….
It was a small change, technically. Adjusting color wheels, tweaking saturation levels, choosing warmth over coldness.
But it changed everything.
On screen, Superman caught a falling helicopter with one hand while using his heat vision to melt the support structure of a damaged building, carefully controlling its collapse away from the crowd of people huddled in the street below.
Stefan paused the playback. "You mentioned this entire sequence took you four weeks to get right? It's worth it man… Every piece of debris, civilian reaction, and choice Superman makes, it all had to serve the same purpose."
"Right, not just to fight Zod. Actually save people."
That had been the other crucial change, the one that kept Regal awake at night during production because he knew from his previous life, that this was where Man of Steel had failed most profoundly.
The Smallville fight in that film had been spectacular destruction porn.
Buildings exploding, streets torn apart, and Superman trading blows with Zod like they were the only two beings that mattered.
The Metropolis battle had been even worse, skyscrapers collapsing, entire blocks destroyed, and Superman seemingly unconcerned with the body count as long as he eventually won.
Regal remembered the discourse that had followed.
The think pieces about how many thousands must have died and many jokes about Superman causing more destruction than the villains. The fundamental disconnect between what the film showed and what Superman was supposed to represent.
So he had changed it.
This was not a subtle one… Not as a background detail.
As the core driving force of every action sequence.
In the Smallville fight, Superman's first instinct wasn't to punch Zod, it was to get him away from the populated areas.
Every time Zod tried to use civilians as leverage, Clark immediately shifted tactics.
The destruction that did occur was framed as Clark's failure, something he visibly struggled with, not as a spectacle to make audiences cheer.
And in Metropolis…
Regal watched the sequence continue playing.
Superman and Zod crashed through a partially evacuated office building, you could see people still running down stairwells in the background, see Superman's eyes tracking them even while blocking Zod's attacks.
When the building started to collapse, Superman didn't just keep fighting. He stopped. He used his body to brace the structure long enough for those people to escape, taking hits from Zod that he could have avoided.
"This is your weakness." Zod snarled in the scene, understanding Superman's limitation. "You care about them. Every single fragile human life. It makes you predictable."
And Superman's response, Henry's delivery was perfect–
"Then you will always know where to find me."
The fight continued, but now it had purpose beyond spectacle.
Zod kept trying to cause civilian casualties to distract Superman. Superman kept adapting, finding ways to protect people while still engaging the threat.
The action choreography had been designed around this principle: every punch Superman threw, he was also thinking three moves ahead about collateral damage.
It made the fight longer, complex and definitely harder to film.
But it made Superman actually feel like Superman.
Regal thought about that other version, the one only he remembered.
The grey, desaturated world where Superman fought like a god among ants and never seemed to consider the cost.
The film that had made money but left audiences questioning whether they had actually seen a hero or just witnessed destruction with a red cape.
This film - his film - would be different.
Not because it was objectively better in every way.
Snyder's vision had its own internal logic, its own artistic merit.
But it had missed something fundamental about who Superman was supposed to be, and Regal had the strange privilege of knowing exactly what that something was before making the same mistakes.
The colors said: this world is worth saving.
The action said: every life matters to him, even when it costs him tactically.
Together, they created something that felt like Superman in a way that the grey, grim version never could.
"To be honest, everything here is working so well that it's starting to mess with my head." Stefan said, still frozen on the frame of Superman bracing the building. "No matter how I look at it, it just… works."
Regal studied the image, the blue of the suit, the red of the cape, the shield cutting through the dust and concrete. Henry's face was clear in the chaos, focused on holding the structure together, not on the destruction around him.
"Same." Regal said after a moment. "Which is exactly why we will know for sure soon enough."
He nodded once, eyes still on the screen. "But yeah. I think it works."
Stefan resumed playback, and they continued through the sequence.
Superman gradually moves the fight toward the uninhabited construction zone at Metropolis's edge.
Zod grew more frustrated as his tactical advantages kept being neutralized by Clark's refusal to stop protecting civilians. The final confrontation happened in a space where, for the first time in the entire battle, there were no bystanders at risk.
Except for one family, trapped in rubble, and Zod forcing Superman to make an impossible choice.
That moment, the breaking point, worked because of everything that had come before it. Because the film had established that Superman would exhaust every other option first.
Would sacrifice his own tactical advantage. Would take hits he didn't need to take. All to avoid doing what Zod finally forced him to do.
The sequence ended.
Stefan began scrubbing back through it, making notes about color correction adjustments for the final few shots that still needed polish.
Regal let his mind drift, thinking about the strange position he occupied.
The only person in this world who knew what the alternative looked like.
Who had seen the mistakes and had the chance to correct them before they were made. It felt like cheating sometimes. Like he was playing a game with knowledge of future moves.
But then he would remember: even knowing what didn't work, he still had to figure out what would work.
The knowledge was one thing.
The execution was entirely another.
