Duke was finally back behind his desk in the Paramount Lot, his office usually cluttered with production notes and storyboards felt empty now.
For the past year, this desk had been buried under hand-drawn storyboards and conceptual models.
Star Wars was now safely locked away in a lengthy post-production process.
He was now checking box office results. For Paramount, Film was still their main source of revenue.
In this era, tracking ticket sales was a manual process, since there were no digital dashboards.
Studio accountants relied on telephone calls to regional distribution exchanges and ledgers updated by hand to understand how a picture performed.
Duke adjusted his reading glasses that Margaux had bought for him, running a finger down the column of typed numbers.
The financial data represented a streak of victories.
Taxi Driver, released way back in February, was still pulling consistent crowds in urban centers.
It had already crossed 28 million dollars.
It was a great return on a meager investment of 1.9 million.
It validated Duke's and Paramount strategy of backing visionary filmmakers.
A few lines down sat The Bad News Bears, a sleeper hit.
Kids were dragging their parents back to the theaters for repeat viewings, pushing the domestic gross higher every weekend.
Then there was The Omen, a triumph debut for Studio Thirteen was already nearing 25 million in box office.
But the most shocking number on the sheet belonged to a different film.
Duke read the figure twice, certain the accounting department had made some kind of error.
Grizzly had grossed 39 million dollars.
The killer bear movie had cost a mere 750.000 dollars to produce.
It was a blatant copycat of Jaws, swapping a mechanical shark for a Bear.
And even then, it was crushing the rest of the slate.
The door to the office swung open.
Robert Evans strode into the room, clutching a rolled-up copy of Variety magazine on his hand.
He slapped the trade paper down onto Duke's desk, and pointed a freshly manicured finger at the front page.
A grin on his tanned face.
"I told you! My eyes are gold!" Evans said loudly, his voice echoing off the wood-paneled walls, as he paced across the carpet, unable to contain his energy. "Look at the receipts!"
Duke leaned back in his leather chair, removing his glasses.
He offered his production chief an amused look. "You pitched it to me as a Jaws rip-off, Bob. This movie was only succesful cause of the success of Jaws."
Although, Duke couldnt help but admit that he wasnt expecting the ausience reaction to a Jaws Rip-off.
"And it made 39 million dollars!" Evans countered, throwing his hands up in a theatrical gesture.
"I am a genius. You must admit it. The audience loves animal killers"
Theatricality was a part of Evans persona.
He was a showman who understood entertainment better than anyone in town.
"You are a very lucky man," Duke replied, keeping his tone measured.
"You are lucky to have met someone like me who gave you the sole decision-making power to greenlight a movie about a killer bear."
Evans scoffed, leaning over the desk. "Luck has nothing to do with it. I got pure instinct. You need to trust my gut more, Duke."
"We should put 5 more killer animal films into development. I already hired people for the scripts. Spiders, wolves, orcas, and some others, hunting humans."
Before Duke could respond to the ridiculous pitch, the office door opened again.
Barry Diller walked in, carrying a leather binder.
Diller was the corporate future of the entertainment business.
He understood the shifting mopment of television syndication and overall comglomerate synergy.
He was the opposite to a creative impulsive men like Evans.
"I assume Bob is already demanding a parade in his honor," Diller said, taking a seat on the leather sofa.
He opened his binder, revealing handwritten financial charts.
"He wants to make a movie about a killer wolf," Duke responded, gesturing toward the production chief.
"But I think we need to focus on the numbers for a moment. How does the rest of the summer look, Barry?"
Diller adjusted his cuffs, looking down at his charts. "The slate this year is strong, we have had some unexpected successes."
Evans clapped his hands together loudly. "Say it! Say the name of the bear! Read the number out loud so the entire floor can hear you!"
Diller let out a sigh, refusing to look up from his binder. "Yes, Bob. Grizzly did great."
"Yes! That is the music, Barry!" Evans cheered, spinning around on the carpet.
"That is the sound of cash flowing into the Paramount accounts! I want a good Christmas bonus this year. I want to get a new car in the shape of a bear."
Duke smiled at the display, choosing to ignore the demands for the moment.
He turned his attention back to Diller.
"What is the status on The Outlaw Josey Wales?" Duke asked, shifting the conversation away from exploitation cinema.
