Chapter 367: The Avengers Go Head-On Against Avatar!

20th Century Fox was originally a film company formed by the merger of two studios, Twentieth Century and Fox.

In 1985, 20th Century Fox was taken over by the North American media giant Murdoch Group, becoming a subsidiary under Murdoch.

Rupert Murdoch himself served as CEO of 20th Century Fox, personally overseeing the film business.

Because the parallel world's comic-book films were on the decline, Fox never built an X-Men series.

The only work they currently had to show for themselves was the Star Wars hexalogy.

Other titles at best included Home Alone, Independence Day, Cast Away, Night at the Museum...

Because they had long failed to deliver sufficiently impressive results in Hollywood, for years they had been living off the Star Wars legacy.

The much-anticipated Night at the Museum kept running into Xu Can's films and was brutally sniped.

Once one of the Big Six, 20th Century Fox was not doing well in the 21st century; its annual financial reports never looked pretty.

Fox's stock FOXA on the U. S. NASDAQ market was also gradually sliding.

Both the controlling Murdoch Group and CEO Rupert Murdoch were deeply worried.

A film company that had once been treated as a cash cow now seemed to have become a white elephant.

Fortunately, they found the director who had created box-office miracles—James Cameron!

His Titanic remained the all-time global box-office champion!

In 1997 it hit the astronomical figure of $1.84 billion, a record no one has broken to this day!

The closest so far was Spider-Man 2: The Amazing Spider-Man, with $1.2 billion worldwide.

When Titanic went viral worldwide in 1997, James Cameron took the Avatar script to Hollywood's Big Six seeking a partner.

Because Cameron's plan was too ambitious—the film would use real-time rendered motion capture technology for nearly the entire runtime!

None of the other giants were willing to cooperate; only Fox, who had worked with him before, was willing to give him a chance.

Murdoch made the call, putting up a $10 million budget to let Cameron shoot a proof-of-concept sequence.

"It looks real, but doesn't exist in the real world."

The concept was indeed crazy enough at the time.

In the end, thanks to the technical development from films like The Lord of the Rings and King Kong, plus the technological revolution brought by the rise of Xu Can's Star River Digital,

Avatar finally had the conditions to be made, and it premiered in the Christmas window at the end of 2009!

Without Xu Can's interference, James Cameron's masterpiece would have repeated the madness of its previous life, igniting a global 3D film craze.

Avatar's box office would have surpassed Titanic, becoming the new champion at $2.789 billion!

Ten

Until Avengers 4 took the global box-office crown.

Who could have expected that Avatar would get a re-release 12 years later, once again narrowly surpassing Avengers 4 to retake the global box-office championship.

It can be said that without the Avengers, the only one who could surpass Titanic was James Cameron himself.

20th Century Fox was full of confidence in the ten-years-in-the-making Avatar.

On the very day Avatar announced its release date, the head of Murdoch Media, Rupert Murdoch, declared to the world:

"Xu Can and his Marvel films achieved impressive results in the summer window, but we've brought out James Cameron—his record has stood unbroken for 12 years~~!"

"Now, the only one who can break his record is himself!"

"Avatar will surely surpass Titanic and become the new box-office champion!"

At this point, Xu Can's Star River Entertainment had already announced that the Avengers would lock in the Christmas window, to settle the score with Avatar.

In this situation, Murdoch appeared not to be speaking ill of Xu Can, but in reality he did not take his Avengers seriously at all.

Perhaps in Murdoch's eyes, even the Avengers could not go head-to-head with Avatar.

The Avengers?

Just a bunch of childish comic-book characters getting together—what's there to watch?

Avatar is the sci-fi epic of the new era, and will rule all of Hollywood!

……

When Xu Can officially announced the Avengers' Christmas release date, the entire Hollywood—even the global film media—was shocked!

Didn't they just announce the start of production not long ago? How is the release date already set?

Xu Can's films were always shot fast and produced fast.

But this was absurdly fast!

Even internal executives Kevin Feige and Happy could hardly believe it.

"If we release this quickly, won't it be too risky? And our opponent is Avatar! That's James Cameron!"

"So what about Cameron? Is he really the king of the world?"

Xu Can retorted.

"This……"

Happy was instantly left speechless.

The sunny boy who had once been holed up in a rented apartment, running around for extras auditions and working part-time at a coffee shop,

had now become the emperor presiding over an entertainment empire!

Happy believed Xu Can wasn't really questioning him; while replying to emails, he casually answered.

But it was precisely these offhand remarks that best revealed a person's presence.

Happy had even felt a twinge of panic just now, and quickly laughed it off:

"Yes, Cameron is strong, but our film isn't weak either."

At this point Xu Can finally looked up from his computer and seriously regarded Happy.

"Happy, we've been brothers for so long—you have to believe in our film. No matter who we face, no matter what release window, we will not be afraid."