….
Gavin looked up. "What?"
"The villains."
"The villains?"
Regal tapped the script with one finger. "If you look at it, the infected are similar to natural disasters. They're like any earthquake or tsunami. And when those things occur, you just have to deal with it."
Gavin remained silent. "So… the real conflict has to come from the choices people make when they are under pressure? Who do they become when survival is no longer guaranteed?"
Regal's expression hardened. "The divide between those who choose to survive together and those who decide they're better off surviving alone. That's where the real villainy lives."
Gavin slowly closed the white-bound script, the gold embossed title of [Train to Catch].
He stared at the manuscript in silence, his entire understanding of modern blockbuster cinema seeming to shift with every thought that crossed his mind.
"Is it just me..." Gavin muttered, his eyes still fixed on the cover. "...or does this script suit…
"Keanu Reeves?"
Regal was caught off guard by the observation, though he kept his expression composed.
"Why do you say that?" he asked softly. "Their screen presence is quite different, if you ask me."
Gavin shook his head.
"On the surface, maybe 'John Wick' is slick and heavily stylized, while the action here is much rougher and more unhinged. But people tend to forget that John Wick isn't defined by the action. There's a deep sadness underneath him. You see it whenever he thinks about his wife and the life he lost."
He glanced down at the manuscript again.
"I have always thought Keanu could explore that side of himself more. He has this quiet, lonely gravity. He doesn't need to say much for you to feel that something is weighing on him."
Gavin slowly looked back at Regal. "You wrote this with him in mind, didn't you?"
For once, Gavin's intuition had landed exactly where it needed to.
Regal had made a few subtle adjustments to the script specifically with Keanu in mind, but nothing that would turn the character into some exaggerated action icon.
There were no gratuitous hero shots, forced moments of elevation, or attempts to manufacture an aura around him. Regal simply understood what Keanu brought to a role and had shaped certain moments to make use of it.
After all, he had already decided he wanted to make another film with his friend.
Regal didn't confirm or deny Gavin's conclusion.
"The work speaks for itself, Gavin." he said calmly, his voice carrying through the quiet room. "Now go home, get some sleep, and make sure you're at the gate by six tomorrow morning."
Gavin stood up, carefully placing the script back on the desk.
He gave Regal a respectful nod, turned, and exited through the double doors.
Samantha watched the doors click shut before turning to Regal, a mix of amusement and affectionate exhaustion on her face.
"I hate it when your instincts are right." she admitted.
Regal smiled, reaching for his paper cup. "We have a lot of work ahead of us for the announcements, Sam. Let's get to it."
"Are you still planning to release that photo you took?" Samantha asked.
"Yes." Regal confirmed with a sharp, decisive nod.
….
[After A Week]
With [Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix] almost finished its run, currently at a staggering $1.3 billion worldwide, which is projected to finish at $1.45 billion…
And all the while [The Dark Knight] still running in theatres, the trades had finally begun to speculate that Regal Seraphsail was going to take his first genuine, multi-month hiatus.
The relentless five-year cycle of back-to-back releases, stretching from the micro-budget grit of [Following] to the multi-tier awards sweep of [I Want to Eat Your Pancreas], had seemingly left the young director with nothing more to prove to the Hollywood establishment for the rest of the year.
Even the prominent online commentary channels had settled into a rhythm of retrospective analyses.
The industry consensus was clear: Regal was offline and resting, leaving the board silent.
But on a Tuesday morning, that silence was dismantled.
Two announcements were dropped by LIE Studios.
One is–
[Regal Serphsail is once again collaborating with Keanu Reeves]
And the other is–
[The most successful film franchise [Harry Potter] announced the release date of their most awaited game [Philosopher's Curse: The Hogwarts Experience]].
Once again the news had completely stormed the internet with fans going crazy.
However, many details were still unknown.
Especially the collaboration between Regal Serphsail and Keanu Reeves.
Many assumed it would be [John Wick] sequel.
However, it wasn't revealed yet.
The only thing revealed was a photo of Regal, Kenau, and another bald person standing beside them.
….
The photograph had been uploaded without a single text, lacking even the customary PR taglines or agency credits that typically accompanied a major studio reveal.
It was uploaded on all LIE Studios' official handles, which seemed to be just an on site decision without any lighting.
In the center of the frame, Regal and Keanu stood shoulder-to-shoulder, their postures loose and unstudied.
But on the left side of the image, standing beside them was a broad-shouldered, massive figure with a bald head.
His jaw was set in hard, flat rigidity, the muscles taut against his collarbone as he stared directly into the camera with a grave seriousness, his right hand clenched into a massive fist at his side.
