Hearing Scarlett's words, Duke couldn't help but take the invitation letter from her hand. After just a glance, he handed it back. Over the years, he had received many such invitations almost every year.
In Hollywood, beneath the glamorous halo of fame and fortune, there were always things unnoticed by the public.
This kind of invitation was one of them.
Its contents were quite simple—an invitation for Duke to attend a masked adult party. Such parties were very common in Hollywood, especially between the end of the summer blockbuster season and the beginning of the awards season. Under the pretense of celebration, all kinds of adult parties emerged endlessly.
More than ten years ago, Duke had already been targeted by these clubs, though he had never participated.
When he was younger, he had indeed led a somewhat chaotic life, but he had never taken part in such adult gatherings. And in truth, the chaos of these parties far exceeded what most people could imagine—the scenes could even surpass those produced in certain films from San Fernando Valley.
Though Duke had never attended, he knew quite a lot about what went on there. The reason was simple—Leonardo DiCaprio was a frequent guest at such parties.
This particular party, organized by the adult club Snctm, targeted Hollywood celebrities and social elites. The entrance fee was as high as thirty thousand pounds, and the invitees weren't limited to male stars like Leonardo DiCaprio—many famous actresses were invited as well.
In fact, the number of actresses attending was no less than that of male stars.
Moreover, according to Leonardo, many celebrity couples—those dating openly or in open marriages—had also bought tickets.
"It's such a pity you didn't go," Leonardo said.
When Scarlett went off to the garden with Leonardo's new girlfriend, Leonardo sat down beside him and spoke excitedly about the party he had attended just days earlier. "There were so many famous actresses there. Even though everyone was masked, I recognized them right away."
Duke merely shook his head. "I have to think about Scarlett's feelings."
Although Scarlett often claimed that monogamy went against human nature, Duke knew well that it was just something she said casually.
Just like with his past relationship with Ivanka Trump, he had no intention of doing anything behind his girlfriend's back.
He wasn't a saint—far from it—but he still had enough self-discipline in this area.
Then Leonardo DiCaprio began to recount some of the things that had happened at the party. If one were to describe it, it would be very much like the party scene in Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut.
"I ran into Rachel McAdams there—the mole under her mask gave her away instantly," Leonardo said, finishing his cup of coffee with great enthusiasm. "And Lily Collins—this little plastic-surgery girl is too easy to recognize. She was really wild. I saw her surrounded by three men… that kind of scene…"
Nothing Leonardo said surprised Duke. Just as Leonardo DiCaprio was notorious for his reputation, both Rachel McAdams and Lily Collins were regulars at these parties. It wasn't much of a secret in Hollywood.
Of course, the two women didn't seem to care much about their reputations in that regard.
After lunch, Duke saw Leonardo DiCaprio off, then took a car from Malibu to Warner Bros. headquarters in Burbank.
It was already September. The Dark Knight Rises was slowly approaching six hundred million dollars at the North American box office, with worldwide earnings nearing one and a half billion. Despite a series of incidents, the film was still a tremendous success.
However, Duke's visit this time wasn't about The Dark Knight Rises—it was about The Interview, starring Seth Rogen and James Franco.
After an intense period of preparation and filming, the movie had entered post-production the previous month. If everything went smoothly, The Interview would be completed by early next month and released around the end of October.
After all, The Interview was a low-budget film, and October—the traditional off-season—was the most suitable time for its release.
Because of its sensitive subject matter, Warner Bros. had never promoted the film publicly, and Duke had strictly forbidden any plot leaks. But with the release date approaching, if they wanted good box office results and a strong public reaction, they had to come up with an effective marketing strategy.
Inside a Warner Bros. office, only three people were present: Duke, Doug Walter, and Jamie Johnson.
"In fact, there's no need to do too much in the early publicity phase," Duke said calmly, looking at the two Warner executives. "It's not hard to cause a sensation."
Doug Walter nodded slowly.
Jamie Johnson added directly, "As long as we make the film's theme and content public, plenty of people will promote it for us on their own—especially North Korea."
Duke reminded them, "You'll need to carefully assess the political impact."
"Don't worry, Duke," Doug Walter said indifferently. "Do we really care about North Korea?"
Hollywood films had no way of entering North Korea through official channels, and in North America—and the entire Western world—defaming and mocking North Korea was considered a form of absolute political correctness.
Still, all three men knew that relying on that alone wouldn't be enough to create a sensation or guarantee massive profits. They'd need follow-up strategies.
