As an original film, The Last of Us had already been in theaters for nine weeks as of July 2, and its heat had long since faded.
At present, The Last of Us has reached 263.35 million USD at the North American box office and 593.04 million USD worldwide, which is a very solid level.
For an original movie, this box office achievement is already exceptional.
The film has now entered the stage where it accumulates its box office through time alone. However, in today's fast-paced era of consumption, it's very difficult for a movie to remain in theaters for a long stretch.
The highest-grossing original film is Titanic, which stayed in North American theaters for a year and a half—roughly seventy weeks of screening.
But nowadays, for a summer commercial film to survive three to four months in theaters is already considered excellent. Once a movie fails to meet theater expectations, the theater chains will immediately adjust the schedule until it's pulled from screenings.
Of course, the development of The Last of Us is far from over. Although others don't know this, The Last of Us is a game adapted into a movie, which means it can also be turned back into a game.
In fact, film-to-game adaptations have long been ongoing. For example, Batman is currently in development and is handled by Warner's game division.
In addition, a Harry Potter game is also being planned. But because the studio in charge of production is not satisfied with the performance of the current-generation consoles, it remains in a "new folder" state for now.
Another planned project is The Adventure of Jackie Chan. Although the film has concluded, turning it into an adventure-genre game like Tomb Raider holds great potential.
Given that Warner's game division is developing Batman and also working on the Arkham City trilogy, Disney's game development division is practically nonexistent.
After discussions between Gilbert, Warner's executives, and Disney's executives, the development plans for The Adventure of Jackie Chan and The Last of Us were handed over to Banana's game subsidiary.
Banana's game subsidiary has been around for a few years and has created several games, achieving some results.
But its greatest achievement was actually participating in Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories as an outsourced developer.
Yes—Rockstar also recognized certain technical strengths in Banana's game company and entrusted part of the graphics-related work to them.
Moreover, in early 2002, Banana invested in a Polish game company named CD Projekt, known as CDPR.
Back then, CDPR had just shifted from game distribution to game development, working on a game called The Witcher 1.
Originally, CDPR's head, Marcin, refused the offer, but Banana offered far too much, and he eventually agreed to take the investment.
Afterward, Banana provided both money and manpower—not only offering ample development funds and the best development tools, but also providing technical support. As a result, CDPR became utterly loyal to Banana.
Last year, Banana already acquired a controlling stake in CDPR, making CDPR a subsidiary.
And the company's first game, The Witcher 1, will be released next year, with Banana handling distribution everywhere outside Europe.
In truth, Banana originally planned to use its financial strength to acquire Rockstar, but after the massive success of the Grand Theft Auto series, Rockstar became especially important to Take-Two, who refused to give any opportunity.
After failing to acquire Rockstar, Banana approached Sony with the intention to purchase Santa Monica Studio and Naughty Dog, but was likewise rejected by Sony.
Later, Gilbert proposed a suggestion: if you can't buy the studios, then poach their people—maybe you'll snag a few.
And surprisingly, this method—though shameless—worked. As long as certain conditions were promised, many talents could be lured in.
Over a period of time, Banana successfully poached plenty of talent from other game studios, strengthening the team, making it possible to tackle high-difficulty projects as practice.
Just in time, Gilbert handed them the task of developing The Last of Us game and placed no upper limit on the resources allowed.
The main point was to accumulate technology first. Developing a high-quality game over five to six years is normal, and The Last of Us is no exception.
Game production is very different from filmmaking, but in essence, both are content-driven products.
Gilbert casually placed his name as a consultant for The Adventure of Jackie Chan and The Last of Us, offering the development team guidance and direction.
Although he wasn't a game industry professional, he had at least played games, and in his previous life had seen many great ones, so giving suggestions was no problem.
Looking closely, one can see that Gilbert's business scope is actually quite broad—from filmmaking to the internet to game development, from traditional media to digital media, from software development to hardware manufacturing, covering virtually everything.
He even invested in Tesla, a company that builds cars.
Although it seems like he has spread himself across many fields, each area contains a core competitive capability. Since all operations are carried out through the Fruit Company, outsiders jokingly refer to it as the "Fruit Consortium."
And truth be told, although it was still a bit behind the top-level conglomerates, the Fruit Consortium was already immensely powerful, becoming a force in Silicon Valley capital that could not be ignored.
At the Iron Man premiere, Gilbert and Musk had met once. And just this weekend, Gilbert welcomed Musk's visit.
"Take a look," Gilbert said as he led Musk around the film base currently being renovated. "This is the Night City I'm building and this is only a small part of it.
The base over in Toronto is even larger, and in the future, it will host all kinds of activities."
Musk walked through the place like an old lady stepping into the Grand View Garden for the first time, his mouth wide open the entire time, uttering nothing but exclamations of amazement.
It was his first time visiting a Hollywood film set, especially one belonging to a top director. Seeing the massive amount of work involved, Musk expressed his admiration.
"Is this your vision of the future world?" Musk asked.
"You could say it's one direction of thought—high technology but low quality of life, with giant corporations controlling every aspect of humanity.
Night City is an exaggerated version of New York—an enormous metropolis where desire swells endlessly, pulling people deeper and deeper."
When Gilbert said this, he was speaking from a cultural and humanistic perspective. If he were speaking from a corporate standpoint, he would simply say: the Fruit Company rules the world.
As the two walked and talked, Gilbert said, "Last time, you told me you were planning to immigrate to Mars. What's your thought process?"
Musk replied, "This is how it is. With the great northern nation collapsing with a thunderous crash, NASA's investment into space exploration has been gradually decreasing.
I've noticed that Washington has begun focusing solely on countless trivial matters on Earth and is no longer willing to lift its head and look toward the stars.
There are many possible futures, but I believe humanity's future lies in space.
So I founded Space Exploration Technologies, and right now I'm recruiting NASA scientists and engineers everywhere I can, which is why I need support."
In the previous life, many people online praised or criticized Musk endlessly, often clashing fiercely over this space exploration company. Some even claimed that the company existed for money laundering.
But at least at this point in time, Musk's desire to immigrate to Mars was genuine.
Thinking back on his previous life—back when he was just a washed-up online movie director—Gilbert and his friends would barbecue and brag about humanity's future.
But now, he actually had the ability and the opportunity to personally change the future. For Gilbert, that was a temptation almost impossible to refuse.
Besides, it wouldn't cost too much to invest—he could just treat it like buying a toy.
So Gilbert said, "I fully support this, Elon. For the details, talk to Ivanka. I hope that one day, I'll be able to go to Mars to shoot a movie."
Musk said excitedly, "Of course. We will achieve that dream one day."