Chapter 261: Profoundly Cool

"They threw a special celebration party after the performance of The Diary of Anne Frank ended."

Some things were only fit to be discussed among people of Jewish descent. Duke's stance had been exceedingly clear ever since the Mel Gibson incident, so Natalie spoke without much reservation.

"Many Jewish celebrities living in New York attended the party," she said. "That's where I saw Mrs. Leah. Even though we only chatted for a few moments, her charisma was truly admirable."

"Thank you," Duke said, nodding.

He had also heard his mother mention this over the phone. A massive number of New York's Jewish elites had attended the final performance of The Diary of Anne Frank. When the curtain fell, the atmosphere in the theater had been so enthusiastic that the cast was forced to make four consecutive curtain calls, sustaining the applause for over forty minutes.

Duke wasn't surprised in the slightest. This was, after all, The Diary of Anne Frank—a work with a practical influence far greater than Schindler's List. Furthermore, Jewish people could not always be judged by ordinary mindsets, especially those who had lived through the war years. Whether one called it persecution paranoia or a preference for sticking together, they were always capable of erupting with tremendous passion and support for certain people or causes.

It was highly likely that starring in The Diary of Anne Frank was exactly how Natalie Portman had won the favor of certain figures.

After all, there were too few actresses with a background like hers. She had just as many people and events swirling around her as any other Hollywood female star, yet the mainstream media almost never reported negative news about her. To simply claim her PR team was strong would mean they were unimaginably powerful...

As Duke and Natalie's conversation came to a temporary lull, George Lucas suddenly spoke up.

"I hear you're adapting Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings trilogy?" he asked.

"It's already in prep," Duke replied.

As time passed, the news had gradually spread among the higher-ups in the industry. There was no need for Duke to deny it.

"A lot of my team is currently over in New Zealand," he added.

Lucas nodded.

"No wonder you turned down the director's chair for Star Wars. You chose an even more difficult project."

Duke just smiled and didn't say anything. George Lucas himself had publicly admitted that the worldbuilding of Star Wars borrowed heavily from The Lord of the Rings.

Sitting at the same table, Natalie was a little shocked. She hadn't realized the director sitting beside her had actually turned down Star Wars. To her knowledge, how many directors in the world could refuse the helm of a Star Wars movie?

Even she had needed to play innocent, act cute, and appropriately display her precociousness, exhausting every trick to earn Lucas's approval. When she received the invitation to play Padme Amidala, she had suffered from frequent insomnia for an entire week—not out of nervousness, but excitement. She knew that Padme Amidala was enough to fulfill a large portion of her ambitions and desires. She was going to become an actress envied by all of Hollywood and the entire world!

She looked over at Duke. Combining this with the reports she had read in the media over the years, she was absolutely certain that he was a director with an incredibly resolute mind and clear goals.

After chatting a bit more about their respective films, Duke checked the time and took the initiative to excuse himself from the restaurant. He still had other work to do that afternoon.

Naomi Watts also prepared to take her leave.

"I won't hold up your work anymore," she said. "Goodbye, Duke. I'll come see you again when I have the time."

"You're welcome anytime," Duke replied.

Watching Naomi Watts hop onto an electric cart and head off into the distance, Duke turned around and walked into the soundstage. Penny Kalis, who had just flown in from Los Angeles, and Warner Brothers' head of distribution, Doug Walter, were already waiting in the adjacent office.

After the two sides exchanged brief greetings, Penny Kalis pointed out the window.

"Was that Naomi Watts just now?" she asked.

"Yeah," Duke said, nodding. He sat down in the chair opposite her.

"She's on vacation, so she dropped by to take a look."

"She's really in the limelight right now. Her topicality is—"

"Hold on!"

Hearing this, Duke immediately cut the PR manager off.

"Penny, this isn't a niche indie flick. This is a Summer Season sci-fi film."

"Duke, I didn't mean anything else," Penny Kalis said rather innocently.

"That kind of promotional tactic can only be used occasionally anyway. Use it too much, and it loses its effectiveness."

"Which is why that was the first time, and it will be the last time," Duke stated.

Duke was fully aware that a publicity stunt like the one he and Catherine Zeta-Jones had pulled for Chicago could only be used once. If they tried it a second time, they would just be asking for trouble. Even a fool would be able to spot the gimmick.

More importantly, he was preparing his return to the Summer Season. What he was making now was a sci-fi action film, not a niche genre like a musical.

Doug Walter sat to the side. Seeing that Duke and Penny Kalis's discussion had temporarily concluded, he finally spoke up.

"Duke, can you tell me the specific completion date for the film now?" he asked.

Because it hinged on the progress of the actors' training, Duke had held off on locking in the film's actual completion date. This, in turn, had caused Warner Brothers' promotional work to fall slightly behind schedule.

