A black Bentley slowly stopped in a seaside villa area on the western side of Long Island. After Duke got out of the car and waited for Tina Fey to finish making a confirmation call, he entered the nearest villa facing the sea. Apparently, the people inside had been informed, and the two staff members at the door did not stop him.
The villa wasn’t particularly large. After passing through a corridor just behind the main gate, Duke hadn’t walked far when he heard familiar voices. Following the sound, he soon saw his mother, Scarlett Johansson, and a real estate agent who specialized in serving wealthy clients.
After greeting his mother, Duke asked, "How’s the place?"
Leah smiled and pointed at Scarlett. "Scarlett thinks this villa is pretty good. You can share your opinion too."
Duke glanced around, briefly inspecting the white-walled, red-roofed villa, and asked Scarlett, "Darling, whatever you decide is fine."
Having already seen enough, Scarlett nodded at Duke and turned to the real estate agent. "We’ll go with this one."
The agent’s face nearly lit up with joy. With the current depression in the U.S. real estate market, closing such a multimillion-dollar deal was no easy task. Googlᴇ search 𝘯𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭·𝓯𝓲𝓻𝓮·𝙣𝙚𝙩
"I’ll have someone start the paperwork right away."
After saying this, the agent stepped aside and made a phone call.
Scarlett Johansson and Leah then accompanied Duke toward the villa’s private beach.
"We can come stay here during the summer," Scarlett said as she sat down at the table under a sun umbrella near the beach. "The summer here in Long Island is so much more pleasant than in Los Angeles."
Tina Fey nodded. "That’s definitely true."
Scarlett turned to Leah. "If we live here in the summer, we can also spend more time with godmother."
Seeing the pleased smile on his mother’s face and how she gently patted Scarlett’s hand, Duke said, "That’s a great idea."
Buying a vacation home in New York had originally been Scarlett’s idea. Now that the North American economy was in a slump, her mother, Melanie Sloan, couldn’t find suitable work in Los Angeles and had to return to New York to work as a Broadway screenwriter. Even though she hadn’t been very close with her parents in recent years, Scarlett still paid out of her own pocket to purchase a spacious apartment for her mother and underage brother, and now she was planning to buy a residence in Long Island for herself.
Duke certainly had no objections. After Leah learned of this, she brought in a real estate agent who catered to the wealthy.
Manhattan’s Upper East Side was far too crowded, and neither Duke nor Scarlett wanted to live there. Long Island had undoubtedly become the best option.
Located in the Northern Temperate Zone and surrounded on three sides by the sea, Long Island is covered in forests, with abundant rainfall and a humid climate. Due to its maritime weather, summers aren’t too hot, and it’s considered one of the most livable places in the world.
It’s also a gathering place for the wealthy. Many of America’s rich, as well as wealthy individuals from overseas, liked to invest in real estate here.
But last year’s economic crisis caused many to go bankrupt, and many villas on the island were now listed for sale.
"Now that the U.S. economy is so sluggish..."
Naturally, the conversation shifted from real estate to the economy. Leah said to Duke, "You should be cautious with your investments."
"Mom, you know me," Duke said with a reassuring smile. "I’ve always been cautious."
In fact, even with preparation, the economic crisis still had an impact on Duke though it wasn’t too severe.
Not just him, even Leah’s Saint Fia Company was affected and was currently downsizing its operations.
They didn’t stay long. Scarlett left her assistant to handle the formalities with the real estate agent, and the four of them took Leah’s RV back to Manhattan.
With the financial crisis raging, even Manhattan the world’s financial center was uneasy. On the way back to the Upper East Side, Duke saw some scattered crowds holding small demonstrations. Though nowhere near as extreme as the future "Occupy Wall Street" movement he remembered, some slogans were already showing up.
These scattered gatherings would eventually evolve into a large-scale movement.
But such a movement was destined to fail.
No matter the country or region, power, wealth, and discourse always rest in the hands of a tiny minority. In the face of major interests, the ordinary American people hoping for sympathy or relatively fair treatment from the capital-influenced federal government, New York authorities, or media was nothing but a fool’s dream.
The so-called right to bear arms and resist tyranny was, in today’s America, merely empty talk.
"Maybe someday those people really will take guns and occupy Wall Street."
Back at their home on the Upper East Side, after Duke made a few remarks, Scarlett teased, "And take all the wealth from you capitalists."
"With guns?" Duke closed the door, took off his coat, and hung it on the rack. "Darling, do you really think letting them legally own guns was to resist tyranny?"
