Chapter 888: Iron Triangle

Just as he stepped through the cafe entrance, Duke spotted George Lucas and hurried over to greet him.

"Hi, George," he said apologetically. "Sorry I'm a little late."

George Lucas shook his head dismissively. "We got here early."

He turned to his side and introduced the two people next to him.

"You should remember them. You swung Lightsabers with them on set when you were a kid," he said.

He was talking about the 1970s. Thanks to the friendship between their families, Duke had visited the Star Wars set several times as a child. A long time had passed, but he still vaguely remembered it. Besides, as the director about to helm the new Star Wars films, how could he not recognize two members of the Skywalker Family from the Star Wars Iron Triangle?

"Hello, Mark. Hello, Carrie," Duke said.

Duke shook hands with the two middle-aged actors one after the other. They were Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher, who played Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia in the original trilogy.

After exchanging greetings, they moved to a quiet booth. Duke was always direct when working. He glanced at George Lucas sitting beside him and spoke without beating around the bush.

"I'm preparing to start production on a new Star Wars trilogy, and I very much hope the two of you will return to the franchise," he said.

This didn't surprise Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher. Rumors had long been swirling around Hollywood that Duke planned to restart the Star Wars journey after acquiring Lucasfilm.

Neither answered immediately. They remained silent, and Carrie Fisher even shot a glance at George Lucas.

George Lucas had long maintained that the Star Wars Prequel trilogy marked the end of his Star Wars Series. But since Duke was the one reopening the franchise, George wasn't exactly breaking his promise to the media and the fans. Besides, he had invited Duke to direct the prequels back in the mid-nineties, only to be turned down.

In his eyes, if Star Wars was going to be rebooted, absolutely no one was more suited to direct it than Duke.

As the creator of the Star Wars Series, passing the franchise into Duke's hands put George Lucas entirely at ease.

So, George Lucas gave Carrie Fisher a subtle nod.

Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher were still silent, but Duke wasn't in any rush. You could say these two were among the biggest beneficiaries of the original Star Wars, but they were also the most constrained by it. Since the original trilogy ended, neither had produced any noteworthy work.

Both used to be major stars, and they shared the spending habits of most Hollywood celebrities. But salaries from the seventies and eighties couldn't compare to what Hollywood actors made in the nineties and beyond. In truth, their financial situations weren't great, and they simply couldn't find suitable films or roles. If this continued, they were bound to end up like Marlon Brando—famous in name only, living out their twilight years in destitution.

From what Duke had gathered in his research, unlike Harrison Ford—who had remained extremely popular as part of the Star Wars Iron Triangle—Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher could barely be called real actors anymore. They didn't even have official agents.

Taking a step back, even if Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher both refused, Duke wouldn't mind too much. It wouldn't be hard to use a few props or specific scenes to tug at the nostalgic heartstrings of the fans.

Mark Hamill took a sip of his coffee and spoke slowly.

"I'm happy to see the Star Wars Series restart too. It's a great franchise," he said.

Hearing this, Duke smiled slightly, then looked at Carrie Fisher.

Like Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher couldn't make any firm commitments without an agent, but she made her stance perfectly clear.

"I dream of being part of Star Wars again," she said.

Once that was said, the atmosphere in the booth instantly grew warm and harmonious. They even shared a few laughs as they recalled memories of Duke visiting the set back in the day.

But Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher both knew very well that the little kid from back then had long since grown into a titan they had to look up to.

Duke was incredibly busy and couldn't stay long. After finishing his coffee, the meeting naturally drew to a close.

Before leaving, Duke gave a reminder to the severely out-of-shape Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher.

"I hope the two of you can set up a solid fitness regimen starting today," he said.

Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher naturally understood what Duke meant and nodded eagerly in agreement.

Afterward, Duke said his goodbyes to George Lucas, who had been watching the exchange, and left the cafe to return to Warner Studios in Burbank.

Inviting Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher to return to the Star Wars Series was, quite frankly, a play on nostalgia. And they were only a fraction of the returning cast. Producers Katherine Kennedy, Charles Roven, and Robin Grande were busy reaching out to all the surviving actors who had appeared in the original Star Wars trilogy.

For example, Peter Mayhew, who played Chewbacca, had already agreed to reprise his role.

Comparatively, Chewbacca's old partner, Han Solo, was the hardest to pin down among the veteran actors of the original trilogy.

Charles Roven had personally approached Harrison Ford and his agent, only for them to instantly demand a salary of 20 million dollars plus a share of the box office revenue.