"We have it slated for mid-August. And where are we on Rocky? Has the post-production been finalized yet?"
Diller nodded, flipping to a new page in his binder. "The Clint Eastwood picture is locked and ready for distribution."
"As for Rocky, the final sound mix is scheduled for next week. The test screenings were phenomenal. People loved it."
Evans interrupted the update, pulling a folded newspaper clipping from his jacket pocket.
He smoothed it out on the desk. It was a review from a East Coast critic, dismissing Grizzly as a shameless cash-in devoid of artistic merit.
"Look at this garbage," Evans sneered, tapping the newsprint. "These critics think they know everything. The audience does not care about artistic merit on a Friday night!"
"They want two hours of fun. We are in the film business, not the art business!"
This was a jarring thing to hear Evans say, the same man who had personally supported The Godfather and Chinatown. Money truly does changes people.
Diller looked up from his notes, offering a nod of agreement.
"He actually has a point, Duke. The commercial hits fund everything else. The money we make on the bear movie pays for the risks we take on prestige directors."
Duke understood the reality of the industry.
The ecosystem required balance.
He did not love producing cheap B-tier films, but the profits from them provided a corporate safety net.
It was a necessary trade-off.
The celebratory mood in the office suddenly shifted. Diller closed his thick leather binder, resting his hands flat on the cover.
"We lost a project," Diller stated, his voice dropping into a serious tone.
He looked directly at Duke, bypassing the pacing production chief. "I just got off the phone with an agent at William Morris. Warner Brothers closed the deal in February."
Duke sat forward, resting his elbows on the desk.
"Which project, Barry?" Duke asked quietly.
He mentally scanned the development slate, trying to pinpoint which script had been poached.
They had dozens of options lingering in the development phase.
"Sorcerer," Diller replied flatly.
"William Friedkin took it across town. They gave him a massive budget and total creative control. The ink is already dry on the contracts. We were moving a little slow, and Warners swooped in with a blank check."
The revelation relieved Duke.
Sorcerer was a great adaptation of the French classic The Wages of Fear.
An intense story about men driving trucks filled with volatile explosives through a South American jungle.
The loss felt slightly personal.
Duke was the man who had given William Friedkin his first major opportunities in Hollywood.
He had supported the director through the productions of The French Connection and The Exorcist. He shared a long history with Paramount.
Duke had invited him to his house, and even wanted to help him establish his own production label in the future.
Evans scoffed, waving a dismissive hand in the air.
"Friedkin? You are upset about losing Friedkin? That guy is a nightmare to work with. He shoots a million takes and screams at everyone."
Diller shook his head slowly, refusing to accept the optimistic spin.
"They took a key project away from us, Bob. This is a deliberate shot from a major competitor. They want our market share."
Duke remained silent, processing his emotions.
In this business, loyalty was an illusion, discarded for a slightly larger production budget or a better percentage of the gross.
"Friedkin is a great director," Duke finally said, his voice even.
"He is difficult, but he is going to make something incredibly with that material. And it is going to happen at Warner Brothers, instead of happening right here."
Luckily, Duke remembered Sorcerer faced a huge problem in his past life.
It was published at the same time as Star Wars, and got demolished.
Despite that, it could not be said the movie was bad, if anything it was a great movie damaged by an even better movie.
That was in his past life, when Star Wars was published with not that much belief behind the project.
But now? A New Hope would come with an arcade, theme park, toys and a massive advertisement campaing.
The room fell into a silence.
Duke stood up from his chair and walked slowly toward the large window overlooking the studio lot.
It had been a while since he aura farmed in this window.
Below him, hundreds of workers hurried between the soundstages.
Duke stared at the distant Hollywood hills.
The modern film industry was transitioning away from the old, polite studio gentlemen's agreements.
The new era that was coming would be defined by corporate acquisitions and fierce bidding wars for established literary properties.
If Paramount looked vulnerable, the competitors would attack their talent pool.
He had already suffered from losing The Sting project a few years ago. And Universal made a huge profit form it.
"They do not see us as a small competitor anymore, we had too many hits in a row last year. We have a target on our backs, we are the primary target."
Evans adjusted his tinted sunglasses, refusing to back down. "Then let them come."