"In my more than ten years of working in the industry, the question I get asked the most is: Gilbert, how do you come up with so many wild and imaginative ideas?"
"My answer to that is it's not that my ideas are particularly brilliant, but that I have the ability to turn them into reality."
"Professor, is it like The Matrix?" a student called out.
Now, all the students attending the lecture could go out and brag that they'd taken a class with Gilbert, which made them his students.
Whether Gilbert acknowledged that or not didn't matter. At BFA, he already had students all over the place.
Recently, USC had also been trying to bring Gilbert back as a visiting professor. He was still considering it.
But having once admired his teachers' commanding presence on the podium, he now got to indulge his own moment in the spotlight as a lecturer.
The number of students attending his lectures was massive. This time, over a thousand people squeezed into the small auditorium.
Some students even stood through the whole session just to hear Gilbert speak.
This was a rare opportunity to both learn and be part of the crowd none of the students were going to miss out.
As a result, it wasn't just the directing students present. Even those from acting, cinematography, and other departments came to join in, much to the annoyance of the directing majors.
"This is our directing course. What are you acting students doing here?"
"Who says acting majors can't attend directing lectures? Acting and directing go hand in hand. Gilbert doesn't belong only to your department."
"Director Gilbert is our department's Honorary Chair."
"Director Gilbert is also the Honorary Dean! The sign outside doesn't say only directing students can attend. Move over, I'm sitting here."
Faced with such shamelessness, the directing students felt as though something that belonged to them had been snatched away but there was nothing they could do about it. The faculty and administration weren't saying anything either.
Still, the ones most awed by Gilbert's visit to the school were the freshmen who had just started.
They had heard upperclassmen say that Gilbert came to give lectures every September or October, but they had been skeptical.
Now, they had actually seen Gilbert in person alive and right in front of them.
Gilbert was a legend, far more famous than directors like the National Master Dove Chen and his peers.
This fame was thanks to The Lord of the Rings series. Had it not been filmed in China and achieved such global acclaim, Gilbert wouldn't have enjoyed such recognition here.
In response to the student's question, Gilbert answered candidly: "A lot of people fantasize about touching the executives of a film company with a brilliant script. But that's not very realistic.
If The Matrix had come from a new screenwriter or director, there's no way it would've reached audiences so quickly.
But when I pitch a project, the company will invest in it based on their trust in me.
So I advise all young people never daydream about shooting to stardom without being prepared.
Some say I got my first directing opportunity because of my connection with Steven Spielberg. That's true. But if I hadn't been fully prepared and failed on my first try, it could have been the end of my career.
For a young director, one failure could mean being sidelined for more than a decade, never getting another chance.
So whether it's through connections, being recognized by important people, or catching the eye of a film company, preparation is the key to success."
These were heartfelt words from Gilbert completely honest, not shying away from the fact that his first opportunity came from a connection.
For the students, this was a dose of reality recognizing the truth while still holding onto their dreams and working hard to seize every opportunity.
As for the challenges after graduation, those could be dealt with later.
The lecture went on for over two hours. Gilbert even engaged with the students, answering several questions from them.
For instance, on the creative relationship between directors and screenwriters, Gilbert said: "First and foremost, you have to convince the film company. You need them to trust you enough not to interfere with your creative process.
If you think you've got a solid idea for a project, go ahead and pitch it just make sure it's a low-cost idea.
Looking back at the history of film development, one truth stands out: the bigger the investment, the more formulaic the film becomes. That's because film companies tend to play it safe.
They won't take risks on brand-new concepts for projects that cost hundreds of millions. They'll stick to tried-and-true models."
"Professor, is that why Hollywood has so few original movies?" one student asked.
"There are actually quite a lot of original films," Gilbert replied. "But most of them are in the small- to mid-budget range. You rarely see original content in big-budget A-list films and even more rarely see them succeed."
One student sighed, "But Professor, you've made quite a few original movies. I've seen many of them."
"But my most successful one to date," Gilbert smiled, "is still The Lord of the Rings, which is adapted from a novel, right?"
"Well… that's true…" The student thought about it and realized it made sense.
The film that won Gilbert the Oscar for Best Director, Chicago, was based on a Broadway musical. His highest-grossing work, The Lord of the Rings, was adapted from a novel.
This clearly proved the advantage adaptations had in the commercial film market something original films couldn't quite compete with.
Of course, this didn't mean that original films were necessarily inferior. The Matrix may not have matched The Lord of the Rings in box office numbers or Chicago in awards, but it had already secured its place in the history of science fiction cinema.
