Duke sat in the back of a black sedan as it drove. Beside him, Gary Kurtz was reviewing the financial statement of American Zoetrope. The numbers were awful.
Francis Ford Coppola, the future brilliant director was currently drowning. He owed Warner Bros. hundreds of thousands of dollars for a development deal that had yielded plenty of ambition but zero profit.
"He's desperate, Duke," Kurtz said, tapping the folder.
"Desperation is a powerful thing for a director, Gary," Duke replied, looking out at the passing warehouses. "It makes them make a better film."
He couldn't help but remember how the director of the movie Gravity with Sandra Bullock in his past life was about to go bankrupt before the film success.
They pulled up to a nondescript building that looked more like a machine shop than a movie studio. This was Zoetrope, a maze of editing tables, espresso machines, and young men with beards.
As Duke stepped inside, he saw a familiar face. A young man with glasses was huddled over a Moviola. George Lucas looked up, his eyes widening behind his frames.
"Duke?" George stood up, wiping grease from his hands. "I heard you were in town, but I didn't think you'd find your way to this place."
Duke smiled, stepping forward to shake George's hand. They had been friends since Duke, directed Love Story, with George as an assistant.
"I heard you were trying to build a new thing up here, George," Duke said. "I thought I'd come see if it was worth the problem."
"It's a disaster," George admitted, lowering his voice. "Francis is in the back. He's... well, he's Francis. Warners is pulling the plug and well, we're finished before we even started."
"Not yet," Duke said. "Take me to him."
They found Francis Ford Coppola in a cramped office that smelled of expensive cigars and cheap wine. He was hunched over a desk, a man with a wild beard.
"Francis," Duke said.
Coppola looked up. A year ago, they had shared friendly exchange while Duke was visiting George on the set of The Rain People.
Back then, they were peers. Now, Duke was the man who owned Paramount.
"The Mogul arrived," Coppola rumbled, his voice a mix of exhaustion and defiance. "Come to buy my equipment for pennies on the dollar, Duke?"
"I came to offer you a job, Francis," Duke said, pulling up a chair and sitting down without being asked. "And to pay your debts."
Coppola froze. "...What's the catch?"
Duke reached into his briefcase and pulled out the coffee-stained script for The Godfather. He slid it across the desk.
"Mario Puzo's book," Coppola sighed, barely looking at it. "It's a popular trash novel, Duke. It's about people who shoot each other and talk about pasta."
"I left Roger Corman, to avoid this type of stories, I'm a filmmaker. I want to make art."
"Then make it art," Duke said. "Don't make a gangster movie. Make an American Epic. If you do that, Ithaca will clear your three-hundred-thousand-dollar debt to Warners and we'll give Zoetrope a first-look deal."
Coppola stared at the script. The air in the room seemed to change. The weight of the debt was visibly lifting from his shoulders, replaced by the weight of creative challenge.
"You'd give me total control?" Coppola asked.
"I'll give you total protection," Duke corrected. "The executive will hate your casting. But as long as I'm the Chairman, everyone answers to me. You'll just focus on the film."
Coppola looked at George, then back at Duke. He picked up the script. "I'll start on a rewrite today."
The meeting with Coppola was the core of the trip, but Duke also met Nolan Bushnell at a quiet corner table in a dimly lit bar.
Nolan looked like he had been living in a garage, which he had.
"Duke," Nolan said, sliding a pint of beer toward him. "I saw the news. Paramount. You're a madman."
Duke said. "We haven't met in a month. Tell me about Atari."
"We're ready to scale," Nolan said, leaning in. "But I need to know what happens now. Am I just a footnote in a movie studio's annual report?"
"Far from it," Duke said. "Atari is becoming the Electronics division of the Paramount-Ithaca empire."
Duke laid out the strategy. He wanted Atari to maintain a monopoly on arcade manufacturing, but we sell the machines to every bar in America. Of course, the real play was the patents.
"I want every logic gate, every cabinet design, every interface patented," Duke instructed. "We license and let the competition grow for a year or two, then we increase the licensing fees, using our monopoly position."
"Also by 1972-1973, I want a home console. A box that plugs into a television and lets people play our games in their living rooms."
Nolan whistled. "That's an aggressive timeline, Duke."
"The technology is there. We just need to refine it."
Nolan grinned, pulling a folded, greasy piece of paper from his pocket. "Funny you should say that. I've been sketching something out. I call it 'Pizza Chain.'"
He spread the paper on the table. It was a crude drawing of a pizza parlor, but the edges were filled with sketches of animatronic characters, a rat, a dog, a bird.
