Chapter 108: Supermodel

"Darling, I've already made the call."

Standing before the full-length mirror, Duke adjusted his shirt and spoke to Heidi Klum as she walked out of the bedroom. "Have your agent contact Martha Hudson directly. She'll discuss the details with you."

Effort always required a return. Duke understood this principle. When he woke up this morning, he called his mother's assistant to subtly inquire why Heidi Klum had not been selected. If his mother had personally rejected her, he wouldn't have said another word; he would have simply found a way to get Heidi a minor role in a Warner Brothers film instead.

Naturally, the matter had nothing to do with his mother. One of Heidi's competitors had played a dirty trick. Competition in the modeling industry was far fiercer than in the entertainment circle. Although Duke didn't know what kind of agreement the competitor had reached with a high-level executive at Saintphia, Martha still promised she would step in and coordinate things.

"I really should thank you," she said.

Duke smiled. "Just treat me to breakfast."

Leaving the room, the two took the elevator down to the restaurant. They grabbed some food and sat together, chatting as they ate. As a professional model, Heidi ate very little. Most of the time, she simply watched Duke enjoy his meal, occasionally bringing up amusing anecdotes from the modeling world to keep the conversation going.

Although their two circles weren't that far apart, Duke found the stories she told quite fascinating, gaining a deeper understanding of models in the process.

For example, during fashion shows, models would often go over ten hours without food or water, consuming only specific nutritional meals to dehydrate their bodies and appear even thinner.

Some used even more extreme methods, combining intense workouts with strict diet plans until their mental states deteriorated. Countless models suffered from anorexia, often relying on medical intervention just to meet their basic nutritional needs. It was an industry that practically manufactured anorexics.

It was no exaggeration to say that this profession demanded even stricter dieting and weight control than acting—even for the Victoria's Secret angels, who weren't required to be painfully thin.

Near noon, Duke left the hotel to catch his afternoon flight back to Los Angeles. Before leaving, he made sure to check on the situation. Martha's meeting with Heidi Klum's agent had gone rather pleasantly; there shouldn't be any issues with the German model joining the soon-to-be-formed angels.

Although Hollywood had plenty of precedents for people turning their backs on one another, Duke wasn't classless enough to do something like that.

Upon arriving at the airport, Duke led Scarlett Johansson toward a different boarding gate than his mother, who was heading to New York. They boarded the American Airlines flight and headed straight for first class, where their seats were right next to each other. He helped the little girl buckle her seatbelt, then asked the flight attendant for a blanket and draped it over Scarlett.

"Where did you go last night?" Scarlett asked, looking at him while clutching a stack of newspapers. "I knocked on your door, but there was no answer."

"I was with a friend."

Giving a casual reply, Duke settled into his seat, fastened his seatbelt, and waited quietly for takeoff.

"Duke, Godmother was very unhappy after the party ended yesterday," the girl said, her eyes gleaming.

"Is that so?" Naturally, Duke didn't believe a word of her nonsense. "Why didn't I notice?"

"Hmph..."

Scarlett wrinkled her nose and opened a newspaper. Regardless of whether she could actually read it, she used it to cover her face.

Reading the text might have been a bit difficult for her, but she had no problem looking at the pictures. Scarlett flipped to the entertainment section, which was overwhelmingly covered with news about yesterday's Victoria's Secret fashion show. Amidst a pile of model photos, there was a half-body shot of Duke, along with screenshots of the White House being blown up. Independence Day was equally drawing the media's attention.

She lowered the newspaper and looked at Duke, who seemed to have fallen asleep beside her. "Duke!"

"What is it?" Duke tilted his head toward her.

"Why didn't you cut my character into the commercial?"

Hearing her puffed-up tone, Duke turned his head back. Ever since they met at noon today, he had sensed that Scarlett Johansson was playing a game of finding fault.

"There will be a poster dedicated to you later on." Duke closed his eyes again.

"Really?"

If it weren't for the seatbelt, the little girl would have jumped right in front of him. "Is it going to be released this time?"

"No," Duke shook his head. "Right before the release."

"I thought it was going to be today." Scarlett pouted in dissatisfaction.

The aircraft's pre-takeoff announcement chimed over the speakers. Duke grabbed a pair of headphones, placed them over Scarlett's ears, and pulled the blanket up for her. "Get some sleep. We'll be back in Los Angeles when you wake up."

Ever since Independence Day wrapped up filming, the promotional campaign had officially kicked off, spearheaded by the Super Bowl commercial. On the very day Duke flew back to Los Angeles, Warner Brothers and Twentieth Century Fox rode the wave of hype generated by the Super Bowl ad to hold a joint press conference and unveil seven new posters.

Aside from the character posters featuring Jeff Goldblum, Will Smith, Bill Pullman, and Naomi Watts, the other three posters were entirely themed around explosions and destruction. In those three posters, New York, Los Angeles, and the White House were completely engulfed in a sea of fire.

The destruction of the White House drew the most attention, sparking a frenzy among fans eager to collect that specific poster.