From now on, whenever anyone talks about Hollywood sci-fi films, Gilbert's The Matrix is simply unavoidable.
It's worth mentioning that the sequel The Matrix Reloaded, directed by James Gunn, has so far grossed $746 million worldwide—a pretty impressive figure.
And The Matrix Revolutions is already scheduled for release next summer in early July, aiming to continue raking in profits.
As for the series, Warner's television division has some ideas. They want to produce a series that explores the events before The Matrix.
Gilbert has communicated with Warner's TV division and provided them with some ideas, including the war between humans and AI, how the AI won, and how the world ended up the way it did, etc.
One advantage of working in Hollywood is that there's no worry about the "big scissors" (censorship). While it's not entirely a free-for-all, most subjects have few restrictions.
If you were to make a film or series with a similar post-apocalyptic theme in China, Lao Tian once told Gilbert that the higher-ups would say, "The world has ended? Doesn't that mean we don't exist either? That's absolutely unacceptable…"
So, sometimes creators and regulators clash in terms of mindset, and that's what's most frustrating.
Of course, the situations are different, so we can't use this to attack the "big scissors." In fact, even with restrictions, talented directors can still make great films.
Meanwhile, in Hollywood, where restrictions are minimal, terrible films still abound.
Ultimately, the creation of films is related to policies and restrictions, yes but it's the human brain that plays the decisive role.
If the industry is underdeveloped, we can develop it; if we lack technology, we can learn it. But if we lack brains, that's the biggest problem of all.
Unfortunately, very few people recognize this.
Another very interesting incident occurred after The Matrix became a global hit a Brazilian comic artist stepped forward, accusing Gilbert of plagiarizing his unpublished comic manuscript and demanded compensation.
This kind of thing is completely absurd. If the manuscript was never published, unless this comic artist showed it to a friend who then betrayed him and gave it to Gilbert, how else could Gilbert possibly know the story?
There's never a shortage of people trying to ride the wave or get attention through controversy, and this Brazilian cartoonist isn't stupid.
He was just blatantly using the opportunity to gain publicity such cases are not uncommon in Hollywood.
In fact, both Disney and Warner are more anxious about these things than Gilbert himself, so just leave it to the legal department!
After finishing his lecture at the Beijing Film Academy, Gilbert also wrapped up his journey in China and boarded a flight back to North America.
He returned to North America in mid-October. By that time, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers had made $579 million in North American box office. At that stage, the film was pretty much ready to leave theaters.
After all, both Warner and Disney had planned to release the DVD version of The Two Towers in November, so keeping it in theaters longer didn't make much sense.
The only reason it was still showing in a limited number of theaters in North America was because Disney and Warner had done a great job maintaining screen counts in hopes of securing Oscar nominations.
During this period, The Two Towers gradually earned more than $100 million overseas, pushing the film's global box office past $1.5 billion to a total of $1.5125 billion.
Breaking $1.6 billion seemed unlikely at this point, but this figure was already enough to ensure The Two Towers would claim this year's North American and global box office crowns.
However, titles like this no longer meant much to Gilbert. While others might get excited about a weekly box office crown, he was claiming annual box office champion almost as easily as drinking water.
As The Two Towers approached the end of its theatrical run, just like the year before, what countless fans were eagerly awaiting was none other than The Return of the King.
On October 20th, Gilbert announced on his social media accounts that the upcoming DVD release of The Two Towers would include an extra 30 minutes of deleted scenes as well as behind-the-scenes footage.
The deluxe version of the DVD would also, for the first time, feature a trailer for The Return of the King.
This naturally whetted the appetites of fans and made them all the more eager for the DVD release.
In addition, Gilbert revealed that he would soon begin production on a low-budget film, since all the work on The Return of the King had been completed except for promotion and release.
Being someone who can't sit idle, Gilbert said he wanted to make a small-budget movie to pass the time.
At the end, Gilbert also shared that next year he would shoot a film about pirates.
He said it had always been his dream since childhood to become a pirate and go on adventures, though he never got the chance—so he hoped to realize that dream through filmmaking.
However, those last two announcements didn't attract much attention from the fans their focus was entirely on The Return of the King.
As the North American distributor, Disney had already announced the release date of The Return of the King: the first weekend of next May, kicking off the summer movie season.
Faced with such a powerful opponent, other studios had only one strategy avoid it, the further the better.
Everyone knew that next year would mark the finale of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and by then, the film would unleash an unimaginable wave of energy.
...
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