….
March 3rd 2014.
Regal's Private Office - LIE Studio.
….
As planned out, the script for Prisoner of Azkaban is half way done.
Currently it is March, time to build a story of the strongest human.
The whiteboard consumed the entire west wall of Regal's office, a sprawling canvas of color-coded notes, character arcs, and thematic connections written in his distinctive angular handwriting.
At the center, written in bold red marker:
[SUPERMAN: MAN OF TOMORROW]
Core Question: What does it mean to be good when you have the power to enforce your will?
Regal stood before it, uncapped marker in hand, staring at the question he'd written three hours ago. Behind him, scattered across the office's various chairs and couches, sat the people he trusted most to tell him when his ideas were terrible.
Zack Brag, his longtime editor, occupied the floor with his laptop balanced on crossed legs. He had been taking notes sporadically, but mostly he just watched Regal pace.
Ludwig Göransson sat at the piano bench near the window, occasionally playing soft chord progressions when the conversation lulled. He claimed it helped him think about emotional beats.
Samantha, perched on the arm of the leather couch with her ever-present tablet, documented everything with the quiet efficiency of someone who had been translating Regal's creative chaos into actionable notes for years.
"Alright." Regal said, turning from the board. "I need you all to stop me if this sounds stupid."
"It usually does at first." Zack offered helpfully.
"Fair enough." Regal uncapped his marker. "Let's establish the fundamental structure. This is an origin story, but we are not spending ninety minutes on Krypton or his childhood. The audience doesn't need that."
"Cold open?" Zack suggested.
Regal began writing. "Five minutes on Krypton's destruction. Maximum. Jor-El and Lara send their infant son to Earth as their civilization collapses. We establish the stakes - the weight of being the last survivor of an entire species, but we don't build some elaborate Kryptonian political subplot that distracts from Clark's story."
He stepped back, studying what he'd written. "Then we jump to the present day. Clark is thirty-three, drifting from job to job, town to town. Fishing boats in Alaska, construction sites in the Midwest, bars in the Southwest. He moves on before anyone gets too curious about the guy who never gets hurt, never gets tired, and can lift things that should require a forklift."
Ludwig played a few soft notes. "Why start him as an adult? Most origin stories begin with childhood."
"Because the origin isn't about gaining powers - he's had them his entire life. The real origin story is Clark choosing to reveal himself. Choosing what kind of hero he wants to be when he could just as easily walk away and live a quiet life." Regal drew a timeline across the board.
"We use strategic flashbacks. Present-day events trigger memories of his childhood. He saves someone from drowning, and we flash back to young Clark pulling kids from a sinking school bus while Jonathan Kent teaches him about restraint. He faces a moral dilemma, and we see Martha Kent teaching him compassion."
"So the Kents are the emotional foundation." Samantha said, typing rapidly.
"Kansas made Superman, not Krypton." Regal wrote it on the board in large letters. "Jonathan and Martha didn't just raise an alien child, they raised a good man. Every value Clark holds and choice he makes, comes from them."
Zack looked up from his laptop. "What triggers the change? What makes him stop hiding?"
"Discovery. Two kinds." Regal drew connecting lines between ideas. "Clark discovers something about his origins, a Kryptonian scout ship buried in the Arctic ice for thousands of years. His DNA activates it, and he finds a holographic AI of his biological father, Jor-El, explaining where he came from and why he was sent to Earth."
He paused, marker hovering over the board. "At the same time, Lois Lane is investigating him. She is tracking a pattern of mysterious rescues across North America. Someone pulling workers from burning oil rigs. Saving people from car accidents. Always disappearing before anyone can identify him. She is good enough at her job to follow the trail back to Smallville, Kansas, and figure out who Clark Kent is."
"Wait." Ludwig set down his coffee. "She knows his identity from the beginning?"
"Yes."
"That's a major change from-"
"I know, and it's necessary." Regal turned to face them fully. "Lois Lane is supposed to be the best investigative journalist in the world. But somehow she can't recognize her coworker without glasses? That's not just unrealistic - it's insulting to her character.
"Unlike the comic version, Lois discovers Clark Kent before the world knows Superman exists. She sees the man before the symbol, which makes her the perfect advocate when humanity doesn't know whether to worship him or fear him."
Samantha raised her hand slightly. "Where does the suit come from?"
Regal smiled. "The scout ship. When Clark's DNA activates the ship's systems, it doesn't just show him Jor-El's message, it fabricates Kryptonian armor based on his genetic profile and subconscious desires.
"The colors reflect Kansas - blue skies and red sunsets over wheat fields. The chest symbol is the Kryptonian glyph for hope, but to us it looks like an S. It's alien technology with human meaning embedded in every detail."
He wrote on the board:
JOR-EL'S MESSAGE:"You will give the people of Earth an ideal to strive toward. They will race behind you. They will stumble. They will fall. But in time, they will join you in the sun. In time, you will help them accomplish wonders."
The room fell quiet for a moment.
"That's the thematic core." Regal continued. "Superman as an aspiration. As the impossible standard that pushes humanity to be better. Not because we can ever reach it, but because trying to reach it makes us better than we were."
