Duke wore a simple navy jacket, hands buried in his pockets as he walked the length of the empty street in the Star Wars zone.
The gates would not open for another 3 hours, leaving the sprawling park in a state of rare silence.
The park map in his pocket felt slightly useless, he had come here too many times to get lost randomly.
He turned a corner and found himself looking at a giant statue of the Death Star stretched out before him in steel.
Duke paused at the base of a Millennium Falcon cockpit.
He traced a burned mark near the boarding ramp.
This park was a leap from where he had started when he first woke up in this timeline in 1966.
Back then, he was just a nobody trying to navigate a collapsing studio system.
The major studios were bleeding cash, desperate to figure out what audiences wanted as the age of musicals died.
Now, he was standing in the middle of his own empire.
He went from a guy with crutches working as a security guard at night and writing during his afternoons to a tycoon.
But he still had a lot he wanted to do. Paramount was still not done yet.
DC comics could takeover foreign markets, Paramount Parks expansions, making movies, CGI, animation, hell that's without even mentioning videogames.
Duke shook his head, interrupting his thoughts and walked back to the edge of the park.
Beyond the parks grounds, the situation was already...filled.
Crowds stretched past the designated waiting zones, snaking through the asphalt parking lot and spilling down the main access road.
Security teams were calmly directing the flow to keep a line to the Gothams police station that would serve to let people in.
Families were all together, several had done the trip exclusively for Paramount Parks opening to the general public. Most had dropped their cars in the parking lot and were now on foot.
Children wore Star Wars t-shirts, clutching plastic lightsabers that glowed faintly in the morning.
Near the front of the line, the Mitchell family stood together, with both Sarah and Danny slightly bored in waiting.
Their parents stood behind them, sipping coffee slightly tired from the trip.
At 10 am, the gates finally opened.
A cheer erupted, as the first wave of guest came inside, where they were met by a patrol of stormtrooper actors.
The troopers marched in formation, their modulated voices ordering guests to move along.
A child stoped dead in his tracks, staring in awe at the Stormtroppers, meanwhile parents fumbled with their Kodak cameras, trying to capture the moment on film.
Standing on a second-story balcony overlooking the moment, Duke watched the sea of people flood his park.
A relaxed smile crossing his face.
They had dealt with engineering setbacks, unions, economical crisis, bureocracy, Disney sabotage, etc.
But it all washed away under the sound of people cheering for the stories they loved.
Inside the designated press tent, Television crews from local affiliates alongside national news anchors and entertainment reporters were discussing the moment.
None of them were paid, most came cause of Star Wars popularity on the media.
After the premiere and mass rollout of Star Wars last week, the american public was clearly in love with the story.
Of course, there was also Sorcerer that was going to release in 2 weeks, and it seems Warner was expecting to use it to compete.
Local news was transitioning into a modern era of live remote broadcasts, and a park opening provided the perfect visual spectacle.
The wood of the modest podium groaned a little beneath Duke's weight. He mentally did a note to ask for a more sturdy thing next time. 'Imagine how shameful if this were to fall?'
A group of microphones bearing the logos of every major network were aimed at him.
"Connor Hauser! Over here, Duke!" The press corps was a pack of starving men, desperate for the scrap of quote that would anchor the evening broadcasts.
A man in a rumpled gray suit pushed against the velvet rope, jabbing a spiral notebook forward.
"Harris, Tribune," he said loudly, getting ahead of everyone.
"With this new Park, Paramount's is very diversified."
"We haven't seen a studio capable and strong enough throw its weight around like this since the antitrust decrees in 1948. Are we looking at a new monopoly, Mr. Hauser? Are you trying to eat the whole pie?"
The question carried a sharp, bringing on the historical ghost of the government mandates that had forced the old studio system to sell off their lucrative theater chains.
That Antitrust decree was called coincidentally enough, The Paramount Decree of 1948 that affected the whole industry.
Duke didn't flinch, just leaned into the mic, his voice steady.
"I don't lay brick. And Paramount doesn't pour concrete or welds steel supports." Duke gestured vaguely toward the towering silhouettes of the park outside the media tent.
"3000 men built this place. We're not hoarding a market, the competition in films and Theme parks is getting stronger as we speak."
"If making sure a family leaves our gates with a smile makes me a monopolist, then I suppose I'm guilty of hoarding joy. But they have decided to come willingly to us."
"What about Paramounts influence among theaters owners, Mr. Hauser?"
A young woman with a tape recorder shouted from the second row. "The receipts for Star Wars came through this mrning. 22 million dollars, setting a new record for the industry."
A murmur spread through the tent as the number hung in the air.
The old Hollywood playbook of rolling a print out in New York and L.A. on a slow platform release and waiting months for word-of-mouth to reach the Midwest was lying dead in a casket.
Duke had blanketed the country on opening weekend with a nationwide, saturated release, and the gamble was paying off in unprecedented cash.
Duke adjusted his cuffs, his gaze dropping to the wooden grain of the podium.
"The accounting department will certainly like that number," he said, drawing a soft chuckle from the front row.
"But you can't buy an audience's heartbeat. They don't line up around the block because they admire our distribution strategy. Theaters want out movies cause they're simply better."
"We are hopeful that out market postition will bring on new and better movies for the american market." He spoke steadily, forcing the reporters to stop shouting as much.
"Not everyone is buying the magic." The voice cut through as a silver-haired critic from a prominent Manhattan weekly stood near the back of the tent.
"Andy Warhol had a quote in the Times this morning. He called your new park the architectural version of what he criticized in his Campbell's Soup cans painting."
"Mass-produced commercialism disguised as art."
The scratching of pens ceased as the press corps waited to see if the studio head would take the bait.
A moment passed as Duke leaned on the podium and laughed.
"Well, I am not a big fan of Mr. Warhol but I do happen to love Campbell's soup," he replied smiling widely. He was smiling in an attempt to not curse Warhol's name.
"If Mr. Warhol wants to say we're serving it up by the millions, I'll take it as a compliment."
"Art isn't supposed to be locked in a vault for the elite. If our mass-produced can of soup brings comfort to a working-class person, then the artist did their job."