Chapter 506: A New Itinerary

Los Angeles in June was a scorching furnace. Braving the blazing summer heat, several staff members unloaded luggage from two RVs and, under the direction of the business jet's captain, pushed it piece by piece toward the aircraft's cargo hold.

It hadn't rained in Los Angeles for over two months. Stepping out of his vehicle, Duke felt as though the air he drew into his lungs was on fire. He pulled down the brim of his hat, unhooked the sunglasses from his pocket, and put them on. The burning sensation from the glaring sunlight finally eased a little.

The door of one of the RVs swung open again, and Tina Fey walked over with her phone in hand.

"I've already contacted the people over there," she said, habitually taking a spot slightly behind Duke. "Representatives from the organizing committee and the Warner branch will be there to meet us."

Duke nodded and led the way onto his business jet. In truth, he and Tina Fey were the only ones making the trip.

The rest of the cast and crew, including Liam Neeson, were staying behind in North America to run the press circuit and handle promotions. It wasn't like the future yet; the market over there wasn't large enough to justify dragging the entire production team across the globe. North America remained his most crucial foundation and the biggest box office market.

Duke actually didn't care whether anyone met them at the airport, but their destination was a veritable nation of etiquette, placing great importance on the rituals of receiving and seeing off guests.

The plane soon climbed into the sky. Once they reached cruising altitude, a flight attendant brought Duke and Tina Fey two cold drinks.

Tina Fey took a sip of her juice and said to Duke, who sat across from her, "I think we should have brought a translator. I can speak a little Japanese, but I don't know any Chinese."

"They'll provide a translator for formal occasions," Duke said dismissively. "And in private, I'm the best translator around."

"You know Chinese?" Tina Fey asked, curious.

She had never heard him speak it, nor had she ever seen him studying it.

"I studied it for a while in college."

It wasn't a lie. Duke had taken Chinese as an elective. Graduating from college wasn't easy, and he had to meet the credit requirements. Since he already had an inherent advantage, he naturally chose the class. It also served as a convenient excuse for his ability to speak and understand the language later on.

Still, setting any language aside for too long would make a person rusty, and Duke was no exception. Without enough practice, his proficiency was certainly higher than that of the vast majority of foreigners, but he couldn't speak it as fluently as he once had.

Moreover, he hadn't used Chinese to communicate with anyone since he graduated.

It was a long flight. Sleep was the best way to kill time, but after the plane landed in Hawaii and took off again, Duke couldn't fall back asleep. He opened his eyes, glanced at Tina Fey resting with her eyes closed across from him, and got up to grab his laptop. He decided to just go through his recent emails.

There were a few emails from Charles Roven. After filming wrapped on The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, the producer's workload had lightened considerably; he had spent the last few years in a state of semi-retirement. Since Robin Grande would be busy overseeing the Harry Potter Series for a long time, Charles Roven was set to handle Duke's next project.

The new project had already passed Warner Brothers' review. Although it hadn't officially been greenlit yet, Charles Roven had already started reaching out to people under Duke's instructions.

The production crew would consist of the team Duke had collaborated with for years, so the current outreach was mainly focused on actors—specifically, candidates to play Bruce Wayne.

Duke's top choice remained Christian Bale, and Charles Roven was already in talks with his agent. However, true to form, Duke wasn't going to put all his eggs in one basket. Ben Affleck, Ewan McGregor, Michael Fassbender, and Gerard Butler were all potential backups.

Duke had even given Leonardo DiCaprio a call. If Xiao Li was willing to take the role, he would drop the other actors in a heartbeat.

Unfortunately, just as Xiao Li had told him before, ever since Titanic, he really didn't have much ambition left when it came to commercial blockbusters.

At present, all outreach was in the earliest stages. Aside from an actor's fame, ability, and aura, price was also a major consideration for Duke.

If Christian Bale turned down the offer, Duke wouldn't force it. This was Hollywood; when it came down to it, who played Master Wayne didn't make that huge a difference.

Once this event was over and he returned to North America, Duke planned to lock down his male lead first. The reason was simple: whoever played Bruce Wayne would have to undergo a lengthy period of fitness and combat training.

There were also emails from Marvel. Marvel Pictures' president, Kevin Feige, was asking for his opinion on when the first movie of the Marvel Series should begin production.

After more than two years of preparation, Marvel had put together a relatively complete plan for the future. Given the continued success of Spider-Man and X-Men, management was getting impatient. Furthermore, they desperately wanted Duke, Marvel's largest shareholder, to shepherd the first film in the Marvel Series and guarantee its success.

Duke hadn't made a final decision yet. After all, the first installment of the new Batman trilogy would take up the vast majority of his time and energy over the next year.

