was called "The Witcher 1".

Originally, CDPR's head Marcin refused, but Banana offered too much, so he finally agreed to invest.

Later, Banana gave money and people, not only providing sufficient development funds and the best development tools, but also technical support, making CDPR completely loyal to Banana.

Last year, banana acquired a controlling stake in CDPR, making CDPR a subsidiary.

The company's first work, 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, but after the huge sales of the "Grand Theft Auto" series, Rockstar became particularly important to Take-Two, so they did not give it that opportunity.

After the acquisition failed, Banana went to Sony to try to buy the two studios, Santa Monica and Naughty Dog, but was also rejected by Sony.

Later, it was little Gilbert who made a suggestion. If they couldn't buy the stocks, they could just poach people. Maybe they could find a few.

It's true that this trick is shameless, but it works. As long as certain conditions are promised, it can attract a lot of talents.

Over a period of time, banana has recruited a lot of talents from other game studios to enrich the studio, and also to practice on some high-difficulty projects.

It just so happened that Gilbert Jr. gave them the task of developing "The Last of Us" game with no upper limit.

Even if the main focus is on accumulating technology, 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 in essence, both are content products. Gilbert Jr. conveniently became a consultant for the games "Mystery of the Spell" and "The Last of Us", providing some advice and direction to the game development team.

Although he is not a professional in the gaming industry, he has at least played games and has seen so many good games in his previous life, so it is no problem for him to make suggestions.

If you think about it carefully, you will find that Gilbert's business 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.

It even invested in Tesla, a company that makes cars.

Although the business seems to be very large, 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.

It’s true that although the Fruit Group is not as strong as the top consortiums, it has become a huge force that cannot be ignored in Silicon Valley capital.

Gilbert Jr. and Musk met at the last premiere of "Iron Man." And this weekend, Gilbert Jr. was waiting for Musk's visit.

"Look," Gilbert Jr. took Musk to visit the photography base that was being transformed: "This is the Night City I want to build, and it's just a small part.

The base in Toronto is bigger and will host a variety of activities in the future.”

Musk was like Grandma Ma entering the Grand View Garden, with his mouth wide open the entire time, only words coming out of his mouth: exclamations.

It was his first time to visit a Hollywood studio, especially one run by a top director. Looking at the huge workload, Musk expressed admiration.

"Is this how you imagine the world of the future?" Musk asked.

“It’s a way of thinking, high-tech but low-quality life, with giant companies controlling every aspect of human life.

Night City is an exaggerated version of New York, a metropolis that makes people want to expand and get lost in it. "

When Gilbert Jr. said this, he was speaking from a humanistic perspective, but if he were to speak from a corporate perspective, he would simply say that fruit companies rule the world.

The two chatted as they walked, and Little Gilbert said, "Last time you told me that you were planning to migrate to Mars. What's your idea?"

Musk said: "Well, with the collapse of the northern superpower, NASA's resources for space exploration have gradually decreased.

I found that Washington began to focus on the trivial matters, big and small, on the earth and no longer wanted to look up at the stars.

Although there are many possible futures, I believe that the future of mankind lies in space.

So I founded SpaceX, and I’m currently poaching scientists and engineers from NASA, so I need support.”

In the past, many people who supported and hated Ma on the Internet fought fiercely over the Space Exploration Technologies Corporation. Some people also said that Space Exploration Technologies Corporation was actually used for money laundering.

But at least at this time, it is true that Musk wants to migrate to Mars.

Thinking back to his previous life, when he was still a broke movie director, Gilbert and his friends would go out for a barbecue and brag about the future of mankind.

Now having the ability and opportunity to change the future with his own hands is an irresistible temptation for young Gilbert.

Besides, the investment doesn’t cost much, just think of it as buying a toy.

So Gilbert Jr. said, "I agree with this, Elon. You can talk to Ivanka about it. I hope I can go to Mars to make a movie one day."

Musk said happily: "Of course, we will realize our dream one day."

(End of this chapter)