From their youthful days to their thirties, this group of UCLA alumni had grown alongside Gilbert.
The year 2001 marked Gilbert's tenth anniversary in the film industry, as well as their tenth anniversary as his fans.
In this significant moment, the UCLA alumni organized a gathering, which included watching Gilbert's latest film.
However, today felt a little unusual. As soon as she arrived, Sarati Merton was visibly upset, complaining to her fellow alumni, "Have you seen the online reviews?"
"What reviews?"
"The bad ones! Do these people even have eyes? The Two Towers is such an outstanding film—how could they possibly think it's bad?"
Having been Gilbert's friend and fan for over a decade, Lewis didn't find this surprising in the least.
"It's normal, Sarati. This is Gilbert, Hollywood's super genius—both loved and hated." Lewis shrugged. "It's completely normal for people to be jealous of him."
"You mean someone is deliberately smearing him?" Sarati Merton began to think.
"Of course," Lewis affirmed. "Gilbert's success wasn't achieved without stepping over a lot of people along the way."
Seeing Sarati Merton's worried expression, Lewis reassured her, "Don't worry too much. Gilbert knows how to handle these things."
The group of friends went to the theater to watch The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. By the time they came out, even the usually calm Lewis was furious.
"These bastards! Such a cheap trick, trying to smear a film as epic as this." He turned to his friends. "Guys, we can't let The Two Towers be tarnished by these malicious attacks.
We must protect this film's reputation. I call on all of you to rally your contacts and help defend The Two Towers!"
Lewis's passionate speech was immediately met with enthusiastic support.
That night, the UCLA alumni mobilized their networks, flooding the internet with positive reviews for The Two Towers.
Compared to the firm stance of the UCLA fans, a Texas country boy named Paul was a bit more hesitant.
Paul had previously attended The Matrix premiere, where he experienced the magic of cinema firsthand. After graduating from college, he worked in Silicon Valley as a cybersecurity engineer.
Since he had the day off, he thought about inviting his colleagues to watch The Two Towers with him.
"You haven't heard, Paul…?"
"What's up?"
His colleague said, "Didn't you see the reviews? The movie isn't good."
"Really?" Paul was skeptical. He opened a webpage and indeed saw a flood of negative reviews, all sounding logical and well-argued, claiming the movie was terrible.
Paul hesitated. "With Gilbert's directing skills, that doesn't seem right…"
"What's so strange about it?" His colleague disagreed. "Every director messes up sometimes. Gilbert is no exception."
Paul wasn't entirely convinced, but he believed he shouldn't judge without seeing it for himself, so he decided to go anyway.
His colleague, influenced by the negative buzz, chose to skip it. Paul ended up going alone.
At the theater entrance, Paul saw a small group arguing.
One person said, "I read the online reviews. This movie is awful. Let's pick something else."
Another disagreed. "But if we don't watch The Two Towers, there's nothing good playing this weekend."
That was true—other major releases had steered clear. The closest upcoming release was DreamWorks' Shrek, which was an animated film.
Though they debated, they had no better options and ultimately bought tickets for The Two Towers.
Paul also noticed several other moviegoers who weren't swayed by the online negativity and confidently bought tickets.
Clearly, the negative reviews weren't affecting Gilbert's loyal fans, but new audiences might be discouraged.
Realizing this, Paul felt a bit ashamed.
He had actually doubted Gilbert—even though he prided himself on being one of his fans.
Without any further hesitation, Paul purchased a ticket and entered the theater.
At Melon Studios, an emergency meeting was underway.
All key personnel involved in The Lord of the Rings project were present.
Even Robert Iger was there. As the North American distributor of The Two Towers, Disney's president couldn't ignore this crisis.
"Everyone understands the situation," said Richard, Disney's head of distribution. "A sudden surge of negative reviews is hitting the film, and it could have an impact.
So, what should we do?"
Even in a future era where the internet was more advanced and people were well aware of online smear campaigns, there was never a perfect countermeasure for this kind of attack—let alone now.
Seeing that no one was speaking, Gilbert took the lead. "I'll start with a few points. You can give me your thoughts.
First, we need to mobilize our own resources to control the narrative. We can't let them dictate the conversation.
Second, once people actually watch the movie, they'll be won over. We need to target these viewers and encourage them to speak up for us.
After all, internet trolls are a minority. As long as the majority praises the film, the smear campaign won't hold."
Robert Iger nodded. "Good. I'd add one more thing—let's leverage traditional media.
Disney and Warner both have powerful media assets. We need to make it clear to the public that these negative reviews are part of a malicious attack, and that the film itself is excellent."
