Chapter 101: Blowing Up the White House
After Cameron Diaz's party, another profit share cleared, adding $20 million to the Duke Studio accounts. Setting aside the taxes everyone hated, this money didn't entirely belong to Duke.
Under their agreement, five percent of Duke Studio's profit share from The Rock belonged to Nancy Josephson, and another five percent covered his legal and accounting teams. On top of that, Duke needed $10 million to repay his mother's loan; by their verbal agreement, she was also entitled to ten percent of the investment's return as interest.
All told, $14 million would likely be paid out shortly.
This was a highly commercialized, professionalized society. There was no point in dreaming about monopolizing profits and solving every problem alone. Failing to pay people an adequate commission for their work would inevitably lead to losses far exceeding the commission itself, or even the complete failure of the investment.
Calculating it all, Duke Studio would have a $6 million surplus. Added to the remaining $1 million from his directorial salary on The Rock and the $2 million base salary the producers had already paid him for Independence Day, he now had a substantial pool of capital on hand.
How to use these funds was something he had been considering for a while.
Even with his limited grasp of finance, Duke knew that the dollar, like all fiat currency, depreciated rapidly. Sitting on massive amounts of cash was the most foolish way to manage wealth. If he followed Hollywood's typical investment habits, stocks and real estate were the most popular choices for star directors.
These were options Duke had considered, but before pursuing them, he had a far more important use for the money.
Over the next few days, in between prep work for Independence Day, Duke held a series of meetings with his agent, Nancy Josephson. They had several confidential discussions regarding his future film projects. As a former entertainment lawyer, veteran agent, and skilled negotiator, she would serve as his temporary representative for these matters.