In New York's Lauder Building, Aerin hurriedly walked into the advertising manager's office clutching a stack of documents. She emerged a few minutes later, walked down the long corridor to the corner near the emergency stairwell, and checked her watch. It was almost time for the agreed meeting.

With a creak, the fire door was pushed open from the inside, and a man about her age walked out.

"Hi, Aerin." He was holding a few cylindrical tubes.

"Did you get it?"

Aerin rushed up to greet him, took one of the tubes, and couldn't wait to unroll it. The poster depicted an alien spaceship descending and blasting the White House to pieces.

"This is amazing! This is exactly the one I wanted!" she said, thrilled.

"It wasn't easy to snatch," he said.

The young man began to rattle on, describing how crowded the poster distribution event had been, how he had painstakingly fought his way to the front row, and how fearlessly he had secured the posters from the grasping hands of countless others...

"Alright, give me the poster."

Aerin had absolutely no qualms about burning a bridge the moment she crossed it. "You can go now."

"Aerin, could I invite you..."

"Oh, sorry..."

She abruptly turned away, calling back over her shoulder as she walked off. "I still have work to do. See you next time."

Rounding a corner, Aerin tucked the poster under one arm and took out her phone to call Anna. "Hi, Anna! I got the poster! The one of the White House exploding looks absolutely incredible! Duke Rosenberg really lives up to his name. He's finally stepping out of California and getting ready to bomb the whole world!"

"I got them too."

Standing in an office, Anna paced back and forth, admiring the movie posters she had just taped to the wall. The White House, New York, and Los Angeles were all swallowed by flames. "Then it's a date, my Miss Lauder. As soon as the movie is released, we'll go straight to the midnight screening!"

"Can we go to the Premiere instead?" Aerin's voice over the receiver carried an uncontrollable yearning.

"Are you sure you can get time off?" Anna reminded her. "Do you even have time to go to Los Angeles?"

"That's just so depressing."

After hanging up on her friend, Anna sat behind her desk, her eyes drifting back to the posters. She was the same age as Duke Rosenberg, and they had both studied film production. Yet, he was already directing a massive blockbuster with a hundred-million-dollar budget, while she was left to waste her days away in a Broadway theater.

When she entered her internship period, Anna hadn't gone to Hollywood to seek opportunities like Aerin had suggested. Instead, she took a nearby internship on Broadway. Though she hadn't been there long, she had already fully grasped the complexity of the industry. For a newcomer to break through, they needed more than just skill—they needed an opportunity.

Young directors like Duke Rosenberg—who possessed the perfect trifecta of talent, skill, and luck—were virtually nonexistent throughout the entire history of Hollywood.

Looking at the letters "A Duke Rosenberg Film" on the poster, Anna slowly made up her mind. Once she officially graduated, she would venture into Hollywood and search for an opportunity of her own.

Just as Anna was pondering her future, back at the university she had yet to graduate from, a group of students had plastered the exact same poster on their dorm room wall. Pointing at the shattered pieces of the White House, they agreed that once the movie was released, they absolutely had to see how that explosion-crazy director was going to blow up North America.

In just a few days, fueled by the massive hype surrounding the White House's destruction in the Super Bowl halftime commercial, posters for Independence Day spread to every corner of North America. From the ranches of Texas to the plains of Montana, from the frigid beaches of Seattle to the cross-sea bridges of Miami, from Boston's Cambridge City to the Latino neighborhoods of Los Angeles—the eye-catching explosion posters could be seen everywhere, boldly displaying the words "A Duke Rosenberg Film" and "North American Premiere on July 1."

Back in Los Angeles, Duke participated in a few media events to coordinate with the studios' promotional plans. Following the wrap party, he quickly threw himself into the film's post-production. First, he gathered his first unit production manager Charles Roven, second unit production manager Robin Grande, and executive producer Jon Landau to announce that the film's production cost could definitely be kept under 90 million dollars.

According to the promotional plan, Independence Day would still be marketed as having a hundred-million-dollar budget, which in itself was a massive hook to attract moviegoers. Moreover, Duke strongly demanded that the production companies honor their promise and inject the 10 million dollars he had saved back into the film's marketing and distribution to secure an even higher box office return.

After all, his profit sharing was directly tied to the final box office numbers. The higher the gross, the happier he would naturally be.

Although Warner Brothers and Twentieth Century Fox hesitated for a while, they eventually nodded in agreement after conducting market research and careful deliberation—especially since that 10 million dollars had almost entirely come from outside investors.

However, both sides reached a tacit agreement. The film's on-paper cost would officially remain at 100 million dollars. How exactly to execute that accounting was a problem for Warner Brothers and Twentieth Century Fox to figure out. By artificially inflating the total investment figures, they could dilute the final profit-sharing percentage of the outside investors. Duke had no objections to this. After all, all of Hollywood was constantly scheming to cheat outside investors out of their money, and this didn't affect his own profits in the slightest.