Chapter 100: Future Transformation Plan

The Pentagon's generosity saved the crew a fortune, especially for several large-scale outdoor explosion scenes. The White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico was the perfect location. The crew could detonate explosives and wreak havoc across the range to their heart's content without worrying about environmentalists knocking on their door.

To that end, coordinated by Pentagon liaison Lieutenant Colonel Lenho, Duke led a team—including director of photography John Schwartzman, art director Hannah Selina, assistant director Zack Snyder, pyrotechnician Joss William, and several department heads from Industrial Light and Magic—on location scouts to Edwards Air Force Base and the White Sands Missile Range to discuss set construction for the upcoming shoot.

During pre-production, Duke was hardly less busy than he was during an actual shoot. After returning to Burbank from New Mexico, he dispatched Zack Snyder with a small camera unit to capture location footage of landmarks and scenic spots worldwide—including Cairo, Sydney, the Middle East, Paris, and Mount Kilimanjaro—gathering raw material for the special effects team's CG compositing.

Negotiations with the lead actors also made headway. After a tug-of-war at the bargaining table, Will Smith signed a $250,000 acting contract. Jeff Goldblum, Bill Pullman, Naomi Watts, and Halle Berry subsequently secured their own deals, essentially finalizing the core cast.

Duke even carved out time to review Scarlett Johansson's audition. The little girl's acting chops were streets behind Kirsten Dunst's performance in Interview with the Vampire, but she was more than capable of playing the President's daughter in Independence Day. A few other child actors had tried pulling strings with the assistant directors, but once Duke made his preference known, they voluntarily backed off.

After the audition, Duke instructed Sofia to promptly pass the news to Scarlett Johansson and her mother. He then returned to his office to discuss the White Sands Missile Range shoot with his two production managers and John Schwartzman. As their discussion drew to a close, a knock came at the door, and Sofia Coppola walked in first.

"Can I come in?" Scarlett Johansson popped her little head through the doorway.

"Didn't you go back to class?"

Turning to look at her, Duke frowned. "Or did you skip?"

"I had an audition today."

The little girl marched right in carrying a large paper bag. "I took a whole day off just for it."

"Hi, John. Hi, Charles. Hi, Robin."

Acting completely at home, she strolled over to greet the seated men, pulling ice cream from her paper bag and pressing it into their hands.

"Is Scar treating us?"

Charles Roven was the oldest in the room and generally fond of children. When Duke had been busy a while back, he had asked Sofia to temporarily bring Scarlett to the studio to wait for him to get off work, so the girl was already acquainted with the core crew members.

"You all helped me so much." Scarlett finally stopped next to Duke, turning back to the men with a serious expression. "I wanted to say thank you. I bought this ice cream with my own money."

"This one's yours." She held out a carton of ice cream to Duke.

"Thanks."

Taking the ice cream, Duke studied her. The girl was bright and clever; she would be even more endearing if she weren't such a chatterbox.

With their work temporarily paused, the other three men soon left Duke's office, leaving only Sofia. Though Duke wasn't much of a fan of creamy sweets, Scarlett's blinking, expectant stare convinced him to open the carton and take a few bites.

"Tastes good. Scar, where's your mom?"

The little girl had only stayed in Santa Monica for four days before her mother hurried back to Los Angeles from New York.

"I think she's negotiating my acting contract." Making herself right at home, Scarlett Johansson set her paper bag down and pulled out her own ice cream. She plopped into the chair in front of Duke's desk, dug out a massive spoonful, and shoved it into her mouth. "Couldn't you pay me a little more?" she mumbled around the bite.

"When you become Kirsten Dunst," Duke said, setting his ice cream aside, "I'll pay you two million dollars."

"Dunst?" Scarlett curled her little, cream-smeared lip. "A few months ago, I went to an audition in New York for a French director's crew. I saw a girl there whose acting was way better than Dunst's."

"Then you need to work hard," Duke replied casually, "or you'll be left far behind."

The office phone suddenly rang. Sofia answered it, exchanged a few words, and hung up before looking over at Duke. "We have another problem."

"What problem?"

Pre-production was entirely about solving problems, so Duke didn't mind. "Are they tougher to deal with than the Pentagon?"

"They actually are." Sofia frowned deeply. "In the script, doesn't Captain Steve Tyler's girlfriend have a dog? The Animal Protection Organization just contacted the crew. They want to dispatch personnel to the set during filming to protect the animal actor's rights."

"What?"

Duke simply stood up and paced back and forth behind his desk. "Notify the two screenwriters to cut all scenes that feature animals extensively."

