The receiver of the telephone settled back, the line to Idaho was cut, leaving Duke sitting in the silence of his Paramount office.
Reaching for his silver fountain pen, he pulled a paper and wrote.
Margaux 1976 project.
He underlined the year twice, a strong deadline.
It worked for him if Margaux went back to work and he could hire someone to raise the kid alongside him here near Hollywood to be close to work and visit everyday.
After all, Margaux and him were not married and it was clear she was craving to restart her career, the Idaho ranch was all on an LLC that she wouldnt be able to touch eitherway.
So after the baby is born, Duke should just try to get a lot of rights for himself and sign and NDA with her.
Below that, he jotted, 'Mariel - casting'
He capped the pen and set it aside.
Diller was already in the room, He had slipped in through the door while Duke was finishing the call, standing near the center of the Persian rug.
Tucked under one arm was a black three-ring binder and in his other hand, a tightly rolled tube of architectural blueprints.
Duke leaned back in his chair, the leather creaking softly, he reminded himself to lose some of that Texas Chainsaw Massacre weight he had gained.
He offered a welcoming smile. "Close the door, Barry and pour yourself a drink."
Diller press the door shut and walked over to the bar positioned near the corner window
Drink in hand, Diller crossed the room and unrolled the large blueprint across the center of Duke's desk, using a pair of brass paperweights to pin the curling corners flat.
It was a dense, complex schematic filled with orbital trajectories, bandwidth allocations, and technical engineering jargon.
To anyone else in Hollywood, it would have looked like instructions for building an airplane.
To Duke and Diller, It was the blueprint for Satcom 1, RCA's geostationary communications satellite, scheduled to break atmosphere in december 1975.
Diller took a slow sip of his scotch, letting the burn hit his throat before tapping a highlighted part on the diagram.
"Here is where the magic happens," Diller said, "We moved on this while the rest of the industry was still trying to figure out if this was a passing fad. We've successfully locked down 4 of the 24 transponders on this bird."
He paused, letting his finger rest on the paper. "We secured them at a flat rate of 500k dollars per transponder, per year."
"But by the time this thing actually launches next year, NBC and CBS are going to be paying two, maybe three times that amount just to fight over the spots."
Duke studied the grid, his eyes tracing the lines of the schematic. He realizes he didnt really understand the schematics but thats ok, he had people who undestood them hired.
"It's a beautiful piece of tech, Barry," Duke said, "But we've been sitting on this for months. The launch window is next year so the clock is ticking. Have we started building out the programming blocks?"
Dille shrugged, taking another pull from his glass.
"Because we were busy fighting a multi-front war," he replied smoothly. "Navigating the whole fallout of Watergate, the legal mess at Mattel and also take care of our own slate. We had to put out the immediate fires before we could start building a new house. But the fires are out now and we have the roadmap."
Diller set his glass down and flipped open the black binder. Inside was a color-coded chart that broke the satellite bandwidth into three streams.
Diller tapped the first column, shaded a soft, washed-out blue. Paramount Classics.
Duke though of the acronym PC, which would later stand for Personal Computer and Political Correctness and almost wanted to turn it into Classics Paramount but the acronyms were also bad that way.
Diller explained, "This channel would be focused on showing old time films, whether its westerns, musical or whatever. We have thousands of old film cans rotting in the vaults, Hitchcock, Wilder and all that stuff and right now, they earn zero."
"We run them on a loop. It's pure nostalgia for the film purists, and the programming cost is nothing. We can offer the channel to Hospitals or retirement homes too."
Duke remembered another channel like that Turner Classic Movies (TCM), created in 1994 to showcase Ted Turner massive library of old movies, the combination of Warner films and MGM films allowed him to dominate that niche.
Duke's eyes slid to the middle column, painted a sharp red. Paramount Kids/Nickelodeon.
"This is for the pre teens or teens, not the 2-5 demographic." Diller clarified, "The Big Three treat children's programming like an afterthough right now."
"But with this, i would like to target the 8-15 demographic. Preteens or teenagers. They have allowance money, and they sort of dictate what their parents buy at the grocery store."
He traced a line down the blocked schedule. "We hook the little ones in the morning with an unbroken loop of animation Superman shorts, classic Looney Tunes. If this go well, we use this success to create more animated series."
"And as the afternoon turns into evening? We age the network up. We build live-action shows specifically for thirteen-year-olds."
Duke nodded slowly.
Diller's hand moved to the third and final column, filled in black with white letters. Showtime.
"Our flagship," Diller said, tapping the paper hard.
"We give them our latest release out of theater uninterrupted by commercials. We feed it with high-end movies and tv shows. We make them feel like they have a private theatrical screening room right in their living room."
Duke remembered HBO for a moment, wasnt this their business plan?
Duke raised a hand and pressed his index finger dead center on the red column.
