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"Just here, Nancy."

After walking around the three-bedroom hard-coated apartment, Duke nodded with satisfaction and said to the female agent, "The remaining procedures are given to you first, I have a date."

He looked at his watch, waved his hand to Nancy Josephson, walked out, took the elevator to the first floor, started the car out of this luxurious community in North Hollywood, turned two intersections, drove into Laurel Valley Avenue, not far from the community, parked in the parking lot opposite Bank of America, got off the car and crossed the road, and walked into the cafe that he had made an appointment.

"Here..."

Just as he pushed open the glass door of the cafe, a monotonous nasal voice came from the right. Duke turned his head and walked over, sat opposite Sofia Coppola, and said to the waiter who followed, "A cup of latte, thank you."

"You're late, Duke." Sophia took off her baseball cap and showed her long brown hair tied into a ponytail. "It's not like your style."

"Nancy helped me find an apartment and wasted a little time."

After making a sorry gesture, Duke said to the puzzled Sophia again, "Nancy Josephson is my agent."

"I know her." Sophia has a much greater connection in Hollywood than Duke, "the daughter of ICM founder Marvin Josephson, a former entertainment industry lawyer."

"Are you going to move out?" she asked again.

"Yes." Duke said thank you to the waiter who brought the coffee and nodded to Sophia. "I can't always live with my mother."

Sophia did not continue to get entangled with these issues, she stretched out her hand, "Where is the second script you mentioned on the phone?"

"Here..." Duke opened his handbag and handed her the copy of the bound script. "Although Nancy has invested in several companies, there is no news of the project being established yet. If the project cannot be established, it will be difficult for me to pay your salary."

"I have confidence in you."

After replying casually, Sophia's eyes fell on the script. She knew Hollywood's strict project review procedures. Duke now has a movie with a box office of over 100 million in North America. As long as the creativity of the second work is not too bad, the opportunity to invest is still very high.

She opened the script and only read the first few sentences, she knew that this should be a standard man action scene.

Time: dawn. Exterior: the sky is dark.

Vision shot: Six soldiers walked into the cemetery with coffins.

Lens conversion: In front of the mirror, the outline of a smoking man, smoke obscures his figure, with photos of his wife and blue Marines dresses in front of him. (Close-up) The dress is hung with medals.

Voiceover: guns, explosions, cruel fighting, panic shouts - we can't hold on, general...

Scene conversion: (first perspective) The national flag covers the coffin under the surroundings of soldiers.

Voiceover: General Hanmo, we request to retreat immediately...

The lens conversion: The man in front of the mirror stood up, solemnly brought a dog tag, put on his dress, and the dress was covered with medals. He took off his wedding ring, placed it in front of his wife's photo, and put the hat on his head upright.

Large close-up: Marine officer's eyes, eyes shining!

Voiceover: Everything must be stopped

The lens fades in...

Exterior: Heavy rain poured.

General Hanmo put the flowers in front of his wife's cemetery and said: I miss you so much. There is something I must do... No matter what happens, please don't look down on me.

He took out a purple heart medal and placed it on the tombstone...

For more than an hour, Sophia hardly looked up. To be honest, the script did not conform to her aesthetics, especially the status of female characters, which was completely dispensable. But after all, she spent more than two months on the crew of "Life and Death" and understood the character of the guy opposite him. He was simply a destructive and explosive maniac. Writing such a script was in line with his style, right?

"You're not enough to destroy Santa Monica..." She closed the script, "Next to destroy San Francisco?"

"If possible, I want to destroy the entire North America." Duke put down his coffee cup, "in the movie of course."

"Explosion, fight, sensational with action scenes," Sophia returned the script to Duke, "This is a typical Duke-style script."

"However," she said again when Duke took the script, "General Hammer's role is very interesting."

"Thank you." Duke put away the script, "I think he will be the biggest highlight of the film."

"When will I start working?" Sofia seemed anxious.

"You just came back from Europe." Duke was a little puzzled, "Don't you need a break?"

"My overhead is relatively high. Sofia Coppola made a gesture you understand, "So..."

"Okay, we can sign the contract another day," Duke also needs an assistant to help him with the trivial matters. "You are working for me from now on."