For the crew, the Animal Protection Organization was an absolutely larger headache than the Pentagon. These people loved animals more than humans. Once they joined the crew on set, they would keep their eyes glued to the animal actors. If the animals were even slightly mistreated, they would cause an uproar, and if they worked a minute of overtime, the production could expect protests and blockades.

As for whether the human actors were safe or mistreated? Even if someone snapped a leg right in front of them, these so-called humanitarians wouldn't spare them a second glance.

This wasn't an animal movie, and pets were completely dispensable. Duke couldn't be bothered to deal with those people, so he simply cut the animal scenes altogether.

"Scar, stick with Sofia for now."

He was preparing to head to the adjacent soundstage to check on the model department's progress. "Don't go running around," Duke instructed the girl before leaving.

"Can I go visit with you?" the little girl asked, standing up and looking at him hopefully. "I promise I won't say anything and I won't do anything."

"No!"

Duke left the office without looking back.

Scarlett Johansson sat back in her chair, glaring indignantly at the figure pulling the door open. She looked as if she wanted to hurl her ice cream at him, but ultimately did not. When the door slammed shut, she simply made a face at it.

"Is he always so mean to people?" Scarlett asked Sofia beside her. "When we were on the terrace at the party, I felt he was a very kind and easy-going person."

"People always have two sides, dear," Sofia said, pointing a finger at her. "Just like you. Sometimes you're very cute, and sometimes you're simply..."

"Very loud and annoying?" Despite her young age, Scarlett had a bit of self-awareness.

"Back then, you met a Duke who had just finished his vacation and was still completely relaxed," Sofia said, ignoring the girl's comment, clearly agreeing that the child was troublesome. "That's why he could joke around with you and even play games with you when he felt like it. But right now, a director in work mode is a demon straight out of hell, especially a director with the pressure of a hundred-million-dollar investment resting on his shoulders."

A stress-free director did not exist. A total investment exceeding a hundred million dollars might sound like just a number, but when the director himself became the crucial deciding factor for that investment, and when its success or failure would also determine his future path, shedding that pressure was impossible.

Duke's greatest progress was that, having survived two relatively high-budget productions, he had gradually grown accustomed to working and living under pressure. As long as he had appropriate ways to relax and blow off steam, he wouldn't suffer from frequent insomnia like before.

"Hi, Stan."

Walking into the adjacent soundstage, Duke went directly to the department head, Stan Winston. "How is the progress on the models?"

"The alien models were just finalized," Stan Winston said, temporarily setting his work aside to accompany Duke deeper into the soundstage. "The physical prototypes will take at least ten days to finish. The alien spacecraft is moving a bit faster."

"Right this way." He gestured invitingly to Duke.

The two climbed a set of temporary stairs and arrived at a set of glass automatic doors. Once they slid open, they stepped straight inside.

This area had already been dressed as the underground laboratory of Area 51. The most eye-catching feature was an "alien spacecraft" currently being built as a practical set on a raised platform straight ahead. The ship was primarily blue, and though it was far from finished, its lifelike realism was already apparent. If someone were to drop this thing into the New Mexico desert, people would undoubtedly mistake it for a genuine UFO.

After touring the Area 51 construction, Duke and Stan Winston headed to another workshop, where several massive projects were underway.

Proportionally scaled-down models of iconic American landmarks—the Empire State Building, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Washington Monument, and the Statue of Liberty—were slowly taking shape under the careful hands of the prop masters in the workshop. Among them, the largest and most striking was that famous white building—the White House!

Following Duke's requirements, nearly twenty prop makers were hard at work constructing a miniature replica of the presidential residence over 70 feet long. Not only were they referencing data and photographs provided by the Pentagon and the White House Hollywood liaison office, but they were also meticulously recreating the front lawn, striving to achieve the most realistic effect possible.

Of course, in Duke's hands, this exorbitantly expensive White House model had only one purpose—to be blown sky-high and shattered into pieces!

All the explosion scenes in the film would be shot practically, but since they couldn't exactly blow up the real White House or reconstruct a full-sized one, scaled-down miniatures were the most suitable approach. The filmed result would also look much more realistic than optical and computer-generated effects.

As the workday was winding down, Duke left the soundstage and headed back to the adjacent Independence Day Studio.

"Mr. Rosenberg."

Just as Duke stepped inside the studio, he saw a young clerk walk over. "A Miss Charlize Theron has been waiting for you in the reception room ever since she finished her audition. She said she's a friend of yours."