….
[LIE Studios | Post-Production Bay 3]
Zack Barg sat staring at the most intimidating timeline they had ever constructed.
For the past several weeks, The Dark Knight had entered a phase that LIE Studios had never attempted before: concurrent post-production.
But this wasn't a normal film but a dual-director epic.
Zack took a sip of his coffee, his eyes tracking the two distinct, color-coded folders on his desktop interface.
Folder A was labeled: [ACT I & II - ALVAREZ].
Folder B was labeled: [ACT III & IV - SERAPHSAIL].
The sheer disparity in the file sizes was almost comical.
Fede Álvarez, the brilliant Uruguayan director tasked with building the mythic, grueling origin of Bruce Wayne, had directed exactly the way a top-tier Hollywood filmmaker was supposed to direct.
He had shot a staggering two hundred and forty hours of raw footage, building an industry-standard safety net of infinite coverage.
For a single dialogue scene in the League of Shadows temple, Fede had used four cameras simultaneously, capturing every conceivable angle and emotional delivery.
It was meticulous, exhausting, and incredibly effective.
Then, Zack looked at Folder B. Regal Seraphsail's half of the film.
Total raw footage: Thirty-eight hours.
Zack let out a breath that was half a laugh, half a sigh.
The heavy, soundproof door to the editing bay hissed open.
Regal walked in, dressed in a plain black henley, carrying a fresh cup of coffee and a tablet.
"You're staring at the file sizes again, aren't you?" Regal asked smoothly, dropping onto the leather sofa at the back of the room.
"Of course I am." Zack spun his chair around. "Regal, I have one hundred and forty terabytes of data from Fede. I could cut three entirely different movies out of his coverage alone. Meanwhile, your entire half of the film fits on a drive I could put in my pocket."
Regal smirked, taking a sip of his coffee. "Efficiency is a virtue, Zack."
"It's not efficiency, it's clairvoyance." Zack shook his head, pulling up a scene from Regal's folder. "Look at the interrogation scene between Christian and Darren. You shot it with two cameras, skipped the master wide shot and all safety coverage, didn't even film a backup take for Darren's monologue, and simply locked the frame, called action, shot it once, and moved on."
"Did you need a second take?" Regal countered calmly.
"No, and that's what terrifies me," Zack said, scrubbing through the timeline as he studied the raw footage of the Joker. "The framing is absolute, the lighting is perfectly balanced, and while every other director shoots a scene hoping to find the movie in the editing room, you already have it edited in your head before you ever call 'Action.'"
It was the absolute clarity of Regal's [World-Class] Director skill made manifest, a level of pre-visualization that bordered on the supernatural.
"So, what is our runtime looking like?" Regal asked, changing the subject.
Zack sighed, turning back to his master timeline. "That's the headache. Right now, the assembly cut is sitting at exactly four hours and twelve minutes."
He paused, adding hesitantly. "...But are you sure about this?"
"I am." Regal nodded conformingly.
"Why did I even bother asking?" Zack muttered, running a hand over his face.
"Come on, man. We have already discussed it over, and we know what we are getting into from the beginning."
"We did. But I guessed the maniac in you would come to realize how disastrous it could turn out if our plan won't work."
"Trust me, the audience would prefer a never-ending mastercut, rather than a short undercut."
"Well, still… I am sure no director would make such a decision unless it is you, and even if they did, no studio would agree to it."
"Might be true…" Regal smiled faintly.
"Yes."
The discussion they were having was the final runtime of the film.
Obviously, they couldn't release a four-hour film in theaters, and even Regal wasn't foolish enough to try. At the same time, he wasn't about to butcher the story by cutting away its most important scenes simply to shorten the runtime.
There was always the alternative method: releasing the film in two separate parts, one after the other, within a tight two-month gap.
But if that had been the plan, Regal wouldn't have even decided to go with two directors in the first place.
If they delayed the second part by a few months, what difference would it really make compared to delaying it a year?
Regal never saw these two chapters as two different films.
They were meant to stand together as a single, towering monument to cinema.
While the massive global rollout of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was still shattering box office records outside these walls, Regal was forcing himself to split his focus.
He was using the brief lulls in this high-intensity Gotham post-production to map out early preparations for the next part of the magical franchise.
He had already decided to keep Lena Crawford on as director for Half-Blood Prince, having proven her mastery of complex, mature themes while earning the unwavering trust of both the fans and the studio.
But as Regal looked away from Zack's monitor and glanced down at the early script draft provided by his system, his eyes narrowed in deep dissatisfaction.
Even though the system's baseline script was an improvement over standard Hollywood fare, it still carried structural flaws that Regal refused to let slip onto the big screen.