Scarlett shrugged. "Then what’s it for?"
Duke raised one finger. "There’s only one reason when they’ve hit rock bottom, they’ll use them to commit suicide!"
Hearing that, Scarlett’s mouth twitched. "That joke isn’t funny at all."
After living here for so many years, Duke knew very well that this country was nothing like the so-called "free nation" that some people with ulterior motives once promoted on the other side. That idea of freedom was merely superficial.
Duke was now temporarily on vacation. At the same time, Leonardo DiCaprio also on vacation had received the script that Tina Fey had asked Ino Martin to pass along.
Spain’s Mallorca Island was hailed as one of the places closest to paradise on Earth. With more than 300 days of sunshine annually, it was known as "The Garden of the Mediterranean."
Beneath a sunshade on a stretch of golden beach, Ino Martin found Leonardo DiCaprio and his new girlfriend, Bar Refaeli.
Taking the script from Ino Martin, Leonardo flipped through it casually and then said, "I’ll take this role. I’ve been waiting for a second collaboration with Duke."
Ino Martin sat beside Leonardo’s beach chair but didn’t say a word. Instead, he looked toward Bar Refaeli.
With some tact, Bar Refaeli rose gracefully from her chair, removed the cover-up she wore, and said, "I’m going for a swim in the sea."
As he watched Bar Refaeli’s figure walk toward the shore, Leonardo fished two cans of beer out of the basket behind him and tossed one to Ino Martin. "Alright, Ino, what’s the big deal?"
He had clearly stated that he wanted to take on Duke’s new project, but Ino Martin showed no reaction, obviously not very approving.
"You’ve misunderstood, Leo."
Even as the man in charge of CAA, Ino Martin wasn’t foolish enough to treat Leonardo as a pawn to be moved at will. He quickly said, "I’m not against you taking on Duke’s project. On the contrary, I think you absolutely should. In recent years, you’ve focused too much on chasing awards and have gradually neglected the commercial side. The market appeal of Titanic will run out one day. You need a strong commercial blockbuster to reinforce your position as a superstar."
Leonardo nodded slightly. He understood this very well too. Without enough market draw, even winning an Oscar for Best Actor wouldn’t make him a superstar. The reason he wasn’t in a rush and kept focusing on awards was because Duke had hinted early on that he wanted to work with him again.
As for what kind of project Duke had in mind, Leonardo could guess with his toes it had to be a big-budget commercial film.
But upon hearing Ino Martin say this, Leonardo was instead puzzled. He looked at his agent with a confused expression, not understanding what he was trying to do.
"Leo, you should know CAA is having some issues right now, right?"
Seeing Leonardo nod, Ino Martin popped open his beer, took a sip, and said, "Now that the Big Six studios and even some second-tier companies have all become subsidiaries of various conglomerates, they’re getting more and more dominant. Although CAA’s business share is growing, the core of our profits packaging services is shrinking across the board."
Leonardo knew a bit about this too. Ever since the independent production era of Hollywood had completely ended, the Big Six studios no longer took CAA seriously. Especially with big-budget and highly profitable commercial films, CAA’s packaging services were almost useless.
The packaging service CAA relied on could only survive in the indie film circle. It was even jokingly referred to as "One-Stop Indie Film Service."
How much profit could indie films possibly generate? Although it looked like CAA’s business was expanding, its annual revenue still hovered around one or two hundred million dollars nowhere near matching the company’s reputation.
As an industry insider, Leonardo knew clearly: those who hyped up CAA and said that an agency could decide the entertainment industry were either up to no good or out of their minds.
Of course, Ino Martin understood that too. The whole of Hollywood and its related industries had a scale of over a hundred billion dollars. The idea that an agency making only a few hundred million a year could dominate the industry—what a massive joke.
Still, recognizing the limits of an agency was one thing. Wanting to expand CAA’s business was another.
One-stop packaging services could bring in huge profits, especially for successful commercial blockbusters.
To bring packaging services back into Hollywood’s mainstream big productions, CAA needed to put forward a massively successful example.
But such examples weren’t easy to find, so he thought of Leonardo. With Tom Hanks moving behind the scenes and Julia Roberts whom they had gone to great lengths to recruit losing her appeal, Leonardo DiCaprio could be considered CAA’s ace.
Looking at Leonardo, Ino Martin solemnly said, "Leo, you can help CAA bring packaging services to Duke."