The Sorcerer's Stone Premieres
The once-noisy theater inside Fantasy Universe darkened as the lights dimmed, the space turning pitch black. The awkward expressions on the faces of ID Electronics' president and executives dissolved into the shadows and vanished. Moments later, the Warner Bros. logo appeared on the screen, and the film began. It was the instant when the anticipation of everyone seated in the theater erupted. Beneath that excitement lay a thread of anxiety. Harry Potter was the ultimate fantasy novel whose every installment sent bookstores into a frenzy. It was a book that men and women, young and old, could enjoy. It was such powerful killer content that even children hooked on television, games, or pop music willingly picked up the books. With worldwide cumulative sales already in the tens of millions, it also possessed a rock-solid global fanbase. This was the first film adaptation of Harry Potter, so if it failed to deliver, the repercussions would be enormous.
Everyone held their breath as the movie started. One hundred fifty-two minutes—the runtime of The Sorcerer's Stone. A epic exceeding two and a half hours, long enough that complaints of boredom could easily arise. Yet the original novel, The Sorcerer's Stone, was a substantial volume, and condensing its vast content into a single film meant that even two and a half hours felt insufficient. Naturally, some material had been boldly cut. Still, those watching felt not the slightest awkwardness in the smoothly flowing story. It was the director's skill. Selecting the right director for the monumental task of helming the first film adaptation of such a massive work was itself a test of Warner Bros.' capabilities. Countless directors had been considered—from household names like Steven Spielberg and Ridley Scott to independent filmmakers. Even more striking was the report that Steven Spielberg himself had responded positively. That was how captivating the story within Harry Potter truly was. After so many candidates, the final choice was Chris Columbus. He had debuted in Hollywood with Gremlins and scored massive hits with Home Alone 1 and 2. The primary reason Chris Columbus was chosen over Spielberg, Ridley Scott, and the others was that he was a master of family films. While later installments of Harry Potter would grow darker, the first film, The Sorcerer's Stone, was made for children. It was the story that first introduced the public to Hogwarts and the wizarding world, where young Harry meets his friends and embarks on adventure and growth. Though his résumé was lighter than Hollywood's heavyweights, Chris Columbus excelled when it came to family films. Above all, he understood the weight of his assignment. It was the glorious task of visualizing the magical world that readers had only encountered in print and showing it to them for the first time. Thanks to that understanding, Chris Columbus held countless phone calls and meetings with author J.K. Rowling. From the Hogwarts entrance ceremony to the design of the school uniforms, everything received Rowling's approval. The result was outstanding.
The audience's 152 minutes vanished in the blink of an eye. Viewers were so immersed they forgot even to use the restroom. Proof of that immersion sat right behind Yoo Jae-won: the entire executive team of ID Electronics. Though their English was not fluent, they could understand and read it to a reasonable degree. The Sorcerer's Stone, written in simple language for children, was easy enough for them to follow. Despite their age, they felt their childhood wonder returning the moment the film began. Yoo Jae-won and Tiffany felt the same. Tiffany experienced pure enjoyment; Yoo Jae-won felt pride. He had invested a significant portion of the film's massive budget. Yet his support had not been limited to money alone. ID Entertainment's computer graphics technology had been poured generously into The Sorcerer's Stone. The version of the film Yoo Jae-won had seen before his regression was already excellent, but it had fallen short when it came to realizing the unrealistic situations and magic from the original novel. Even then, great effort had gone into the adaptation, but computer graphics devoured enormous sums, forcing compromises at a certain level. This time was different. There was no need to compromise with reality. Whether in quantity or quality, the fantastical world that Chris Columbus and J.K. Rowling envisioned could be captured exactly as they wanted. The subtle sense of dissonance disappeared, and the computer graphics melted seamlessly into the screen. In scenes that defied belief even for a fantasy film, viewers felt the impossible sensation that everything was real. Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry looked as though it truly existed, and the spaces surrounding the school seemed as if they could be found somewhere in the actual world. The same held true for the griffins and trolls that appeared on screen. As a result, even though the film ran a lengthy 152 minutes, when it ended, a deep sense of longing washed over the audience.
Spontaneous applause followed immediately. Standing ovations after premieres were an unwritten rule, but this time far more people rose of their own accord.
The next day, articles about The Sorcerer's Stone filled the media.
Yet even without the glowing press coverage, tickets sold like wildfire. The film was the most anticipated release of Thanksgiving 2001, and it had delivered a perfect movie that lived up to every expectation. Normally, the first week after release determined whether a film would succeed, but The Sorcerer's Stone proved an exception. Even after a week, the lines at theaters showed no sign of shrinking. Unless some unexpected variable arose, Yoo Jae-won suspected that for the rest of the year, Harry Potter would dominate theaters worldwide.
The day after the group screening of Harry Potter, Yoo Jae-won's home was bustling with visitors for the first time in a while. They were the president and executives of ID Electronics' appliance division.
"Welcome."
"Oh my, thank you for your hospitality!"