If this were Harrison Ford in his prime, such a demand wouldn't have been too outrageous. But the Harrison Ford of today was not the Harrison Ford of yesteryear. Duke and Lucasfilm would have to be having water in the brain to agree to an acting contract like that.

Currently, Charles Roven was still negotiating with Harrison Ford's agent, but it was incredibly difficult. The two sides were fighting for every inch, and Duke was fully prepared to make the movie without Han Solo.

For Star Wars, even the iron triangle from the old days wasn't strictly indispensable.

The plan to restart the Star Wars Series had already reached the execution phase. No obstacle would be enough of a reason to cancel it.

While keeping busy with his own work, Duke was also keeping an eye on a few of his competitors.

David Ellison went without saying. After withdrawing from Hollywood, though he was free from Duke's pressure, he was still feeling the heat from the Los Angeles County Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation over Vin Diesel's death. However, the series of North Korea hacking incidents triggered by The Interview had diverted a lot of media and official attention away from him. Looking at it that way, surrendering some profits to Duke and pulling out of Hollywood hadn't been entirely without its benefits.

Simply put, just like Larry Ellison and Bill Gates, figures at this echelon didn't have to like each other, and they might even resort to underhanded tactics like using "janitor spies." But neither would lightly launch a life-or-death struggle. It wouldn't benefit either of them. Even the victor would be left battered and bruised, giving someone else the perfect chance to swoop in and stomp all over them.

From beginning to end, Duke had been very clear on one thing: while he had powerful allies like Time Warner and Google in Hollywood and across America, he was never short on competitors or even enemies. Even within those two conglomerates, there were restless schemers waiting to strike, just like Robert Solomon.

This was simply a fiercely competitive society. He wasn't foolish enough to think that all he had to do was give a shout and his enemies would fall to their knees in submission, willingly becoming his underlings.

Never mind his enemies—even among the movie stars who had worked with him, it was hard to say what they truly thought of him.

Duke and the Ellison Family had always stayed on opposite sides of a certain line. Despite Larry Ellison's arrogant and rebellious nature, even he wouldn't easily cross it.

The two interest groups had also recently ended nearly a decade of entanglements with a single business transaction.

The Ellison Family's tentacles reaching into the film industry had been severed, and Duke neither understood nor had any interest in Oracle's business. Without any competing financial interests, it was impossible for any large-scale conflicts or contradictions to erupt between them again.

Then there was Walt Disney, the one studio among Hollywood's traditional Big Six that had been affected by Duke the most.

The former Mickey Mouse house had transitioned from a traditional production and distribution company into a media conglomerate starting with its acquisition of ABC Television. Moreover, it was the only one of the Big Six to successfully complete that transformation. It later bought out Pixar Studio, swallowed Marvel Comics, and merged with Lucasfilm, briefly seizing the throne as the highest-valued media corporation in the world, reigning supreme.

But the current Walt Disney had only managed to acquire ABC Television. Not only had Duke snatched away Pixar Studio, Marvel Comics, and Lucasfilm right out from under them, but they were also hopelessly mired in a vicious internal struggle between the factions of Robert Iger and Michael Eisner, which had severely crippled the company's growth.

Losing Pixar Studio, in particular, had dealt Walt Disney an incalculably negative blow. In the past, under the leadership of Ed Catmull and John Lasseter—two of Pixar's Five Tiger Generals—Walt Disney's animation division had experienced a major resurgence, even producing a defiant commercial juggernaut like Frozen.

Now, however, without the help of Pixar Studio, Walt Disney had released a version of Frozen this Christmas season that Duke found somewhat unfamiliar. Its box office performance was highly disappointing. In particular, the clichéd plotline where the prince saves the princess with a true love's kiss drew fierce criticism, resulting in an opening weekend of just over 20 million dollars.

Without sisterly love saving the day and without its brainwashing hit songs, this Frozen could only ever be one of Disney's most utterly ordinary animated films.

Duke remembered this movie well, but he couldn't find a suitable studio to make it. A cloyingly sweet, singing-and-dancing musical like Frozen simply didn't fit Pixar Studio's style. Forcing it onto Pixar's shoulders would likely twist it into something entirely different or doom it to be a money-losing venture.

As for writing the script and selling it to another animation studio? What a joke. The production cycle for an animated film was incredibly long, and the screenplay was arguably one of its most insignificant components—nowhere near as important as the animation technology itself.

And then there was Twentieth Century Fox.