….
The golden light of a Los Angeles sunset spilled across the eighteenth floor of LIE Studios headquarters.
And Regal Seraphsail stood at the window with his back to the room, looking at none of it.
He was thinking.
Gwendolyn came in first.
She looked at him - the set of his shoulders, the particular quality of his stillness - and her expression moved through recognition into something fond and slightly resigned.
"I know it wasn't intentional." she said, her voice carrying that specific teasing edge she reserved for moments like this. "But you are doing the genius-at-the-window thing again."
She set her notebook on the table. "Is there something you're thinking about? Should we brace ourselves?"
Regal turned, a faint smirk.
"You're spot on, Gwen."
"Oh god."
Samantha came in behind her.
"Not again."
Then came Darren and Simon - their expressions carrying that particular mixture of curiosity and exhaustion that came with keeping pace with Regal's relentless forward motion.
Rock took his customary position by the door.
Simon caught Gwendolyn's expression and raised an eyebrow at Darren, who gave a small shrug that meant: I don't know yet either.
Regal let them settle.
He wasn't joking to soften what was coming. He rarely was, when he stood like that.
…
Six years.
It had been just over six years since Regal had opened his eyes in this world.
And in those times he had built - with these people, with their hands and his vision and the specific friction of all of them working together - something that by any reasonable measure was extraordinary.
He owns MarvelDC Comics outright.
Controls 75% of Netflix.
Built the MDCU - the most lucrative cinematic universe in history.
Wrote [Harry Potter] and adapted it into a film franchise.
Also owner of Crunchyroll.
He sat at the top of the entertainment world, and nobody in Hollywood would argue with that.
However, if one were to ever ask him, what is his biggest achievement is:
It would be to leave a mark so big, his name will be only forgotten when the world ends with his name.
Despite being a transmigrated person, he never wished for immortality or such concepts. He wants to die like a normal person, but he wants to make sure his name will be etched in the entertainment history.
And for that to happen?
The most particle solution that has been used from ages of history is–
He walked to the whiteboard, picked up the marker and drew a large, sweeping circle on the board - and turned to face them.
"I want to build a monument." he said. "I am finally ready to propose a plan I have kept on hold for years."
He looked at the circle on the board. "We are going to build a theme park."
"...."
The silence lasted about one second.
"A theme park." Simon whistled low. "Regal, the overhead on that is astronomical. We are talking billions in infrastructure before the first ticket is even sold."
"We have the capital." Regal's voice carried the particular quality of certainty that, after six years, everyone in this room had learned to distinguish from ordinary confidence.
"I wouldn't be bringing this up if I didn't think it was possible."
Darren leaned back in his chair. He had the look of someone who was rapidly sorting through every operational implication simultaneously–
"Is this about Pixy Studios?"
"This has nothing to do with them."
"Nothing, my ass."
"Darren–"
"The only existing competitor in the American theme park space." Darren said, sitting forward. "...is the Morphin Grid Adventure Park."
"Pixy Studios' crown jewel." He glanced at Simon. "Their park draws fourteen million visitors a year."
"The Morphin Grid is a fun park for a specific fandom." Regal set the marker down. "What I am proposing is different in kind, not just scale. Unlike them, we have more IP, range, world-building accumulated over six years of films and books and animation. Theirs is a single franchise. Ours is a universe."
He looked around the table. "Several universes."
He let that land. "Imagine a place where you don't just watch a story. You walk through the Leaky Cauldron, stand on a Kryptonian scout ship and get to see Stark Industries built to full scale in front of you."
He looked at each of them in turn. "It will not just be a park, but a physical legacy, for everything LIE Studio's has built and for the stories we have spent six years and the future projects we will be working on too."
The room was quiet for a moment.
Simon had been quiet since his initial objection, which was the sign that he was doing the other thing he did - the mental arithmetic that preceded his eventual enthusiasm.
A grin was starting at the corner of his mouth, the reluctant kind, the kind that arrived when the scale of something impossible tipped over into the scale of something he wanted to be part of.
"Well." he said. "I guess we better find some land."
Regal looked at him.
However, he was beat by–
"But seriously." Derrren's voice was entirely level. "Make sure to remind me not to make you my enemy. Like ever."
Regal blinked. "What?"
"For making me say all of that with a straight face while you whistled at me."
Darren put his head in his hands.
Gwendolyn was looking at the ceiling.
Samantha, who had been writing since the second sentence of Regal's pitch and had not stopped, looked up briefly and then went back to writing, which was what she did when she had already moved past the emotional register of a moment and into its operational implications.
.…
.
What followed was a month of planning.
And before they knew it, they were sitting in their conference room, with most of the team assembled.
Regal stood in front of the projection.
The name first.
[Seraphia - The Infinite Realm]
A name that belonged to no single franchise and was larger than any property it contained.
A name that told you, in two words, what it was promising.
Then the site: Orange County, Florida: a 1,250-acre of undeveloped marshland and pine flatwoods southwest of Orlando, between State Road 417 and US-192.
Three parcels and purchases, to be secured this year for a combined three hundred and twelve million dollars($312 M).
The site had everything: year-round subtropical climate enabling three hundred and sixty-five operational days, Florida's unmatched tax incentives for entertainment developments, the existing tourism infrastructure of Orlando, and highway access that put it within reach of both coasts.
"Florida..?" Simon asked.
"You want me to go to Florida?" Darren said.
"For three years, approximately."
Darren looked at his notepad, then at the whiteboard and his notepad. "Alright."
It was the same alright Regal had been hearing for six years - the one that meant: I have done the calculation, found the version of this that fits in my hands, and I am going to build it.
Then the zones.