The first to greet them was Tiffany. She was in the middle of assisting Frederick at Chevron and running the successor race, but she was currently enjoying a year-end break. The successor competition was not a short sprint that would end in a few months, and the merger with Texaco that Tiffany was overseeing had also entered a brief lull. Texaco had grown somewhat reluctant about the merger because oil prices had risen after the 9/11 attacks. The Middle East accounted for the largest share of global crude oil supply lines. Therefore, whenever Middle Eastern stability wavered, oil prices climbed sharply. In the current situation, the United States was not waging a full-scale war in Afghanistan as it had in the past; instead, it was using its air force and a small number of special operations forces with great effectiveness. Still, battlefield conditions changed rapidly, and unforeseen variables kept appearing. Problems such as civilian bombings and friendly-fire incidents had begun to surface, and Al-Qaeda had heightened its defensive posture against the U.S. pursuit, stretching the timeline for the extermination operation indefinitely. Meanwhile, instability in Iraq was also intensifying. After losing control of the country following its defeat in war, Saddam Hussein had tightened his iron-fisted rule, and terrorist groups were running rampant across Iraq. Some extremist organizations were declaring their intent to become the next Al-Qaeda or the next Osama bin Laden. In certain American circles, rumors circulated that these groups might seize Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and launch large-scale attacks against the United States. Tracing the source of those rumors led to American hardliners—politicians backed by the military-industrial complex and media outlets with strong conservative leanings. Thanks to them, calls for deploying large-scale forces to uproot Al-Qaeda had recently gained traction among the hawks. President Al Gore's resolve, however, remained firm. Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, had already been captured, and Al-Qaeda's main forces had been completely annihilated. He had no intention of wasting American national power on meaningless wars. He had also established a policy of diversifying America's energy supply sources away from the Middle East. One pillar of that strategy was the development of shale gas and shale oil. With horizontal drilling technology now secured and rising oil prices making the projects economically viable, conditions were ideal for increasing America's energy self-sufficiency. As a result, Texaco's stock price had climbed, which in turn reduced the attractiveness of the existing merger plan and slowed its momentum. Even so, the merger had not been completely abandoned. Texaco understood it could not survive alone, and Frederick had no intention of giving up. Furthermore, the Middle Eastern instability and soaring oil prices that had become obstacles were expected to stabilize soon. They had therefore agreed to pause until stability returned, which allowed Tiffany to spend time with Yoo Jae-won after a long while. Spending time together did not mean she was simply resting, however. Whenever ID Group executives visited, as they had today, she fulfilled her role as hostess with full dedication.
"The chairman is waiting in the study. I'll show you the way."
When Tiffany took the lead, the president and executives followed with expressions of deep gratitude. Having become part of the family through acquisition, they were accustomed to Korean corporate culture. In particular, the president and executives had come from Ilsung, Mirae, and Daeho, and had frequently dealt with chaebols of varying temperaments. That was why they found it especially awkward for Tiffany to walk ahead of them.
"Come in."
Most decisive of all was the man they now faced: Yoo Jae-won, the only person capable of shaping the Korean economy at will. He had built the current ID Group from nothing after crossing to America empty-handed, so they could not help but look up to him. The ID Electronics appliance division performance report they had brought made the situation even more delicate; the numbers were so poor that it was hard to believe they belonged to ID Group at all.
A short while later:
"So you're saying the appliance division posted a loss of 543.2 billion won."
At Yoo Jae-won's summary, the president and executives could not lift their heads. A loss! In other words, the appliance division of ID Electronics had done nothing but lose money—the very opposite of a company's primary reason for existing, which was to generate profit.
"Still, the profit from the semiconductor division is enough to absorb that amount."
Yoo Jae-won's follow-up words of comfort had no effect on the executives. The contrast with the semiconductor division's brilliant results was simply too stark. And rightly so—the semiconductor division's performance this year had been extraordinary. Although 2001 still had a month left, net profit had already surpassed the trillion-won mark. The explosive growth in the mobile sector was responsible: strong sales of APs, NAND flash memory, CCD camera modules, and various one-chip sensors. While the traditional mainstay—memory semiconductors—was in a slump, the adoption of the 120-nanometer process had boosted productivity, leaving ID Electronics in a better position than its competitors. Moreover, next year would see the launch of next-generation DRAM paired with a new CPU. With a generational shift underway, even the memory semiconductor business, which had been struggling, was expected to regain vitality. For reference, despite Yoo Jae-won's warning, Intel had decided to push ahead with Rambus DRAM. From the entry-level to the high-end models of next year's Pentium 4, all would come standard with Rambus DRAM. Yoo Jae-won, of course, was committed to DDR DRAM. The reason was simple: the technological scale stored in his memories was on an entirely different level. Rambus DRAM, which had been quickly phased out in the past, had never produced follow-up technology after XDR. DDR DRAM, on the other hand, had released products up to DDR 7, accumulating decades of history. Since retracing a path he had already walked was far more economical, Yoo Jae-won had finalized ID Electronics' next-generation memory standard as DDR DRAM alone. In any case, the semiconductor division's outlook was extremely bright. The appliance division, by contrast, showed no sign of an exit. It was not that the appliance division lacked innovation. As a mammoth electronics company formed by the merger of three firms, overlapping business areas had been considerable. Those sites had been consolidated, core operations extracted and strengthened. In particular, streamlining the lineup of flagship white goods such as televisions, refrigerators, and washing machines was still an ongoing process. Yet even if all these innovations were completed, there was no guarantee that performance would miraculously reverse. It was under these circumstances that Yoo Jae-won had summoned them directly to America, and they had boarded their flights with the resigned look of people who knew the reckoning had finally arrived. Once they arrived, however, the schedule proved far gentler than expected. They had been given suites at a top-tier hotel, watched a movie together as a group, and now found themselves invited to the chairman's home. For executives who had braced themselves for a scolding, the situation felt like a complete reversal.
"I've been too busy to pay proper attention to the appliance division."
"No, not at all, Mr. Chairman!"
The president and executives waved their hands in protest at Yoo Jae-won's light self-reproach. Still, the facts were the facts. That was precisely why he had called them here.
"I'll show you the breakthrough that will complete our innovation."
More precisely, he intended to show them the future appliances that would elevate ID Electronics' appliance division to world-class status as well.