As the saying goes, when your neighbor stocks up on grain, you stock up on guns—your neighbor then becomes your granary.
There was no doubt that Gilbert's wealth went far beyond what appeared on the Forbes rich list; his fortune had long since surpassed one hundred billion dollars.
However, with such vast wealth, without the ability to protect oneself, one would ultimately become nothing more than a fat sheep of capital, waiting to be slaughtered.
Fortunately, Gilbert had understood this truth very early on.
As long as the bottom line was not crossed, everyone could still save face. Although people joked about "gunfights every day, happy America," the upper class absolutely did not want the top-tier wealthy circle to turn into a battlefield of shootouts as well.
Capital is weak. The higher one stands, the more one fears death. At the root of it all is the fact that they have not yet enjoyed life enough, because human desire is infinite.
As long as people are not ready to gamble with their lives, they will have reservations in what they do and will not resort to extreme measures.
Of course, things are not set in stone. Eventually, the bottom line that should not have been crossed was still crossed. Gilbert only hoped that when that time came, he would possess even greater strength.
After these trivial matters were settled, Gilbert shifted his focus back to filmmaking.
Starting from Star Wars, science fiction films had always been the darlings of the movie market, and this genre had given birth to countless classic commercial blockbusters.
Now, however, the status of science fiction films was gradually being replaced by superhero movies.
The fundamental reason was that superhero films could encompass science fiction, action, adventure, and epic elements, forming a type of movie that appealed universally across the globe.
In the past, Hollywood never lacked stories about fighting aliens, such as Independence Day. It also never lacked hero films, like the famous Dollars Trilogy.
Adventure films included Indiana Jones and the The Adventure of Jackie Chan starring Jackie Chan.
Epic films had The Lord of the Rings trilogy, and action films were even more numerous, too many to count.
But only superhero movies were able to blend all of these elements together.
At the beginning of the year, renowned film critic Peter Rawson published an article stating that superhero movies were exactly what people needed right now.
The reason, he argued, was that after the September 11 attacks and the economic crisis, people were in desperate need of a sense of security. The strength and omnipotence of superheroes perfectly satisfied that need.
And The Avengers differed from previous science fiction films. Fundamentally, it did not really have much of a story to speak of.
If one had to put it into words, it was somewhat like an online game—a story about a group of superheroes teaming up to fight monsters.
Since the story itself was not that important, then for the film, the most important tasks—aside from showcasing the characteristics of the superheroes—were to construct its vast worldview.
For this reason, at the very beginning of production, Gilbert did not shoot the main content of the film, but instead first filmed the post-credit scenes.
In his previous life, post-credit scenes were also an important component of Marvel films. When the ending song started playing and the audience refused to leave, they should have known that there was still post-credit content to come.
These post-credit scenes carried important responsibilities: building the worldview and introducing clues for the next film or other superheroes.
The first post-credit scene Gilbert shot was Thanos's appearance. This character, nicknamed the "Purple Sweet Potato," was played by Josh Brolin.
"Earthlings are not as weak as we imagined."
"They are resilient, unruly, and very difficult for enemies to dominate."
Josh Brolin, wearing a motion-capture suit, suddenly stood up, while the voice speaking from below was none other than Gilbert himself. He had been pushed by Kevin Feige to make a cameo, appearing in the post-credit scene.
"Conquering them is an impossible task."
Josh Brolin turned his body, a ferocious smile appearing at the corner of his mouth.
"OK, that's a wrap."
With just this one post-credit shot, Josh Brolin wrapped his part.
After taking off the motion-capture suit, Gilbert shook hands with Josh Brolin.
Josh Brolin said, "What a pity. I only have this little bit of screen time. I wanted to act more."
That was nonsense. Every Hollywood actor wanted to be involved in Gilbert's projects.
Gilbert replied, "Josh, you're the ultimate villain. There will be major tasks for you later on."
Hearing this, Josh Brolin's eyes lit up. "That's great. It's an honor to work with you."
And just like that, Josh Brolin wrapped with honor. Gilbert then continued filming the second post-credit scene, which showed the six superheroes eating shawarma together.
Gilbert felt that using this post-credit scene as the film's ending was a good idea, and it also conveniently helped the six superheroes build chemistry.
Interestingly, they were actually eating. Gilbert found a shawarma shop for the shoot, and the actors happily dug in.
While watching the shawarma being made, Gilbert could not help but imitate the opening line of a very popular simulation management game.
"Let's speak Chinese…"
It really was quite tasty. After filming wrapped, Gilbert treated everyone present to shawarma. The only ones who suffered were the shop employees—the crowd was simply too large.
After finishing the filming of the two post-credit scenes, Gilbert officially shot the very first scene of The Avengers 1 at Fox Studios in Los Angeles.
Although Gilbert insisted on using practical shooting methods in many places, more than sixty percent of the film's scenes would still be completed on soundstages, using green screens and constructed sets.
Although Gilbert was famous for practical effects, he was no stranger to green-screen technology, and after the experimentation of Avatar, green-screen techniques had become even more mature.
Once filming began, the production progress advanced extremely rapidly, progressing by leaps and bounds.
Finally, let's take a look at the film market's performance. Inception reached a North American box office of 352.08 million dollars, temporarily becoming this year's North American box office champion.
Of course, if Avatar were included, Inception would be relegated to second place.
Nevertheless, this achievement was more than impressive. For an original, non-popcorn, brain-burning film to achieve such high box office numbers was remarkable.
Not only that, the film directly defeated the $200 million investment blockbuster TRON: Legacy, demonstrating Gilbert's formidable influence.
One chain reaction caused by this was that once The Avengers announced its release date, no other film dared to schedule its release concurrently.
Even David Ellison had to behave, moving the release date of John Carter to June, keeping it far away.
Perhaps in his mind, as long as he stayed away from Gilbert, he should avoid failure. But in the event of another failure, no matter how wealthy, David Ellison would likely suffer serious setbacks.
The overseas box office performance of Inception was also explosive. By September, when The Avengers began filming, the film's global box office had already reached $1.1335 billion.
Although the film's box office potential was basically exhausted, Inception still achieved the second-highest box office for an original film. The first place, of course, belonged to Avatar.
Likewise, Inception became Gilbert's fifth film in his directing career to surpass the $1 billion mark at the box office.
The previous four were The Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Dark Knight.
Although James Cameron still held the single-film box office champion title—and even second place belonged to him—due to his slower production pace, his total box office could not compete with Gilbert's.
However, despite the good relationship between Gilbert and James Cameron, it could not stop critics from using Avatar and Titanic to attack and smear Gilbert.
One had to admit, it was a kind of dark humor.
...
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