Chapter 883: The Most Dangerous Place in the World

At Scarlett's words, Duke took the invitation from her hand, gave it a single glance, and handed it back. Over the years, he had received many similar invitations.

Across Hollywood, hidden beneath the halo of fame and fortune, many obscure entities operated out of the public eye.

This invitation was one of them.

Its contents were actually quite simple: an invitation for Duke to attend a masked adult party. Such events were extremely common in Hollywood, especially following the Summer Season and leading into the awards season, when endless adult parties sprang up under the guise of celebration.

These types of clubs had set their sights on Duke well over a decade ago, but he had never attended one.

In his youth, he had certainly led a wild lifestyle, but he had never taken part in these adult parties. The sheer depravity of these gatherings far exceeded ordinary imagination; the scenes inside could surpass even certain films produced in the San Fernando Valley.

Duke had never attended one, yet he knew plenty of the inside details. The reason was simple: Leonardo DiCaprio was a regular at these parties.

This particular party, hosted by the adult club Snctm, targeted Hollywood celebrities and socialites. Admission tickets ran as high as 30,000 pounds, and the guest list extended far beyond male stars like Leonardo DiCaprio to include a massive number of actresses as well.

In reality, just as many actresses attended as male stars.

It didn't stop there. According to Leonardo, dating celebrity couples and Hollywood spouses in open marriages had all purchased tickets.

"It's a real shame you aren't going."

Watching Scarlett escort his new girlfriend out to the garden, Leonardo sat next to Duke and brought up the party he had attended just a few days prior.

"A ton of famous actresses showed up this time. They wore masks, but I recognized them at a glance," he said.

Duke simply shook his head.

"I have to consider Scar's feelings."

Even though Scarlett always claimed that monogamy defied human nature, Duke knew perfectly well she was just saying that.

Just as he had handled his past relationship with Ivanka Trump, he had no intention of doing anything messy behind his girlfriend's back.

He was not a noble man—he was separated from true nobility by the width of the Pacific Ocean—but he still possessed a basic level of self-awareness in this regard.

Afterward, Leonardo DiCaprio went on to describe a few things that had happened at the party. If one had to find an apt comparison, it was roughly akin to the masquerade in Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut.

"I bumped into Rachel McAdams at the party. The mole under her mask was far too obvious."

Leonardo downed his coffee, looking thoroughly thrilled.

"And Lily Collins. That plastic-surgery chick was way too easy to spot. She was extremely open, too. I saw her surrounded by three men with my own eyes. The scene was..."

Duke wasn't surprised in the slightest. Just like Leonardo DiCaprio's infamous playboy reputation, the fact that Rachel McAdams and Lily Collins were regulars at these sorts of parties was no secret in Hollywood.

Of course, neither woman particularly cared about her reputation in that regard.

After lunch, Duke saw Leonardo DiCaprio off. He then took a car out of Malibu and headed to the Warner Building in Burbank.

September had already arrived. The North American box office for The Dark Knight Rises was slowly closing in on $600 million, while its global total approached $1.5 billion. Despite being impacted by a series of incidents, the film was still a massive success.

However, Duke hadn't come here for The Dark Knight Rises, but rather for The Interview, starring Seth Rogen and James Franco.

Following intense preparation and shooting, the film had entered post-production the previous month. Barring any accidents, The Interview would finish all production work by early next month and premiere around late October.

Regardless, The Interview was a low-budget project. The traditional off-season in October was the perfect window for its release.

Given its highly sensitive subject matter, Warner Brothers hadn't done any prior marketing for the film, and Duke had strictly forbidden the plot and content from leaking. Now, with the release date drawing near, they had to devise a promotional strategy if they wanted to secure solid box office returns and create a sensation.

Inside a Warner Brothers office, only three people were present: Duke, Doug Walter, and Jamie Jensen.

"There's actually no need to do too much for the early marketing."

Duke looked at the two Warner Brothers executives.

"Creating a sensation won't be difficult, either," he said at a leisurely pace.

Doug Walter slowly nodded.

Beside him, Jamie Jensen was much more direct.

"As long as we make the film's premise and content public, plenty of people will naturally start generating hype and marketing it for us—especially North Korea."

Duke offered a word of caution.

"Make sure you properly weigh the political factors as well."

"Relax, Duke," Doug Walter said dismissively.

"Why would we ever care about North Korea?"

There was zero chance of a Hollywood film entering North Korea through official channels anyway. Furthermore, smearing and slandering North Korea was considered absolute Political Correctness across North America and the entire Western world.

Still, Duke and the other two knew perfectly well that relying solely on this to turn The Interview into a massive sensation and pull in huge profits would be difficult. They would need to employ follow-up tactics.

With the internet as highly developed as it was nowadays, hackers were impossible to guard against. Exploiting those two elements to stir up some drama would be child's play for Warner.

In early October, Warner Brothers dropped the very first trailer for The Interview on Instant Sharing, instantly sending all of America and the world into an uproar.