The script provided by system inherited the same pitfalls as the original adaptation from his past life, reducing one of the darkest and most lore-rich books in the franchise to what often felt like a mundane teen romance draped in a depressing, washed-out brown color palette.
No chance, Regal thought, clicking a sleek pen against his notepad.
I am not letting this turn into a teenage drama where the dark themes are undercut by cringey rom-com tropes.
"You look like you're plotting a murder, boss." Zack muttered, keeping his eyes on the Gotham color-grading timeline.
"Worse. I am saving a masterpiece from a terrible adaptation." Regal replied, his voice laced with the fierce determination of a perfectionist.
The system's baseline script is completely fumbling with the title character, Regal thought, his eyes narrowing as he stared at the digital outline.
It treats a book literally named after the Half-Blood Prince like 'Harry Potter featuring a magical potion notebook.' Snape barely gets any screen time or context.
The audience in my past life was just supposed to accept his final reveal without the film ever contextualizing why he took that name or what his mother's lineage meant. Absolutely not.
Alfred Molina is an absolute powerhouse, and I am giving him the screen time his character deserves.
Regal began scratching out large sections of the outline, replacing them with sharp, precise mental directives.
We are completely stripping out the fluff, he determined, his pen slicing through a problematic sequence. The standard Hollywood instinct would be to replace Dumbledore's brilliant, tense meeting at the Dursleys' living room with Harry hitting on a random girl in a subway station.
It's cheap, nothing more than empty teen appeal. No. We're keeping Dumbledore confronting the Dursleys over their years of mistreating Harry because it establishes the film's tone from the very beginning.
His pen drew a sharp, aggressive circle around a section labeled Voldemort's Memories.
This is the core sin of the standard adaptation, Regal noted grimly. They want to shave off almost the entire Gaunt storyline and nearly all of Dumbledore's lessons.
If I let that happen, casual moviegoers will have no idea what made Tom Riddle into Voldemort, or why the Death Eaters are so terrified of him.
I need to dedicate real, haunting cinematic space to Riddle's backstory, the rundown of the founders' Horcruxes, and the deep lore of why the Defense Against the Dark Arts job is historically cursed.
The audience needs to feel the weight of the tragedy, not just see a few quick, disjointed flashbacks.
Regal paused, his eyes traveling down to the romantic subplots.
This was another major battlefield.
In the book universe he had carefully mapped out, he had already been subtly dropping breadcrumbs, pulling strings to shift the romantic endgame. He had zero intention of letting Harry pair up with a version of Ginny who possessed zero personality and negative on-screen chemistry.
If I want an impactful relationship, I am leaning heavily into the intellectual and emotional anchor, Regal thought. Through the previous films, he had intentionally highlighted the deep, unspoken chemistry between Harry and Hermione, letting their bond mature naturally under the pressure of isolation.
As for the red-headed boy, Regal was already arranging the narrative pieces to give Ron a far more compelling, grounded dynamic elsewhere, completely abandoning the exhausting Lavender Brown love-triangle that choked the pacing of the original story.
His pen struck aggressively through another page.
And there is absolutely no way we are shoehorning in a completely nonsensical action scene like blowing up the Burrow at Christmas, only for it to never be referenced again. It's a massive plot hole that completely ruins the protective enchantments of the Order. We're cutting that entirely.
Instead, we go with the actual climax from the lore: The Battle of the Astronomy Tower.
A brutal, high-stakes clash inside Hogwarts where the students and the Order actually fight off the invading Death Eaters. We aren't skipping the war just to save on the visual effects budget. The third act needs to be a devastating emotional crescendo.
Regal leaned back, looking over his revised notes with a quiet sense of satisfaction. The cringey shoelace scene? Gone.
The overbearing, poorly timed romance drama?
The romance would be toned down to let the true story breathe, keeping the focus where it belonged: Slughorn's beautiful yet heartbreaking memory of Lily's magic, Draco Malfoy's isolating and terrifying descent into trauma, and the chilling rise of Tom Riddle.
"Lena is going to have her hands full." Zack remarked with a smirk, hitting play on the monitor.
"She can handle it." Regal said confidently, watching the Batmobile leap across the screen. "We gave the world a masterpiece with the Order of the Phoenix. With the next one, we're going to give them a cinematic epic that treats the audience with absolute respect."
.
….
[To be continued…]
●──────●◎●──────●
Author Note:
Visit Patreon to instantly access +1 chapter for free, available for Free Members as well.
For additional content please do support me and gain access to +18 more chapters.
--> [email protected]/OrgoWriters