Five of them, organized around a central plaza:
[Zone One - the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, the largest, anchored by a full-scale Hogwarts Castle]
Hogsmeade, Diagon Alley, and Forbidden Forest, one point eight five billion dollars, with the castle itself consuming six hundred and eighty million.
[Zone Two - the MDCU Multiverse]
The most expensive - two point one billion.
Gotham and Metropolis as full-scale urban environments, Spider-Man cityscape and Infinite Theatre at its centre - a four-dimensional immersive experience unlike anything that existed anywhere.
[Zone Three - the Animated Realm]
Solo Leveling, Death Note, Batman: Gotham Chronicles with a seven hundred and eighty million.
The translation of anime's visual grammar into physical space.
[Zone Four - CinemaVerse]
Six hundred and forty million, the worlds of Regal's original films made walkable.
[Zone Five - Narnia and Legends]
The most intimate zone, four hundred and eighty million, built to feel like the oldest place in the park, the foundation beneath everything.
And at the centre of it all:
[The Grand Seraphia Plaza]
Three hundred and twenty million.
The twelve-story Seraphsail Spire at its heart, visible from every point in every zone, the mark that would still be standing when everyone in this room was gone.
Regal said very little about the Spire specifically.
He said: it's visible from everywhere. It's the thing you photograph when you arrive. It's the reason for the circle on the whiteboard.
And then he moved on, which Gwendolyn understood completely and Samantha noted without comment and Darren simply accepted.
….
Then came the number.
Regal had been building toward it for two hours - the zones, the site, the vision, the architecture of the thing - and he had done it deliberately, in that order, because he understood the number he was about to put out.
It was a frighteningly larger number.
But it was frightening in the way that the right things are frightening.
"Then came the final prediction of the budget." he said, and something in the room shifted, the quality of attention tightened, the way it does when people who have been listening hard prepare to listen harder.
"Nine point four billion."
$9.4 Billion USD?
Simon stopped writing.
Darren looked up from his notepad for the first time in forty minutes.
Regal let the number sit in the air for three full seconds.
"Nine point four billion dollars." he said again.
"Making Seraphia the most expensive entertainment facility ever constructed. The current record is the Morphin Grid at eight hundred and forty million(840M USD) in 2007 money. We are building at more than ten times that scale."
Simon looked at his notepad. Looked at Regal. "Ten times."
"Ten times."
"You said ten times."
"I did."
Simon set his pen down. Picked it up again. "Okay." He turned to a fresh page.
….
Regal walked them through it channel by channel.
The first and largest channels of investment were LIE Studio's and Everleaf Press itself.
$2.8 Billion USD.
They are drawn from the MDCU film slate profits, the Harry Potter adaptation returns, Netflix dividends, and book royalties accumulated across six years.
Regal personally fronted the largest single share of this, which nobody in the room was surprised by.
"That's the anchor." Regal said. "Everything else is structured around it."
The second channel: Netflix.
$1.5 Billion USD.
The money is structured as a loan-to-equity deal. Netflix received eight percent(:8%) of SEH equity in return.
Simon looked at that number. "You're giving Netflix equity in the park."
"Yes. In exchange for one point $1.5 Billion in strategic investment and the exclusive streaming rights to all original content produced in connection with Seraphia."
"You own seventy-five percent of Netflix."
"I do."
"So you're essentially–"
"I am capitalizing the park through the most valuable distribution platform I own, yes, and in exchange that platform gets a permanent physical marketing asset and a content pipeline that will run for as long as the park operates."
Regal looked at him. "Netflix's subscriber conversion data on IP-adjacent content is the strongest in the streaming sector."
Simon wrote something and underlined it. "The board approved this?"
"First thing after I proposed this plan to you guys is the board session with all the Netflix members. And within forty minutes of explanation, they were on board with the plan."
"Because you control the board."
"Or I would rather phrase it as my argument was correct."
"Tsk, the same."
"Hha…"
….
The third channel: MarvelDC Comics corporate treasury.
$800 Million USD.
It was structured as a royalty-free IP licensing prepayment.
However, there is no equity exchanged.
MarvelDC got guaranteed park marketing that functioned simultaneously as IP promotional infrastructure for the MDCU's ongoing film slate. Every attraction in Zone Two was, in effect, a permanent advertisement for the cinematic universe built in its image.
Darren had been doing quiet arithmetic in his notepad. "It's an easy choice for the MarvelDC board members. They are essentially paying to license its own IP to a park that promotes its own films."
"Yep. Its win-win for them."
"...well, not like you would let them be, if they don't agree."
"...." Regal chose to ignore it.
….
The fourth channel was the one that required the most explanation, which Regal gave without apology because the structure was genuinely complex.
The private equity syndicate: Goldman Sachs, SoftBank, Brookfield Asset Management.
$2.4 Billion USD.
The investment is structured across a fifteen-year repayment horizon at four point two percent(:4.2%) interest, with equity warrants representing twelve percent of SEH.
"Combined with Netflix's eight percent." Samantha said, without looking up.
"Twenty percent of SEH in external equity, yes."
"You're comfortable with that?"
"I own eighty percent of the most expensive entertainment facility ever built, in a market with no direct competitor at comparable scale, on twelve hundred and fifty acres in Florida."
He looked at her. "I am comfortable."
She wrote something and moved on, which was Samantha's version of agreement.
….
Then came the Florida state development bond.
Since the location is in Florida, it is always a wise choice to involve the government, to which all of them agreed.
Total of $600 M at three point one percent over twenty years, issued under a public-private partnership framework that the State of Florida had entered into based on the projected economic impact:
Seventy-two thousand construction jobs, an estimated eleven billion dollars in annual tourism contribution to the state economy.
….
The last one was from–
Crunchyroll.
….
.
[To be continued…]
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