Cole did not knock, and that told Duke everything before the man even opened his mouth.
Cole was a recently promoted executive from the Distribution side of Paramount, who had previously been a Mail room guy.
Today he came through the office door with a sheet of yellow paper.
It was Monday, June 15, 1981, a little after nine in the morning.
The top floor of the building was quiet, the way a place gets when everyone in it is is waiting for the same piece of news.
"Sit down," Duke said.
"I'd rather stand, sir." Cole laid the paper on the desk. "Here it is."
Duke already knew roughly what it said. He had barely slept since Friday.
In 1981 nobody could look up a box office total on a screen, that was still awaiting the internet, software and computers to develop more.
Theaters managers across the country counted their tickets on Sunday night and phoned the totals to regional offices.
Clerks there added them up by hand and sent the sums to Los Angeles over telephone lines and telex machines.
Then by monday morning, a whole weekend of the box office could be sumarized in a page.
The total at the bottom of the sheet was a little over $8.3 million.
It had been earned in 3 days, from 1,089 theaters.
Duke also noticed the Sunday number.
It had barely dropped from Saturday.
A picture that was only hype fell off quickly once the curious had seen it. A picture that held on Sunday had people telling their friends, and in the trade that was called having legs.
Number 1 on the Domestic Box Office in this weekend, defeating Clash of the Titans that was also released on the same day and had 1,127 screens.
More screens than Raiders and it still lost.
The opening weekend was the loudest vote an audience could cast.
A theater owner who saw lines on Friday kept the picture for weeks.
An owner who saw empty rows dropped it before the next Friday and made room for something else.
Clash of the Titans had a bigger rollout.
More screens, bigger marketing. It was supposed to be the safe bet as a family picture.
But families walked past it and lined up for the man in the hat.
Cole ran a finger down the page. "Orlando turned people away several times, and we have gotten complains. Dallas added midnight shows."
"In Chicago they even ran out of popcorn bags by Saturday afternoon."
"Popcorn bags," Duke repeated.
"I've been in this business since... Nixon or was it Johnson? Anyways, never heard anyone say that sentence before."
Duke finally breathed a sight of relief, for a whole year he feared that changing the face of Indiana Jones would damage the movie.
It hasdnt.
The audience came anyway and the story held.
Cole face smiled a little nervous. "The lab wants more prints."
"Speak with Eisner, or Dawn." Duke said. "Don't ask me the price."
"I wasn't going to." Cole picked up the yellow sheet and tapped it against his palm. "Folks at the other studios are going to read this by lunch. I'd enjoy that."
"Enjoy it quietly," Duke said, he was still smiling yet not reallyy paying much attention to Cole who was already on his way out.
The real test would come on Friday, when Superman II, another Paramount Movie opened.
A sequel with a famous name and a recognizable IP would take a lot of the same audience.
Duke was not worried, after all, his money would be made but he was paying attention.
Duke walked to the window for his daily aurafarm session.
Down on Melrose a sightseeing bus had stopped at the arched gate, and the driver was pointing up at the building with a microphone in his hand.
A few dozen tourists pressed against the glass with their cameras out.
They were on vacation, and they had chosen to spend part of it looking at his studio.
His secretary buzzed from the outer office. "Mr. Eisner is on line two. He says congratulations, and that Steven has called him four times since 7."
"Tell him I'll call back," Duke said. "And tell Steven to go eat."
Soon Sheryl opened the door carrying a folder.
His assistant had clipped the reviews into a folder, the way she did for every big release.
The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Star, the Chicago papers.
In these days a film's reputation traveled through print.
There was no cable channel to explain it and no screen in your pocket to argue about it.
The 3 networks, a handful of famous critics, and the person sitting next to you in line decided what a movie meant.
He had been thinking on how to change this, but it seems most people only cared about whether a movie was entertaining 'enough' and wanted someone to tell them to watch it.
They did had some newpapers and magazines to use as advertisement that they could control.
Duke sat down with the folder and began to read.
The papers liked it.
They called it fast and funny and adventurous, and several of them compared it to Carl Barks Donald Duck comic series.
Some non-drama obsessed critics seemed relieved that a big summer picture could still be about a man with a whip and a good story.
After all, Star Wars released had affected the industry, with a lot of copycats emerging... most of them were... questionable.
The Italian 'Starcrash', 'Star Odyssey' and 'The Humanoid'.
The Turkish 'The Man Who Saved the World'.
Disney's attempt at a Star Wars story, 'The Black Hole'.
The british 'Krull', The Japanese 'Message from Space', etc.
The only 2 that Duke liked were 'Battle Beyond the Stars', and 'Battlestar Galactica', the latter even being produced by Paramount.
Anyways, nearly every review mentioned Karen Allen, whose Marion fought back instead of waiting to be saved.
Very politically correct in this current era.
Despite Duke being affiliated with the Republicans... Politics should never get in the way of making a good movie.
Just the year before 'Private Benjamin' was a major hit, and talked about a pampered woman who after her fiance dies, joins the army, and has 3 attempts at relationships, cut off everyone in her life, including her parents and goes her own way.
(very long time since I watched that movie)
Tom Selleck, at this point was mostly known to some few people from a detective show on Thursday nights, was called a pleasant surprise.
One writer even went af far to say it was hard to picture anyone else in the hat.
Duke read each review slowly, from the first line to the last.
One of them stopped him.
It came from a Midwestern daily, Critic that called the film a roller coaster with a hat on.
'All chase and no heart', he wrote, and he said nobody would remember a single moment in a week.
Duke read the whole thing twice.
He disagreed, the movie asked the audience for attention and gave back joy.
It did not ask for much beyond that. It was a nice story at the end of the day.
That was okay as is.
A good adventure had a right to be only an adventure.
He remembered in his past life, going to support an indie horror film with his mom.
It was about a woman in a sketchy place that rents a room and it ended up with a serpent monster giving a speech in colonialism.
'Not everything is politics, some shit is just turn off my brain after a shift and watch some random stuff.'
He pulled down a page from his side and wrote down. 'Axel Folley, Beverly Hills Cop.'
One of his favorite franchises in his past life that he liked to watch when tired.
Another folder sat beneath the clippings, thinner than the first. It held letters.
Most were fan letters, written by children.
But a few were from parents, and one of those was from a woman in Ohio.
She wrote that the scene near the end, where the faces of the villains came apart, had frightened her 7 year-old and kept him awake for two nights.
The film was rated PG.
In 1981 the ratings that mattered were G, PG, R, and X, and a PG picture could hold anything short of an R.
Parent asociations were beginning to wonder whether that was too much room.
Duke just shrugged, Parent and teacher asociations just served to complain about anything and everything, most of the time.
Duke took a sheet of studio letterhead and wrote back to her himself.
He told her she was right to be careful. He told her the film was meant for older children, and that she should wait a few years before letting her son see it again.
Then he added a line at the bottom offering her family passes to the studio tour, signed his name, and gave the letter to Sheryl to mail.
A little later she brought a plate of fried sausages, white rice and a fried egg. Simple but delicious food.
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