"This fall, James Franco and Seth Rogen will attempt to assassinate Kim Fatty III. 'You are about to enter the most dangerous place in the world. The people of Kim Fatty III believe every single word he says. Not only can he speak to dolphins, but he also never urinates or defecates...'"

The dialogue was followed by a close-up of a South Korean actor playing "Kim Fatty III." Dressed in a uniform, he stood with one hand on his hip and a thick cigar clenched in his teeth, radiating an utterly tacky, nouveau-riche vibe. His most recognizable feature was Kim Fatty III's signature hairstyle—parted to the side, slicked back, and buzzed completely short above the ears. Over in North Korea, this hairstyle was officially known as a "lofty ambition."

This absurd, slapstick-filled short video trailer sparked an instant frenzy across the global internet, quickly becoming the most viral and sought-after video on Instant Sharing.

Exactly as expected, North Korea stepped forward.

Just two days later, the North Korean government issued a formal statement declaring the film an act of war. If the American government allowed the movie to be released, North Korea would decisively take countermeasures.

The statement claimed that blatantly broadcasting a film trailer depicting the "profanation and assassination of the supreme leader of North Korea" was an "act of terrorism and war." It was designed to "subvert North Korea's national system," served as an "insult to North Korea's dignity," and would "not be tolerated by the international community."

The statement placed special emphasis on the claim that the beautiful lives of the North Korean people were inextricably tied to the care of their supreme leader.

North Korea's permanent representative to the United Nations also stated that the American government ought to ban the release of The Interview, citing that "the film's main storyline involves the assassination of Kim Fatty III." He argued that permitting the production and distribution of a film about assassinating the current leader of a sovereign nation was tantamount to supporting terrorism, and was similarly an act of war.

Naturally, having prepared well in advance, Warner Brothers and The Interview's production crew weren't about to back down. They quickly stepped forward to issue their own responses.

When North Korea issued its very first protest, screenwriter and lead actor James Franco replied on Instant Sharing.

"Generally speaking, people don't want to kill me over a movie, unless they've paid 12 bucks to sit through it first," he posted.

Seth Rogen, whom North Korea had labeled a "second-rate director," also brushed off the matter during his response.

"The North Koreans are always pulling ridiculous stunts like this," he said. "It's just a comedy. What kind of threat could it possibly pose?"

The entire Western world had long grown accustomed to North Korea's fiery denunciations and "threats." In everyone's eyes, the North Korean government was all bark and no bite. Just a few days prior, a North Korean state-level news outlet had published an editorial attacking American military actions, claiming, "The situation is extremely dire, and nuclear war could break out at any moment," and, "Condemnations are no longer of any use. Only merciless punishment and an iron fist will have any effect on the United States..."

The rest of the world treated these declarations as absolute jokes.

In today's era of collective internet revelry, let alone the Western world—which already viewed North Korea as a terrorist state—even the citizens of the neighboring country that had historically backed North Korea treated its government as nothing more than meme fodder online. Emojis and reaction images derived from Kim Fatty III had completely flooded the most popular social networking apps in that nation.

North Korea's protests were thoroughly ignored, and Warner Brothers firmly insisted on releasing the film right on schedule.

Truthfully, the trailer had sparked quite a bit of controversy within North America as well.

Aside from the MPAA's rating system, the Hollywood film industry largely relied on self-regulation when it came to plot content. But if a film's narrative contained direct attacks or veiled jabs at real-life individuals or entities, it risked sparking lawsuits. Furthermore, if the plot explicitly name-dropped and targeted the current leader of a sovereign nation—such as framing the story around their assassination—it could easily be perceived as harboring terrorist undertones.

Because of this, even though Hollywood movies had no qualms about "assassinating" the American President on screen, the targets of these "assassinations" were almost universally fictional characters.

Given this precedent, The Interview's decision to explicitly name its assassination target—and stubbornly push forward with its theatrical release even after the targeted party publicly expressed their outrage—struck many as a glaring "double standard." North Korea was an official member state of the United Nations, and Kim Fatty III was its legal leader. The fact that Hollywood was freely permitted to launch direct, thinly veiled personal attacks against him clearly proved they were operating on an entirely different set of rules.

In particular, since there was zero chance of North Korea providing any box office revenue for Hollywood blockbusters now or in the foreseeable future, the studios felt perfectly justified in enforcing this "double standard." Back in the day, Charlie Chaplin had been forced to alter the title of The Great Dictator, and when MGM first filmed Red Dawn in 1984, the villains were the Soviets; however, before releasing the 2011 remake, the studio hastily changed the villains to North Koreans. One of their major considerations had been avoiding offending the cinema-goers of a major market over "trivial matters" and sabotaging their own box office. When dealing with North Korea, however, that concern simply did not exist.

After all, who could even imagine a modern Hollywood studio having the guts to explicitly name and mock the leader of the superpower on the other side of the Pacific Ocean?