Ludwig stood from the piano bench. "What's the external conflict? What forces him to reveal himself?"
Regal turned back to the board and wrote in sharp, decisive strokes:
GENERAL ZOD
"Another Kryptonian survivor. A military leader who was imprisoned in the Phantom Zone, a prison dimension, before Krypton's destruction. When the planet exploded, the Phantom Zone destabilized and released him and his soldiers. They've been searching the galaxy for other Kryptonians ever since."
"And they found Earth because Clark activated the scout ship." Zack said, understanding the narrative mechanics.
"The ship's activation sends out a signal. Zod receives it and comes to Earth with a singular purpose - rebuild Kryptonian civilization here, regardless of what it costs humanity." Regal drew two parallel columns:
CLARK = Power + Humanity
ZOD = Power + Duty
"Zod isn't evil. He is a soldier who's been engineered, literally, Kryptonians are genetically designed for specific roles, to protect Krypton at any cost. His entire existence is about preserving his species. From his perspective, Earth is a resource. Humans are an unfortunate obstacle. He is doing exactly what he was created to do."
"And that makes him terrifying." Samantha said quietly. "-because he is not wrong from his own framework."
"Yes. Clark is the one being irrational. He is choosing adopted strangers over his own species. He is valuing human life over Kryptonian survival. Zod can't comprehend that choice because he was engineered not to."
Regal capped his marker, studying the board. "The conflict isn't just physical - it's philosophical. Which worldview deserves to survive? Power serving itself, or power serving others?"
Ludwig played a soft, ascending melody on the piano - something hopeful but tinged with melancholy. "What about the tone? You mentioned Earth-1 should feel mythological compared to Earth-616's grounded realism."
"Mythological, but not fantastical." Regal clarified. "Think of Greek myths or Arthurian legends - stories about ideals made manifest. Superman is an ideal. Truth, justice, compassion, selflessness. The visual language should reflect that."
He pulled up reference images on the projection screen - Renaissance paintings, epic landscape photography, moments of natural grandeur.
"Wide shots that make him look small against the vastness of Earth. Close-ups that capture the weight of responsibility in his eyes.
"When he flies, we don't make it look effortless - we show the concentration, the control, the conscious choice to use his power gently in a world that's so fragile to him."
Zach gave a slow nod. The story was finally starting to take shape.
Still, he had to point something out before they went any further.
The entire setup was wrong, the seating arrangement, the people involved… everything.
If not for Regal, a meeting like this would never exist.
Think about it: Regal was holding a narrative discussion with his editor and his music composer, and his assistant, instead of his actual screenwriter, like any normal writer would.
In truth, Regal just needed a wall of people to bounce his thoughts off while he worked through the character.
Finally, Zach spoke. "When do we start the official draft?"
Regal capped his marker. "Tonight. I want a complete first draft in six weeks, full shooting script in three months. We are casting in May, production begins July, and we are releasing December 2014. Ten-month turnaround from script to screen."
"That's aggressive." Samantha noted.
"Iron Man proved audiences want this. We can't lose momentum. Superman needs to establish Earth-1 while Earth-616 is still fresh in people's minds."
He looked around at his team - the people who had been with him since [Following], who had helped him build an empire from a $500,000 independent film.
"This is the most important film we will make.
"The one who defined the genre. If we get this right, if we honor what makes him special while making him feel relevant to modern audiences..."
"The entire MDCU becomes possible." Ludwig finished.
….
The session continued for another four hours.
They broke down individual scenes, discussed visual metaphors, and debated dialogue rhythms.
By the time midnight approached, the whiteboard was completely covered and Samantha's tablets contained over forty pages of detailed notes.
As everyone gathered their things to leave, Zack paused at the door.
"Why 'Man of Tomorrow' as the subtitle?"
Regal smiled, tired but energized. "Because Superman isn't about the past. He's about aspiration. About what humanity could become if we chose to be better. He's literally a man from tomorrow, showing us what's possible."
"That's either incredibly optimistic or incredibly naive."
"Probably both. But that's what Superman is, the optimist who knows exactly how dark the world can be and chooses hope anyway."
Zack nodded slowly, then left with Ludwig and Samantha trailing behind.
Alone in his office, Regal turned back to the whiteboard. His eyes traced the character arcs, the thematic threads, the moral questions embedded in every planned scene.
He pulled out his phone and opened his notes app, scrolling to the document titled MDCU CODEX - Earth-1.
Under the Superman section, he added:
Superman works because he's impossible. No one can be that good, that selfless, that optimistic in the face of tragedy. But we created him anyway because we need to believe someone could be. He's not a power fantasy - he's a moral fantasy. The story of someone who has every reason to become a tyrant but chooses to be a servant instead.
That's the story we're telling. Everything else is just spectacle.
He saved the note, turned off the lights, and headed home.
Tomorrow, the actual writing will begin.
But tonight, he had figured out why it mattered.
.
….
[To be continued…]
★─────⇌•★•⇋─────★
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