Duke thought about Keanu Reeves' training progress. Factoring in the contingency plans drawn up for the worst-case scenarios, he deliberated for a moment.

"Early April of next year," he answered. "At the absolute latest, it won't go past the end of April."

"That easily makes it in time for the Summer Season." Doug Walter opened his briefcase and dug out his work log. He studied it for a moment.

"The third weekend of May. Looking at the release slates announced by all the major studios so far, there aren't any heavy-hitting films scheduled for that weekend. What do you think about a wide North American release for The Matrix on May 15th?"

"You guys are the professionals." Duke had no objections to this.

"I'll leave the specific release strategy up to you."

"Then we can go ahead and kick off the early promotions," Doug said.

Even though Warner Brothers and Duke Studio had held a press conference for the project's greenlight and leaked quite a bit of news to coincide with the auditions, there had been no large-scale, systematic promotional campaign. Now that the film's release date was essentially set, the overarching marketing plan could officially launch.

Warner had come well prepared. A female reporter from the Los Angeles Times named Sarah had tagged along with Doug Walter and Penny Kalis all the way to Fox Studios.

Facing Sarah's microphone, Duke cooperatively accepted the interview. Because the film was still a long way from being finished, he stuck to providing a basic overview of the movie.

"When it came to this film, I started from a single premise. What if every single thing today, and every part of every person's body, was created by an electronic world? Everything we see, smell, hear..."

He picked up his coffee cup and took a sip right in front of the camera lens.

"...even everything we taste, might all be fake. It might just be signals forcibly fed to us by some power that manipulates this world."

"If you discovered this truth," Duke said, looking at the reporter.

"What would you do?"

"I would expose the truth to everyone, of course," Sarah, the reporter, replied, playing along perfectly.

"And if the others didn't believe you? They only believe what they can see and hear. Even if some people did realize it, they would choose not to believe it. Change usually entails pain."

In this moment, Duke completely transformed into The Oracle from The Matrix, speaking with the flair of a mystic.

"Throughout history, ever since the dawn of human civilization, there have always been those tirelessly seeking the profound meaning of life, and they have made astonishing discoveries. So, in this story, I simply want to focus on a small group of people. They asked questions and received a shocking answer. I want their discovery to serve as the beginning of the story, not the end. What interests me is how they choose to respond."

As Sarah jotted this down in her notebook, she discreetly rolled her eyes. The director sitting across from her had clearly evolved past the elementary stage of drawing audiences in with simple explosions and visual thrills. After dabbling in humanitarian themes and dark musicals, he was now gearing up for mysticism.

However, she knew what she was here to do. Pushing those thoughts aside for the moment, she asked another question.

"Rumor has it that all the actors in this film will undergo three to four months of grueling training?"

"All the main cast members need to possess a certain foundation in kung fu," Duke replied.

This era was different from the future; the topic of kung fu didn't hold much appeal in North America yet. Duke only brought it up in passing before steering the focus back to the actors themselves.

"This was a huge challenge for the cast. The entire training regimen lasts about a hundred days, and some of these actors might be shooting other films at the same time. How was I supposed to pitch this to them? But the end result completely surprised me, because all the actors were willing to make the sacrifice. They agreed to complete the full, grueling training program. I am incredibly grateful for their hard work and dedication, and I'm deeply proud of everything they've put in."

After a few more routine questions, Duke's portion of the interview officially came to a close.

This wasn't their first time conducting an interview together. Dropping her professional demeanor, Sarah asked a casual question.

"Since when did you become a believer in mysticism?"

"A believer in mysticism?" Duke shook his head at her.

"I'm just borrowing it."

Just like kung fu, as long as it benefited the film, he didn't care where it came from or what its origins were.

After the assistant finished packing up the equipment, Sarah left the office to go interview the main cast over at the soundstage. Once the office was back down to just the four of them, Duke suddenly thought of another angle.

"Doug, how much do you know about the internet?" he asked.

"I know a bit." Doug Walter looked at Duke with an odd expression.

"Under the influence of this film of yours, I actually went out of my way to research computer networks."

"Don't you think we can expand our promotional battleground onto the internet?" Duke pressed on.

"The film is intrinsically linked to computers and the net, and the vast majority of internet users are teenagers. That exact demographic happens to be the core audience for sci-fi films."

"Duke, to tell you the truth..." Doug Walter chuckled.

"We've already partnered with Yahoo and are currently drafting up the relevant marketing strategies."

Duke nodded. Even if they didn't place heavy emphasis on it yet, how could a massive media conglomerate fail to notice the sheer utility of the internet?

He turned his attention to the side.

"Penny, is my personal website finished? I think it's time to put it to good use."