The Lord of the Rings Trilogy had just achieved massive success, and Duke couldn't afford the slightest negligence in his upcoming work either.

After reading emails for a while, mulling over the cinematic plans for Marvel and DC, Duke drifted back to sleep without realizing it. When he woke up, a blanket had been draped over him. Sitting across from him, Tina Fey was drinking coffee to stay awake.

"Are we almost there?" Duke asked, pulling off the blanket.

Tina Fey set down her coffee cup, took the blanket from him, and handed it to an approaching flight attendant. "Half an hour left," she said.

Half an hour later, the business jet did indeed arrive over Shanghai Airport, but like most cities in the world with heavy air traffic, the plane had to circle for over twenty minutes before it finally touched down.

Dedicated personnel handled all the customs clearance procedures. Once everything was sorted, Duke and Tina Fey rolled their respective luggage out of the airport corridor.

As soon as they stepped out, Duke saw a conspicuous banner—A Warm Welcome to Oscar Best Director Mr. Duke Rosenberg to the Shanghai Film Festival!

A crowd of reporters was gathered beneath the banner. Several people leading the group immediately hurried forward upon seeing him and Tina Fey.

"Hi, Phil."

The man walking at the very front was the head of the Warner Greater China Region. Duke knew him well and offered a familiar greeting, "Long time no see."

"Indeed," Phil said, shaking hands with Duke. "You're now the world's number one box office draw and an Oscar Best Director."

After saying that, he shook hands with Tina Fey as well. "Hello, Tina."

A large number of reporters had crowded around, and camera flashes fired off in rapid succession, but security personnel kept them all cordoned off on the periphery. Phil turned and introduced the two Chinese representatives to Duke. "Duke, this is Mr. Ma Liangyu, the Vice Chairman of the film festival's organizing committee. And this is Mr. Li Yuming, the committee's Secretary-General."

"Mr. Li, Mr. Ma, this is Director Rosenberg. And this is Miss Tina Fey, CEO of Duke Pictures."

"Nice to meet you."

Duke spoke in rusty, slightly accented Chinese. The two men were momentarily stunned, but they quickly recovered. They weren't ordinary people, after all, and they proceeded to shake hands with Duke and Tina Fey, their expressions completely natural.

After the brief introductions, the group was escorted by numerous security personnel into three separate cars. They left the airport and headed toward downtown.

Duke was staying at the Peace Hotel on The Bund. Upon arriving at the hotel, he only chatted with the two men briefly, needing to get over his jet lag. He politely declined their dinner invitation, ready to just bury his head and sleep.

He was gradually getting older, and although there were no signs of his physical stamina or energy declining, Duke was still very mindful of his health.

He slept fitfully until the following morning. Since there were still a few days left before the film festival's opening ceremony, Duke was in no rush to go out. Instead, he simply had Tina Fey keep in constant communication with the film festival organizers, the China Film Group, and the Warner Greater China Region branch to finalize his itinerary for the coming days.

Now that he was here, Duke had no intention of just showing his face and leaving. Although it was still a long way off from when this market would truly explode, he still needed to become a familiar face among the local fans and anyone interested in movies.

It was no longer the nineties; a director's influence on a film's marketing was growing ever larger. Some directors could even attract massive swaths of fans, and in a country with such a large population, die-hard fans alone could often prop up a movie's entire box office.

By coming here this time, Duke wasn't focusing on the present, but rather the future.

"The itinerary is finalized."

By the time Duke finished washing up, Tina Fey had already arrived in his suite. Holding a schedule, she said, "First, you'll be attending the film festival's opening ceremony."

This wasn't surprising. With the War on Terror currently raging, Sino-US relations were in a relative honeymoon period. Had he not brought a film to be shown during the festival's exhibition segment, Duke believed the organizing committee would have definitely invited him to join the jury panel.

"Following that is the China-US Film Forum, and then a formal banquet jointly hosted by Shanghai municipal officials and the China Film Group."

Seeing that Duke had no objections, Tina Fey continued, "Finally, there are the television interviews and the university speeches."

Both sides had already communicated about this beforehand, so Tina Fey was just doing a final confirmation. "For the television stations, you can choose between a talk show on their National Television network or a program hosted by a female anchor who used to study in America. As for the universities, three have sent you formal invitations..."

Duke didn't even have to think about it before he said, "Turn down the official television station."

It wasn't out of prejudice, but simply a necessity of Political Correctness. He was as mainstream a director as they came; he would have to be out of his mind to accept an exclusive interview with the National Television network here.

"And the universities?" Tina Fey listed the names of the three schools.

"We're not going up north," Duke said after a moment of thought. "Let's just go with Fudan."

Almost all of the activities were scheduled right here in Shanghai, and Duke didn't want to fly up north anyway.