"The kids' channel is the best," Duke murmured, "We already have the DC library. Blue Beetle just proved viability and we already decided Paramount Parks was going to cater to boys so its a good decision."
Diller nodded, pleased. "Exactly. And the best part about the classics channel is that it costs us practically nothing to operate. All we have to do is pay someone to physically transfer the film reels to broadcast tape and build a weekly schedule. It's profit from day one."
"That's three," Duke murmured, his voice low. "The contract was for four transponders."
Diller stood up straight, adjusting his cuffs. "The fourth pipe is still empty but we have ideas. I left it blank because the bandwidth is ours whenever we want to flip the switch. We can hold it in reserve if we want to."
Duke didn't blink, his finger pinned to the blank paper.
He considered several ideas, a Live Sports channel, A 24-hour music channel or a action focused tv channel. He couldnt decide so he left it open, he would decide later as he though more in depth.
With the satellite discussion settled, Diller carefully rolled up the Satcom blueprints and slipped them back into their leather tube.
He reached into his briefcase and pulled out a thinner red folder. Columbia Pictures- Confidential.
"Let's talk about the sleeping... giant," Diller said, "Last year, you picked up a 10% stake in Columbia, you are the largest single shareholder on their books, this year they didnt even appear once among the top 10 highest box office films."
Duke frowned, a crease of concern appearing on his forehead.
A healthy ecosystem was better for business than a collapsed one. "What is their board doing about it? I literally stepped in trying to provide my name for them to get loans and be able to recover and the flip it."
Duke asked. "They have a fiduciary duty to stop the bleeding. Are they just paralyzed?"
"They're fighting," Diller sighed, "The old guard wants to sell the studio to a conglomerate just so they can cash out their chips and retire. The Jaffe wants to restructure the debt and start greenlighting risky, auteur-driven films. Meanwhile, the stock price is hovering near a ten-year low."
Duke rubbed his chin, looking out the window at the hills in the distance. "Listen to me, Barry. We do not want to own Columbia Pictures. Even if we could afford the purchase, it would trigger an antitrust nightmare that would tie us up in federal court for a decade."
"But we need them to be healthy, I'm aiming to flip them to a conglomerate but not for a small price."
Duke leaned back, the leather chair sighing. "We make absolutely no aggressive moves until the midterm elections pass,"
Duke ordered softly. "November fifth. We wait to see how the political winds in Washington settle before we expose ourselves to any unnecessary scrutiny. After that Tuesday, we can start to play."
"What about Coca-Cola?" Diller offered casually, "I've heard credible whispers out of Atlanta. Their executive board is considering to acquire a major studio."
"They want to pair their global soda marketing machine with movie releases. They have billions in cash, and they dont mind paying to get into the club."
In the original flow of history, Coca-Cola did buy Columbia Pictures, but not until 1982. In this altered reality, with the market conditions shifting under Duke's influence, Coke could make the move a decade early. And Paramount could be the broker that handed them the keys.
Duke scratched his late night small beard. 'Did Paramount becoming succesful atracted Conglomerates to invest in Hollywood early?'
Duke smiled, knowing the conglomerates were probably going to get scammed if they tried anything.
"Explore it," Duke said, not really caring, Columbia's Logo was ugly either way. "But do it quietly. If Coke is genuinely interested, we can build the bridge and more importantly, we negotiate a distribution and marketing alignment between Paramount and Coca-Cola as a finder's fee."
"So, what's the immediate play with Columbia?" Diller asked.
"Nothing," Duke replied, "We let them bleed until January. The holidays will bring them just enough cash flow from Funny Lady and Tommy to keep them out of bankruptcy. Then, in the new year, we make our move."
Diller nodded satisfied. He closed the folder and returned it to his briefcase. "I'll monitor their stock daily. One last piece thing, the FCC cross-ownership rules regarding the Ohio and Texas newspapers. Smith said she was handling the lobbying in Washington. Any movement?"
Duke glanced briefly at his calendar. "Not yet but I trust her. The RNC owes us a for the support we've provided this year. Don't worry about Washington, focus on the transponders and Atlanta."
After Diller finally left the office, Duke had one final piece of business to handle before the evening was officially over. He picked up the phone, and dialed the direct line for Tobe Hooper.
Hooper answered on the second ring. The young director already buzzing with the initial success of his film.
Duke immediately cut through the chatter.
"Listen to me, Tobe," Duke said. "Paramount is thinking of launching a dedicated horror label and you are one of our Horror Directors. If you want to direct the debut project, it's yours."
After a bunch of chatter, Duke hanged up, and made a quick note on his pad.
'Paramount Nightmare' before scribling on top of it, not liking how it souncded.
He picked up the phone one more time, dialing Evans's internal extension and instructed him to begin compiling a list of horror scripts bouncing around town.
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Im a horror Fan