….
February 2015 | LIE Studios
Regal sat in his office reviewing production timelines, and–
–honestly, the picture wasn't pretty.
[Captain America: The First Avenger],
[Thor], and
[Batman: Knight of Gotham]-
-were all in active script development. He had provided detailed story outlines for each - forty to sixty pages of narrative structure, character arcs, key plot points, thematic throughlines - and handed them off to dedicated writing teams to make a bounded script.
The back-and-forth had been constant.
Captain America's writers kept wanting to modernize Steve Rogers, make him less 'Boy Scout' and more cynical. Regal kept pushing back, insisting that Rogers' unwavering moral clarity was the entire point of the character.
Thor's team struggled with the tonal balance between Asgardian mythology and Earth-based humor. Too much comedy and it became a joke, and too the audiences would disengage from the fantasy elements.
Batman presented different challenges - finding the line between dark interpretation and something that fit within a shared universe where Superman existed.
All three scripts needed to be locked by summer if they wanted to maintain the original release schedule of next year. Casting would need to happen simultaneously, which meant making major decisions about actors who would define these characters for potentially a decade.
And somewhere in the back of his mind, a question kept circulating:
Was releasing three major superhero films in one year too much?
The market had never seen anything like what Regal was building.
[Iron Man] had succeeded, [Spider-Man] had succeeded, [Superman] had exceeded every expectation. But flooding theaters with multiple entries from the same universe in a twelve-month span risked audience fatigue.
That was a decision for later though.
Right now, his focus needed to be on the one film actually releasing this year.
[The Incredible Hulk]
The script sat on his desk, the final draft, personally written by him with input from the MDCU writing team. Unlike the other three films where he had provided outlines and supervised, this one he had written himself because–
Hulk was... complicated.
In his previous world, the character had been rebooted multiple times.
Two distinct film iterations - Ang Lee's Hulk in 2003, then [The Incredible Hulk] in 2008. Neither had quite cracked the code of making Bruce Banner's story work as both character study and blockbuster entertainment.
More than that, Hulk's origin had always been unclear in the broader Marvel timeline.
Was it before [Iron Man]? After?
How did it connect to the larger universe? The chronology had been messy, contradictory, retrofitted to make sense after the fact.
Regal had fixed that.
This version would fit cleanly into the established timeline - taking place concurrently with the events between Iron Man and Spider-Man, with specific references that locked it into the continuity without requiring viewers to have seen every previous film.
The story followed the basic structure of the 2008 film - Banner on the run, trying to cure himself, pursued by the military - but with deeper character work and clearer thematic focus.
He had been careful with the script representing weeks of work ensuring every detail served both the individual story and the larger universe.
Now he just needed someone to direct it.
A knock at the door pulled him from his thoughts.
"Come in."
John Tunnard entered, and Regal gestured to the chair across from his desk.
John sat down, trying not to look as nervous as he obviously felt.
Regal studied him for a moment. They had history, though John probably assumed he had forgotten about it.
Three years ago, John had been working as an entertainment journalist - one of those interviewers who asked controversial questions to generate clicks and get noticed by editors.
He had been at a press event for one of Regal's early projects, and he had asked Alexander, Regal's former assistant director, a pointed question:
"It must be nice having it easier than most directors, given Regal's backing?"
The auditorium had gone uncomfortably quiet.
Alexander had handled it professionally, but Regal had noticed the question and noticed the interviewer who had asked it.
John Tunnard.
At the time, Regal had recognized something in the question that most people missed - it wasn't purely rage-bait.
There was genuine frustration underneath it, the kind that came from someone who had entered the industry wanting to direct but couldn't break through, watching someone else get opportunities he felt he deserved.
The irony wasn't lost on Regal.
Now John was sitting across from him, potentially about to receive the exact opportunity he had once resented someone else getting.
And somewhere out there, another struggling interviewer might ask him the same question John had asked Alexander.
….
Two months ago, John had received the call.
Regal's assistant - Samantha - had been characteristically direct:
["Mr. Seraphsail would like to discuss a directing opportunity with you. Are you available next week?"]
John had nearly dropped his phone.