With the internet so widespread and hackers everywhere, manipulating public attention online wasn't difficult for Warner Bros.
In early October, Warner Bros. released the first trailer for The Interview on Instant Share, and the entire United States—and soon the whole world—erupted in uproar.
"This fall, James Franco and Seth Rogen will attempt to assassinate Kim Jong-un. 'You're about to enter the most dangerous place on earth. Kim Jong-un's people believe everything he says. He can talk to dolphins, and he never urinates or defecates…'"
After the dialogue came a close-up of "Kim Jong-un," played by a South Korean actor—dressed in uniform, one hand on his waist, a thick cigar between his lips, exuding pure "nouveau riche" arrogance. The most recognizable feature was his signature hairstyle—parted to one side, slicked back, and cropped short above the ears—a style known in North Korea as "Ambition."
The absurd, nonsensical preview immediately went viral across the internet, becoming the most-watched and most-discussed video on Instant Share.
As expected, North Korea quickly responded.
Just two days later, the North Korean authorities issued an official statement declaring the film an act of war. If the U.S. government allowed it to be released, North Korea would take decisive countermeasures.
The statement said that publicly showing a film "blaspheming and assassinating North Korea's supreme leader" was an act of "terrorism and war," aimed at "subverting North Korea's political system," "insulting its dignity," and "violating norms accepted by the international community."
It emphasized that the happiness of the North Korean people was inseparable from the care of their supreme leader.
North Korea's permanent representative to the United Nations also stated that the U.S. government should ban the release of The Interview, arguing that "its central plot involves the assassination of Kim Jong-un." He claimed that allowing the production and distribution of a film depicting the assassination of a sitting head of a sovereign state was tantamount to supporting terrorism—and was itself an act of war.
Of course, Warner Bros. and The Interview production team, who had already been well prepared, did not take long to respond publicly.
James Franco, the screenwriter and leading actor, replied on Instant Share when North Korea first raised its protest, saying, "Generally speaking, people don't want to kill me just because of one of my movies—unless they've spent twelve bucks to see it first."
Seth Rogen, whom North Korea had labeled as a "second-rate director," also responded lightly: "North Koreans often do ridiculous things like this… It's just a comedy film—how could it possibly be a threat?"
The entire Western world had long grown accustomed to North Korea's denunciations and "threats." In everyone's eyes, the North Korean government was all thunder and no rain. In fact, over the past few days, one of North Korea's state-run news outlets had published an editorial criticizing U.S. military operations: "The situation is dire; nuclear war could break out at any time," and, "Condemnation is useless—only merciless punishment and the iron fist can deal with the United States…"
The whole world, however, treated such rhetoric as a joke.
In today's age of collective internet revelry, even beyond the Western world that already viewed North Korea as a terrorist state, netizens in countries traditionally friendly toward North Korea treated the regime as a source of mockery and amusement. Emojis and memes derived from Kim Jong-un's image filled the most popular social media platforms of those nations.
Yet North Korea's protests were completely ignored, and Warner Bros. insisted that the film would be released on schedule.
In fact, the trailer had already stirred up some controversy within North America.
Aside from the MPAA rating system, the Hollywood film industry largely relied on self-regulation when it came to story content. However, if a movie's plot contained direct attacks or insinuations toward real people or entities, it risked being subject to lawsuits. If it explicitly depicted the assassination or harm of a sitting national leader by name, it could even be deemed to have terrorist undertones.
For this reason, although Hollywood films often dared to "assassinate" their own presidents, such targets were almost always fictional characters.
Based on this, The Interview's decision to name its assassination target directly, and to continue with its scheduled release despite public objections from the subject himself, inevitably struck many as a "double standard." North Korea was, after all, an official member of the United Nations, and Kim Jong-un its legitimate head of state. Allowing a film to "mock and personally attack" him while forbidding similar depictions of others clearly reflected a different set of rules.
Moreover, since North Korea now and in the foreseeable future could offer no box office revenue for Hollywood, this "double standard" was enforced even more confidently. Back in the day, Charlie Chaplin had been forced to change the title of The Great Dictator, and MGM's Red Dawn, whose original 1984 version portrayed the Soviet Union as the villain, hastily replaced it with North Korea in the 2011 remake before release—one major reason being the desire to avoid angering audiences from a profitable foreign market. That kind of concern, however, hardly existed when it came to North Korea.
For instance, who today would dare to imagine any Hollywood studio making open jokes that directly name the leader of a major power across the ocean?
.....
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