"Think about it," Nolan said. "Parents hate arcades in bars. But if we put the arcades in a family pizza parlor? We give the parents beer and food, and we give the kids the arcades."
"The animatronics keep the kids entertained while the pizza is being made. It's a fast-food model, but the profit wouldn't be in the pepperoni. It'll be in the quarters."
Duke looked at the sketches. He saw the "Chuck E. Cheese" of his memory forming on the page. But he saw though something more.
"It's a real estate play, Nolan," Duke said, his voice hummed with excitement. "If we build these, we aren't just selling pizza and games. We're buying the land too."
He remembered the amount of real state that Fast Food chains like Mcdonalds would own and how it would inflate their valuation.
"A game company involved in real estate," Nolan said, tasting the words.
"It would be a sort of vertical integration," Duke corrected. "We own the food, the arcades and the land it's sitting on."
The high of the San Francisco trip lasted until Duke returned to Columbia for a meeting that had been looming.
Alan J. Pakula, the director of Klute, was waiting in Duke's temporary office at Columbia.
"Mr. Hauser" Pakula said as Duke entered. He didn't stand up. "I've been told that my casting choices are being vetoed by Ithaca. I was under the impression that Ithaca was a 'prestige' label that respected the director's vision."
Duke sat behind the desk, his movements slow and deliberate. "It is, Alan. And I have a great deal of respect for your vision. That's why I support your stay in the project."
"Then why did you removed Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland from the film?" Pakula snapped. "They are the film. Their chemistry, it's what makes the script work."
"I spoke with Columbia executives, Alan," Duke said calmly. "Jane Fonda is currently leading a boycott against my studio's flagship release, Hacksaw Ridge."
"She is calling my company a mouthpiece for war criminals. Now, tell me, as a businessman, why should I pay her? To help her buy more megaphones to use against me?"
Pakula scoffed, his face reddening. "This is small-minded, Connor. It's petty. You're acting like a spoiled child who got his feelings hurt. You don't let a personal spat ruin a production of this caliber. If this is how you're going to run this studio, you're nothing but a man with a bigger ego than the men you replaced."
The air in the room chilled.
"Wait a minute, Alan," Duke said. "I've been very patient with you because I like your work. But don't mistake me. I don't give a damn about my 'feelings.' I care about my brand. If you think I'm going to finance the people trying to damage my studio, you're the one who is being delusional."
"You're blacklisting them!" Pakula shouted. "I'll have you know this isn't the 1950s!"
"It's not a blacklist, Alan. It's a 'don't-bite-the-hand-that-feeds-you' list," Duke shot back, leaning forward. "And let's be clear, if you want to keep shouting, keep shouting."
"But know this, I can bury Klute tomorrow. I can pull our financing, take the loss, and move that money into a production at Columbia that doesn't have a director who thinks he can insult me. I'll leave you with a half-finished film and a reputation as a man who can't get a project across the finish line."
Pakula froze.
The silence stretched for a long, uncomfortable minute. Slowly, the fight drained out of Pakula's shoulders. He leaned back, exhaling a long, shaky breath.
"I spent two years developing this," Pakula whispered. "Two years."
"Then don't let it go to waste over two actors," Duke said, his voice softening back to its usual calm, professional tone.
"I want this movie made as much as you, Alan. I think you're the only man who can do it right. But it will be done without Fonda and Sutherland."
Pakula rubbed his face. "Fine. But who? I know you suggested Julie Christie. But I don't like her for this. She's too... old and too innocent. She needs to be a woman who can play a prostitute."
"I don't mind who you cast, Alan," Duke said. "Go find a new discovery. Look, as long as they aren't picketing my movies, you have my blessing."
Pakula looked up, a flicker of interest returning to his eyes. "A discovery? You'd let me go with an unknown?"
"If she's the right one, yes," Duke said. "I want the best movie possible. I just want it made by people who want the studio to succeed."
Pakula nodded slowly. "I'll start looking. But I'm still not completely happy about this, Duke."
"You don't have to be happy," Duke said, standing up and extending a hand. "You just have to be make the movie."
Pakula took the hand. It was a truce, born of necessity, but it was enough.
As Pakula left, Duke walked to the window. He thought about the EPA news that was currently causing a stir in the industrial sector, while G+W's stock remained an island of stability thanks to the Paramount deal.
He picked up the phone.
"Gary," Duke said. "Call Robert Evans. Tell him the meeting with Pakula is settled."
____
Had a sort of writers block but i powered through
THX 1138 will still be distributed by Warner, forgot to include that