After being fired from his previous job, and somehow landing work on the set of the very person indirectly responsible for that dismissal…
He had been working independently since leaving the [Spider-Man] production, trying to build a portfolio of short films and spec commercials that might get him noticed. The work was fine, paid decently, but it wasn't what he had gotten into this industry for.
And when he had left to focus on his own filmmaking, he had thanked Regal personally for helping him rediscover his passion for the craft itself rather than just reporting on other people's work.
He hadn't expected anything to come from it.
Certainly hadn't expected this - a phone call offering him a chance to direct what Samantha had described only as 'a green monster movie.'
Now the script sat in front of him, and Regal was watching him with that unreadable expression he wore when evaluating people.
Regal pushed the Hulk script across the desk.
"Read it…." he said. "If you are not interested after that, we will shake hands and you can go back to documentary work."
John picked up the script with both hands.
He opened the first page.
….
FADE IN:
INT. BOTTLING FACTORY - DAY
The factory floor is loud - machinery running at full capacity, bottles moving along conveyor belts in endless streams, workers maintaining rhythm with practiced efficiency.
BRUCE BANNER, late thirties, works at the quality control station. He's thin, unremarkable in factory uniform and safety glasses. His movements are precise, economical, checking bottles as they pass without wasted motion.
A heart rate monitor is visible on his wrist beneath his sleeve: 68 BPM.
The production line operates smoothly until—
Bruce's hand catches on a rough edge of machinery. A small cut, barely noticeable. He doesn't even react to the pain, just pulls his hand back and examines it.
A single drop of blood wells up.
He immediately hits the emergency stop button.
The entire production line grinds to a halt with a pneumatic hiss. Other workers look up, confused, annoyed at the interruption.
SUPERVISOR (O.S.) (in Portuguese):
What happened?
Bruce doesn't answer, focused entirely on the machinery in front of him. He grabs a cleaning solution and cloth, wiping down every surface his hand might have touched. Meticulous, thorough, checking twice.
The supervisor approaches, irritated.
SUPERVISOR (in Portuguese):
Banner, what are you doing? Why did you stop the line?
BRUCE (in Portuguese, not looking up):
Contamination, I need to clean it.
SUPERVISOR:
Contamination? It's a small cut. Just put on a bandage and get back to work.
Bruce continues cleaning, checking the bottles that had already passed his station. He pulls three from the line, examining them carefully under the fluorescent lights.
Clean… Clean… and Clean.
He exhales slowly, checking his heart rate monitor: 75 BPM.
BRUCE(in Portuguese):
Sorry. All clean now.
He restarts the line. The supervisor walks away shaking his head, muttering about paranoid Americans.
Bruce returns to his station, hand now bandaged, continuing his work with the same careful precision.
What he doesn't see:
One bottle, already past his inspection point before he hit the emergency stop. Moving down the conveyor belt with the others.
Inside it, barely visible against the clear soda: a single drop of blood.
The bottle gets capped.
Labeled.
Boxed.
Shipped.
….
John stopped reading, a chill running down his spine despite the warmth of Regal's office.
That was it, that was how they found him.
One drop of blood Banner didn't know about, contaminated with gamma radiation, shipped to some random customer who would drink it or-
No. Someone would test it. The military had probably been monitoring for exactly this kind of trace evidence.
Five years Banner had stayed hidden, and one microscopic mistake ended it.
John continued reading, excitedly.
….
Moving on…
The script jumped forward.
Bruce discovering his mistake too late, the realization that the bottle had shipped days ago. His panicked attempt to track it through factory records, finding the shipping manifest, understanding that by now the military probably already knew.
Then the soldiers arrived at the favela.
Bruce running.
His heart rate climbed as he fled across rooftops, through narrow alleys, the monitor on his wrist beeping faster and faster.
145 BPM. 155 BPM. 165 BPM.
John's own pulse was elevated just reading it.
Then Bruce made it to a safe house - temporary, somewhere he could catch his breath and think.
Soldiers closing in, gunfire and tear gas canisters crashing through windows.
Bruce was trapped in a back room, nowhere left to run, surrounded.
His heart rate was 169 BPM.
A soldier kicked down the door, weapon raised.
170 BPM.
And then—
SMASH!!
….
.
[To be continued…]
★─────⇌•★•⇋─────★
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