....
[Spider-Man: Web of Destiny] work was still moving at full throttle though the caras are yet to roll officially.
The team is currently working on finalizing the other cast of the film.
Reminding of casting - Regal really started to experience the advantage of what it ans to be a star director.
Unlike before, where he had to send casting calls all over the actors guild, advertisent in newspapers, and online announcents - he now just needed to send the shortlisted category fitting to all the major Acting Agencies, and from then on they will handle things.
Things really beca easy in that regard.
Still, for today, the schedule he has isn’t about the super hero film, and replaced by sothing else he made an entry for the first ti.
It was the premier day for [Whiplash].
His first film as a producer under the LIE Studio banner - one where his na sat just below the title in the ’Written by’ slot.
Yet truth be told, once he had handed the finished script to Alexander - his forr assistant director and now the one calling the shots, Regal had barely touched the project again.
There had been the occasional budget updates, the odd production note passed along, but those were filtered through Samantha’s brisk emails and two-minute phone calls.
He hadn’t even set foot on the set.
But tonight was different - the premiere, and it was in that strange mont, standing at the back of the private theater while press and people filled the plush red seats, that Regal felt the nervous excitent creeping up his spine.
This was the first ti he would see sothing born from his words but not his vision. Not his hand on the cara, not his instincts guiding the lens, soone else’s.
He hadn’t seen a single fra.
Alexander had tried to convince him during editing for so assistance, but Regal refused, insisting he would rather see it all here, now, with the rest of the audience.
Which, of course, explained the man’s twitchy energy beside him, the director himself, who couldn’t stop fidgeting.
"If I have to hear one more of those annoying little noises from you—" Ross’s dry voice cuts in from the other side of Alexander. "The leg tapping, the knuckle popping, I am walking out, right now."
Ross, naturally, sat with ease, giving Alexander a flat look that could dent steel.
On Regal’s other side, Stephen Jr. was no better, knee bouncing in silent sympathy with the director’s nerves.
Alexander straightened like a schoolboy caught talking in class. "I am sorry..."
"You better be." Ross shot back, his tone as blunt as a brick. "In fact, you better be really sorry, for dragging here. Usually, once I finish a movie, I am done, if it works, it works, if it doesn’t, it doesn’t. But this one—" He leaned slightly forward, voice low but sharp "—This one had better work."
Regal’s mouth curled into a half-smirk, letting out a chuckle that sounded like it was half amusent, half dismissal.
Ross just stared at him, cold and unblinking, like he was trying to drill a hole straight through him. Regal didn’t even flinch.
"...Now that I think about it." Ross went on, his tone shifting to sothing more casual but still laced with bite. "A director’s supposed to be nervous, that’s natural, but shouldn’t the one putting up the money be more on edge? Guess you have got too much cash to care."
Regal let out a louder laugh at that, almost obnoxiously so. "Haahhaa..."
"If only you knew, I am nervous too."
Before Ross could clap back, or anyone else could even shift in their seats, soone in the aisle whispered, sliding past with a clipboard.
"Five minutes."
The low theater chatter began to swell and bounce off the walls, bits of half-laughed sentences and the rustle of expensive coats brushing the armrests.
Stephen Jr. sat back, exhaling. "Five minutes, christ."
....
The black screen faded into the opening fras, and the sound system breathed life into the room.
Ross, beside him, leaned in just enough to mutter. "If this thing starts slow, I am blaming you."
Regal smirked. "You are in the first ten minutes, that’s all on you, old man."
It didn’t take long for Ross to make his first on-screen entrance, and when it ca, it landed with a crack like literally.
His hand ca down in one of those rciless, ringing slaps that didn’t just read as acting.
The audience flinched in unison, Regal included, though he smirked through it.
A couple of crew mbers seated two rows ahead whispered just loud enough for Regal to catch.
"That wasn’t actually acting, that’s just Ross being Ross."
"Yeah, I am telling you, man doesn’t even know the word ’pretend,’ that’s his natural habitat."
One of them gave his friend a mock slap, then shook his hand like it stung.
Ross caught it, grunted under his breath. "Bunch of amateurs, that’s how you wake soone up."
"Or concuss them." Regal said, not looking away from the screen.
Regal didn’t laugh right away, his gaze lingered on Andrew up on the screen, face composed, breathing steady even after that slap.
This reminded him of another Andrew off screen.
Sothing about it nagged at him, he thought back to Spider-Man project, back to how Andrew had walked in back then - good, talented, but not this especially not this steel in his eyes.
A strange, absurd idea hit him and didn’t quite leave.
Maybe the old man Ross had, in his own unorthodox, borderline sadistic way, given Andrew the kind of ntal training that no workshop, or a drama school could replicate.
Maybe Andrew had been forged in so quiet, relentless pressure only Ross knew how to apply.
Regal found himself nodding faintly, that was the only explanation he could co up with for the man’s growth.
The funny thing was - Andrew himself had no idea yet.
The film rolled on, scene after scene.
Laughter, murmurs, sharp intakes of breath, every Ross appearance seed to provoke so mixture of awe, amusent, and a faint edge of fear.
Stephen Jr., hair damp from sweat, fumbled a bar in the drum solo.
The silence from Ross was heavier than any shout.
Then ca the eruption, a folding chair hurled across the rehearsal space, smashing against the wall just inches from Stephen’s head.
Ross closed the distance, his voice a hiss that could cut glass: "Are you rushing, or are you dragging?"
Each repetition of the question was like a hamr, Ross clapping right in Stephen’s ear with venomous precision, making the audience flinch in their seats.
No one moved when the last act began - Stephen onstage, every nerve lit, Ross at the helm but silent now.
The first song derailed, humiliation thick in the air, but Stephen didn’t leave; he launched into Caravan without cue, defying him.
For the next nine minutes, the cara locked in on their silent war, the push-pull of tempo, the unspoken reconciliation in glances.
When Stephen hit the last cymbal crash, the audience in the theater had forgotten they were watching fiction.
The applause started on screen - but in the real theater, it joined in, genuine, a ripple of claps that built into sothing loud enough to make Regal glance around in surprise.
By the ti the credits began to roll, Regal was half-aware of sothing else, soone’s eyes on him.
Within seconds, the auditorium lights lifted slightly - not fully bright, just enough to wash the deep shadows off people’s faces.
The screen behind still bore the stark black [Whiplash] title card in thin, uncompromising white text.
A faint hum of murmurs filled the air, the collective release after ninety minutes of nerve-wire tension.
Regal nudged Alexander onto the small stage who was greeted with polite applause that quickly turned into an enthusiastic cheer.
Alexander.
Regal had noticed it early on, tried to brush it off, but now, at the end of the movie, lights just beginning to rise, it was impossible to ignore.
Alexander’s expression was too intense, like he was holding his breath for an answer to a question he hadn’t asked aloud.
Regal sighed, turned his head slightly. "Don’t stare at too much, Alex."
Alexander’s eyes shone, the kind of shine that made it hard to tell if it was the light or moisture. Tears threatened but didn’t fall, they stopped at the edge, trapped by sothing like pride.
"That was a good movie you made there." Regal said, voice low, even.
That was all he needed, his shoulders loosened, tension finally spilling out as he sank back into his seat like he had been holding himself rigid for hours.
From the other side, Ross’s voice cut in, gruff but tinged with sothing close to fondness. "For soone who has always whined about being stingy with complints, you are doing a damn good job yourself, brat."
Regal smirked, shaking his head. "Only you could turn that into an insult."
"Wasn’t an insult." Ross muttered. "If it was, you would still be flinching."
.
....
[To be continued...]
★─────⇌•★•⇋─────★
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