The contrast was striking, and almost provocative.
Within minutes of the upload, the reddit community tried to understand the picture.
….
r/MDCU:
Cinephile_99: "Who is the giant? He's been in the background of almost every public event Regal has attended since 2010. Even when Regal was in London for the very first Harry Potter book tour. He was also there when paparazzi caught Regal and Gwendolyn having dinner in Shinjuku. We always assumed he was just an incredibly intense personal bodyguard. But now? He's in the official promotional photo. What's the supposed meaning?"
NerdyDUDE: "His name is Rock."
(The user attached a series of cropped paparazzo photos from the past six years.)
NerdyDUDE: "He has been Regal's bodyguard since the early days. But look at his hand. That fist is huge. He looks like he could pick up a car and throw it. If this is for a new project, he must be playing a crucial role."
BehindGaffer: "Fun fact: Before he was keeping Regal safe, Rock actually worked as a stunt double for Rubeus Hagrid in the very first Harry Potter film. They didn't even need a bodysuit for the wide shots, they simply threw a trench coat on him and let him walk around."
PotterBoy_109: "^ LMAOO is this real?! Because honestly, looking at the sheer size of his shoulders, I 100% believe it. Man didn't even need forced perspective camera tricks, he's just naturally built like a half-giant."
Lover22: "I can totally see it. Imagine being a Death Eater in a scene and seeing this guy step out in a Hagrid beard. No wonder the stunts in the first HP felt so grounded. They had an actual brick wall double-stepping for Robin Williams!"
….
Once that was revealed, their conversation moved onto the most interesting discussions.
"Is it John Wick 2?" a user on Twitter asked. "Keanu is the lead, they just wrapped the first one to historic numbers, and the action community is starving for more. It has to be a sequel."
But the industry trades were already pointing in a different direction.
"The filing isn't for a sequel." a staff writer at The Hollywood Reporter wrote, referencing the newly updated California production registries. "The title registered by LIE Studios is [Train to Catch]. It's listed as an original screenplay written by Regal Seraphsail, with Keanu Reeves attached to star. The genre tags are not standard action. They are listed as survival-thrillers, horror, and... Zombies."
A zombie movie?
The revelation hit the online communities like a physical blow.
"A zombie movie?" a prominent film blog published. "Regal Seraphsail, the man who won an Academy Award with teenage romance is making a horror film about the infected? It doesn't make sense. The genre has been dead for a decade, treated by major studios as cheap, direct-to-video counter-programming."
But those who had followed Regal's career closely knew better than to expect a standard, formulaic genre exercise.
"When did his choices make sense until we have the result ourselves?" the article continued. "When everyone told him he couldn't cast Darren Hayes as the Joker, he did it anyway and delivered a performance that made Christian Isaac look terrified. If Regal is making a zombie film, it must be one of its kind."
….
While the internet was beginning to tear itself apart over the identity of the bald man and the mystery of the train script, Gwendolyn Oulworth was in another important meeting.
The main topic of the discussion was about the Harry Potter game, [Philosopher's Curse: The Hogwarts Experience].
"The traffic is holding, but the retail requests are unlike anything we've managed since the Phase One rollout."
Pete Chen said, his voice quiet as he adjusted his glasses.
He sat across the desk from Gwendolyn, his laptop displaying a real-time dashboard of global bookstore inventory queues.
"We released the official publication date for the book and the launch window for the game simultaneously at nine this morning." Gwendolyn said, her fingers tracing the silver lettering on the cover. "How are the numbers on the interactive side?"
"The digital registry for the game [Philosopher's Curse: The Hogwarts Experience] reached five hundred thousand within the first thirty minutes of the announcement." Pete replied, refreshing the server metrics–
"The local distributors are already calling us, begging for additional physical allocations. They want to bundle the steelbook with the final volume of the novel for midnight release events."
Gwendolyn took a slow sip of her tea, her expression remaining composed despite the astronomical figures flashing on the monitors.
For six years, she had watched this world grow.
She remembered when Everleaf was a failing, second-floor walk-up with twenty employees, struggling to print fifteen thousand copies of a debut novel without going under.
Now, they were standing at the summit of the global publishing industry, preparing to release the final volume of a seven-book journey alongside a AAA survival-horror game that had taken three years of grueling, obsessive development.
"Many of our distributors called from London." Gwendolyn said, a faint, fond smile touching her lips. "They said the local bookstores are already preparing to close down entire streets for the midnight launch. They're calling it the 'Double-Barrel Drop'."
"This is going to be massive."
Everyone agreed.
.
….
[To be continued…]
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