The team discussed additional strategies, and once decisions were made, they got to work immediately.
By the afternoon, negative reviews had still dominated. However, as Gilbert's team engaged their own resources to guide the discussion—alongside real audiences who had seen the film stepping up to defend it—the smear campaign started losing momentum.
Paul finished watching the movie and was filled with nothing but anger.
Not because the film was bad—on the contrary, it was incredible.
That was precisely why he was so mad.
All those online reviews, all those negative comments—were they written by idiots?
Were these people blind? If a film like this wasn't considered good, then what kind of movie would be?
Back home, Paul turned on his personal computer. Without even checking the now-prevalent positive reviews, he specifically sought out the negative ones and began replying.
"If this isn't a good movie, then what is?"
"You claim that IMDb is full of Gilbert's fans, just a bunch of brainless followers—doesn't that prove just how beloved Gilbert's movies really are?"
"Are you saying that moviegoers across America don't know better than some random troll who hasn't even watched the film?"
"Buddy, could you at least see the movie before commenting? Do you even know how spectacular the final battle was? Everyone in the theater was on their feet watching it unfold."
"Braveheart? Don't make me laugh. That movie isn't even fit to carry The Two Towers' shoes."
Paul became more and more heated. Without realizing it, he had been battling negative comments online until midnight. Only when he snapped back to reality did he notice that the negative reviews had already been largely drowned out.
Satisfied, he finally stopped. These pathetic nobodies had actually thought they could smear The Two Towers? Not a chance.
This wave of negative press had come suddenly and dissipated just as quickly, almost like a passing storm.
For those who weren't online or didn't follow internet discussions, they wouldn't even have known anything had happened. However, the negativity had still influenced some audience choices, causing the film's opening-day box office numbers to fall short of expectations.
"The latest box office numbers are in," Anna reported to Gilbert, who was still in the office. "Excluding midnight and early preview screenings, The Two Towers pulled in $19.308 million on opening day—short of projections."
Disney's marketing team had originally estimated that The Two Towers would surpass $20 million on its opening day. Including midnight and early preview showings, they had even hoped it might break Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone's opening-day record.
But due to the initial wave of negative reviews, the box office had underperformed expectations.
Gilbert wasn't surprised in the least. What he was more interested in was uncovering the mastermind behind this smear campaign.
"Now that we've regained control of the narrative, tomorrow's newspapers might just force the culprits into the open," Gilbert said, stretching. "Honestly, I thought the impact would be worse, but it wasn't too bad in the end."
"Don't worry about it. Go home and get some rest."
"Yes, boss..."
The next morning, Disney and Warner Bros. media outlets, along with several newspapers in which Gilbert had a stake, and even ABC's morning news, all ran reports on the mass smear campaign against The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.
"Yesterday, The Two Towers officially premiered across North America. However, right from the start, the film faced a flood of malicious online attacks..."
"Disney's internal projections had estimated that The Two Towers would surpass $20 million on opening day, but due to the negative reviews, the film failed to meet expectations."
"In response, dedicated fans took matters into their own hands, battling against the smear campaign online. By last night, the negativity had been largely subdued."
These media reports surprised many moviegoers who had been unaware of the controversy. So this had been happening behind the scenes?
This was where Robert Iger's brilliance shone through—he used traditional media to frame the narrative first, defining the negative reviews as deliberate defamation.
By shaping public perception early, moviegoers who hadn't been following online discussions wouldn't be misled by the earlier wave of negative comments.
Many who normally didn't pay attention to online debates went online for the first time and found that, just as the news had reported, there had indeed been a wave of negative reviews.
However, those comments were now buried beneath a flood of positive ones, completely drowned out and neutralized.
Of course, these tactics were only effective because The Two Towers was genuinely an outstanding film—its quality gave its supporters confidence.
Even those who disliked Gilbert personally, after seeing the movie, had to begrudgingly admit that The Two Towers was undeniably a great film.
With the controversy settled, Gilbert finally breathed a sigh of relief.
Now, he turned his focus to traveling across the U.S. for the film's promotional tour with The Lord of the Rings cast and crew.
But just as he was about to depart, he received an unexpected phone call.
"We want to meet you, Gilbert."
"And who exactly are you?"
"You'll find out when you get here. Come to an island in the Caribbean—I'll give you directions when you arrive."
"Sorry, I'm not interested in meeting you..."
Before the person on the other end could say anything else, Gilbert hung up the call.
So, they had finally shown up. Gilbert recalled the words of a great leader:
"He fights his way, I fight mine. And in the end, I will be the one to emerge victorious."
...
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