And that execution had required every bit of skill, every hour of work, every collaboration with talented people who understood the vision and helped make it real.
Soon, three hundred people would tell them whether they had succeeded.
Does this hope rendered in vibrant color and heroism measured in lives saved rather than villains defeated actually resonated with audiences who had never seen the grey alternative.
Regal suspected it would.
But suspicion wasn't certainty, and even with all his advantages, all his foreknowledge, he still felt the familiar anxiety of a creator about to expose their work to judgment.
"Final pass looks good." Stefan said, saving the timeline. "This sequence is locked."
"Yeah. It's the heart of the third act."
Stefan nodded, shutting down his workstation. "Test screening's in a month?"
"That's the plan."
They resumed work, and for another two hours, they made steady progress through the film.
By six AM, Stefan was struggling to keep his eyes open, and even Regal was feeling the exhaustion press past the coffee's protection.
"We should call it." Stefan said. "Come back fresh this afternoon."
Regal wanted to argue, to push through, to maintain the momentum.
But he also knew Darren had been right, he was running on fumes and ambition, and that wasn't sustainable.
"Alright." He stood, feeling every hour of work in his back and shoulders. "Resume at two PM?"
"I will be here."
….
Rock drove Regal home as the Los Angeles dawn painted the sky in shades of pink and gold.
The city was just beginning to wake, delivery trucks making rounds, early joggers on the sidewalks, the smell of coffee from the opening cafes.
He felt disconnected from all of it, like he was moving through a world that existed parallel to his own but never quite touched it.
The house was quiet when he entered.
Gwendolyn would be asleep still, she had learned to adjust her schedule around his chaotic one, sleeping when he worked and being awake when he briefly surfaced.
But as he climbed the stairs to their bedroom, he found her awake, sitting in bed with her laptop, wearing one of his old t-shirts and her reading glasses.
"You are supposed to be asleep." he said.
"And you are supposed to be home before the sun rises." she replied, closing the laptop with deliberate calm. Her gaze lingered on him, not accusatory, but searching. "Since neither of us is where we are meant to be, I'd say we are both off-script."
A short breath of laughter left him. "Then I guess I don't get to complain."
"You do." she said quietly. "Complaining is allowed. So is mine."
He sat on the edge of the bed and slipped off his shoes. "How is post on [The Chronicles of Narnia] coming along?"
She paused. "It's… moving."
"Moving?"
She turned fully toward him now, setting the laptop aside.
The morning light caught the fine lines around her eyes, lines that had deepened not just with time, but with the quiet strain of loving someone who was always half-gone.
"Regal." She began, voice measured but weighted. "I admire your rigor. I have always respected the exacting standards you hold yourself, and others, to. But lately, it feels like the work isn't just taking your time. It's wearing you away."
Regal turned to face her. "I am right here."
She looked at him for a long moment. "Are you?"
"Because most of you is in a grading suite, or on set, or breaking down marketing plans." She reached out, resting her hand lightly against his chest. "The part of you that is here…" Her fingers stilled–
"It's getting smaller."
He didn't have a good answer for that.
Because she was right.
He was disappearing into the work, letting it consume him because the work was easier than sitting with the weight of what he was trying to accomplish.
Three films.
Multiple productions.
Hundreds of people depend on him to make the right decisions.
The knowledge that any mistake would be magnified, analyzed, weaponized by critics and audiences and industry observers.
It was easier to just keep working, to stay in motion, to never stop long enough to feel the weight of it all.
"I don't know how to do this differently." he admitted quietly.
"You could start by sleeping for more than four hours."
"After that?"
"After that, you remember you have people around you. Darren, Simon, Samantha, Zack, Rock, and me. You brought them in because you trust them. Let them help."
He wanted to argue, to defend himself, to explain that his involvement was necessary because he saw things others didn't, understood connections others missed.
But exhaustion had worn down his defenses, and in that moment, he couldn't summon the energy to lie to himself.
"Yeah." he said instead, a faint huff of breath escaping him. "That all sounds reasonable. Especially the last one."
She squeezed his hand.
Regal closed his eyes, feeling the exhaustion finally catch up with him.
"Lets have dinner tomorrow."
"I am going to hold you to that."
"I know."
They laid there in the quiet morning light, hands linked between them, and for the first time in weeks, Regal felt something other than the constant pressure of deadlines and decisions.
But just then his phone buzzed again.
Buzz–!
It was a small vibration, but enough to break the moment.
Gwendolyn sighed. "You're not going to check that, are you?"
"I should probably—"
He paused, looking at her expression.
"It can wait." He turned the phone face-down on the nightstand. "Whatever it is, it can wait a few hours."
Gwendolyn smiled. "Progress."
They laid there as the morning light grew stronger, and eventually, Regal felt himself drifting toward sleep.
The work would be waiting when he woke, it always was.
But for now, at this moment, he let himself rest.
And that felt like its own small victory.
.
….
[To be continued...]
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