He opened his handbag, took out a stack of information, placed it on the coffee table, and handed it to Sofia one by one, "This is the information of my lawyer and accountant. You communicate with them in time. Twentieth Century Fox and Lucasfilm and my part of it were not received. This is Nancy's contact information. She is responsible for following up on this script. We need to keep an eye on the news. I don't trust her very much, you have to pay attention. Also, if you have time in the past few days, go to the newspaper or screenwriter association to post an advertisement, sign a few screenwriters, and I have two outline templates for the script that need to be filled."

"I seem to be here to be your film affairs assistant, right?" Sophia frowned.

"Hey, my dear." Duke spread his hands and said, "Now we don't have movie projects, do you want to just take money and not do things?"

"Okay." Sophia put the information away, then stared at Duke and said, "but you have to pay me three months' salary in advance."

Duke spent most of July while waiting. The script entered the review process of several companies including Fox, Warner Bros., Touchstone Pictures, etc. The minimum production cost he marked at the back of the script would inevitably make these film companies treat it with caution. Even if he had a movie to bottom, the producers would also have to conduct risk assessments before the project was established. No one would recklessly decide on such a large investment project.

During this period, Lucasfilm's role was played again. Under their constant urging, Twentieth Century Fox quickly paid the remaining funds of "Life and Death Hour". Lucasfilm, which also made huge profits in this project, did not owe to Duke and Mrs. Leah, and the money belonging to them was also received soon.

As for when Lucasfilm will pay for the share of other film funds, some will wait.

"Investing in movies is like gambling. Once you hit the pressure, the benefits will be huge."

Sitting on the sofa in the living room, Mrs. Leah looked through the financial statements sent by the accounting firm and said to Duke, who was sitting opposite, who was also looking through the information, "If it fails, it will be lost..."

She shook her head.

Anyway, as a mother, she successfully helped Duke, and Duke did not disappoint her, and backhanded created a large profit for her.

"Investing in movies is risky," Duke was in a very good mood because he had all the shares received the money. He rarely joked with his mother, "You need to be cautious when entering the industry."

"Duke, there's a Bentley in the garage." Mrs. Leah ignored his joke, "It's yours."

"Is this my reward?" Duke looked up.

"What else do you want?" Mrs. Leah looked at him with pride, "Although it comes up."

"Mom..." Duke was embarrassed, scratched the back of his head, and said, "Nancy called yesterday. My new movie has passed the preliminary review of Fox. Can you help me with a guarantee to apply for a loan from the bank?"

"You want to invest in your own movie?" Mrs. Leah looked up and looked at Duke, "How much does it cost?"

"Three million to five million dollars..."

"I haven't moved most of the share of Lucasfilm's remittance yet." Mrs. Leah tapped her finger gently, "Let's do it, $10 million. Duke, I want 10% of the share of your income when you repay the loan. If you lose, then go back to Santa Fea to work and pay off the debt."

"I understand, mom."

Well, business is business, this is the rule of the Rosenberg family.

Although I think so, Duke doesn't understand that his mother is reminding him that there is no free lunch in the world, and that if you want to gain, you must pay. Moreover, his mother is obviously helping him. Don't look at him having a successful movie now. If you go to a loan, there will definitely be no problem with hundreds of thousands of dollars. If this number is increased to seven digits, it will be quite difficult, and there is no need to think about the tens of millions of dollars.

Yes, he is very jealous. No one will be jealous of the benefits created by "Speed ​​of Life and Death". As a director and screenwriter, he can only get more than 400,000 US dollars from this huge profit, and he must have an idea in his mind.

Through "Speed ​​of Life and Death", Duke received a considerable degree of training, accumulated a certain amount of experience, and gained more confidence in the second movie. Moreover, this movie is also the type he is best at. The idea of ​​bringing funds to the market and sharing the benefits of his work naturally arises.

The most difficult problem to solve is also the most troublesome problem, and the funding aspect is that if you want to share enough profits and have enough voice in future film production, the funds must not be a small amount.

Nowadays, it is his mother who helps him solve this problem.

According to Duke's idea, if possible, the film would still work with Twentieth Century Fox - after all, both parties had a foundation for success, and it seemed that Townsend Rossman also admired him more - he borrowed about $3 million to $5 million from a bank, and then displaced his director's salary into the investment, so that he could occupy a $6 million to $8 million investment, which was enough to give him a certain say.

As time entered late July, Nancy Josephson finally received good news. Twentieth Century Fox will start preliminary negotiations with Duke on the new movie "Brave the Deadly Island".
Chapter completed!