The movie Blade was a huge, surprise hit! It was a vampire action movie based on a comic book.
It made $13 million on its first day and $19 million more over Saturday and Sunday. In just its first weekend, it made over $32 million!
Time Magazine wrote a big article about it. "Congratulations to the movie studio, New Line Cinema!" they said. "They spent $45 million to make the movie, and they are definitely going to make a ton of money!"
The article also said this was the first superhero movie to be a big hit after the last Batman movie had failed. This was a really big deal. It meant that superhero movies were cool again!
The report was so nice because New Line Cinema was owned by the giant company Time Warner. When a big, powerful company is on your side, you don't have to worry about ads. This is why many smaller movie companies wanted to be bought by the big ones. It was all about having enough money.
All the newspapers were talking about Blade. Even newspapers in Asia praised the film.
Why? Because all the cool action and fighting in the movie was based on kung fu! This was a new, awesome style that American audiences had never really seen before, and they loved it.
Because Blade was such a hit, other big movies like Charlie's Angels and The Matrix would start using this cool kung fu style, too. And Zane knew that a new action-comedy, Rush Hour, was coming out soon and would be a giant hit, making $141 million! Kung fu was about to become super trendy.
The big bosses at Warner Pictures (the parent company of New Line) were very happy.
"Of course I'm pleased!" the CEO, Mr. Williams, said. "When New Line makes money, we make money. But the best part is that Blade's success means our own DC superhero movies, like Superman and Batman, can finally come back! That's what really excites me!"
Because Blade was a Marvel comic, Marvel's stock price went up. But the bosses at Marvel were not happy.
New Line Cinema (the movie studio) was going to make almost $100 million in profit from the movie.
And Marvel, the company that created the character? They only got a one-time payment of $15,000. They had sold the rights for only $250,000 years ago.
"Darn it!" the Marvel bosses yelled. They felt so ripped off.
This was just the beginning. The day Blade became a hit, eight other movie companies rushed to Marvel, trying to buy the rights to their other heroes.
"Sell us Spider-Man!" they all begged. But Marvel had to tell them... "What? Spider-Man is already sold!"
"Okay, what about Hulk? Iron Man? X-Men?" ... "Sorry, all those popular heroes are also already sold!"
The other companies were stunned. They did some research and found out that 20th Century Fox owned the X-Men... but Zane's company, Wald Pictures, owned almost everything else—Spider-Man, Venom, Hulk, Black Widow, and more!
"My God!" one boss said. "How did that Wald Pictures company get all of them?!"
"Darn it! All the good heroes are gone!"
"Well... maybe we can ask Wald Pictures to sell them to us?"
"Are you kidding?" another boss said. "That Zane Blackwood guy never gives up anything he owns. You'd have better luck waiting for Satan to become God!"
A few of them tried to call Zane's company anyway, but they were quickly dismissed, which was very embarrassing. Marvel was also stomping its feet, angry that it had sold all its best heroes.
Then, to make everyone even more excited, Zane's president, Bill McNick, held a big press conference that same day.
He officially announced that Wald Pictures was starting work on the Spider-Man movie.
Hollywood was shocked! Just a few weeks ago, no one wanted to touch Spider-Man. Now, thanks to Blade, it was suddenly the hottest, most exciting movie in town.
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