….
Damian Prescott stepped onto the main floor of the LIE Studio being escorted by Simon.
And just as he entered the CEO office–
"Damian." Regal stepped forward with a welcoming smile and offered his hand. "Good to see you. You look well."
It was immediately obvious that Damian looked far healthier than he had the last time he visited during the production at LIE Studios.
Damian took Regal's hand in both of his. "Better than I've felt in five years, Regal."
"I'm glad to hear it." Regal gestured toward the conference table, where a pot of black coffee and several glasses of water were already waiting. "Come on, have a seat."
Damian didn't immediately sit back into the chair.
Instead, he unzipped the file he had been carrying, laid it flat across the table, and opened the front cover.
Resting on top was a three hundred page bound binder with a silver title:
—-----—
[X-MEN: MUTANT GENESIS | DIRECTOR'S VISION]
[Written & Formatted by Damian Prescott]
[Based on the Macro Framework by Regal Seraphsail]
—-----—
Damian stood over for a moment, and when he looked up, his voice carried the suppressed creative electricity.
"Regal... I am going to be honest. You're younger than me and you've spent far less time behind a camera, but when you handed me those comics and your outline a month ago, you gave me something I hadn't had in years."
Damian held Regal's gaze.
"The more I studied your notes, the more frustrated I became. Not because I found anything wrong with them. Quite the opposite. Every time I tried to poke a hole in your ideas, I came up empty. Your vision was already there and the truth is, I was struggling to keep up with it."
He drew breath, the fire in his eyes burning with something new.
"That's when I realized I needed to reinvent myself. A brilliant new generation showing up with ideas that push the boundaries doesn't mean I am ready to pack it in and disappear."
His voice hardened with renewed determination.
"I am not rolling over, Regal. I am going to evolve. I will catch up with you, and if I get the chance, I will surpass you."
"....." - "....."
Simon remained completely motionless by the door, while Regal simply held Damian's gaze, letting the older director's words settle in.
A smile spread across Regal's face.
"I would be disappointed if you did anything else."
Damian blinked, his face cracking into a self-deprecating smirk. "Are you sure? A part of me half expected you to tell me to get the hell out of your office."
"Of course not." Regal laughed softly, shaking his head. "That was inspiring. After spending decades in this industry, you still have that kind of hunger. That says a lot about how much you love telling stories."
"That's what we live for, isn't it?" Damian replied, his chest swelling with conviction. "Everything we've thought about, bled for, and worked toward has been cinema. If there ever comes a day when I can't stand behind a viewfinder anymore, it will be because I am lying on my deathbed."
Regal's smile softened, and he gave a quiet nod.
"Then I suppose we understand each other. I am not interested in standing in anyone's way, Damian. If anything, I would rather see what happens when someone with your experience decides to push himself again."
He reached for the coffee, taking a slow sip.
"So don't try to catch up with me. Make something that leaves me trying to catch up with you."
Regal smiled, pulling out a chair and settling into it. "And on that note, I am genuinely curious to see what you've prepared."
Damian pulled out the chair opposite Regal and sat down, letting out a quiet sigh as he placed the thick leather binder on the desk.
"Why leave a sticky note on page twelve? Why not just tell me to my face?" he asked, rubbing his thumb along the edge of the binder. "That note kept me awake for days. What was the question again? Right... you asked, If audiences already accept men flying around in armor and heroes with altered bodies, why would ordinary people in this world suddenly react to someone born with powers with disgust and hatred? You called it the great loophole."
Regal leaned back, picking up his coffee mug. "Because in the comics, it often is one. A guy gets bitten by a spider or builds a suit, and the city throws him a parade. A kid is born with a genetic quirk, and people build giant robots to hunt him down. If we don't ground the psychology behind that double standard, the whole premise falls apart."
Of course, the worlds Regal had built around Marvel and DC were entirely separate from the one Damian was creating for the X-Men.
The rules and circumstances didn't have to be identical, but that alone wasn't enough to explain why society would react so differently to mutants.
The distinction needed to run deeper than simply being born with powers.
"And once you dig into sociology, it's not actually a plot hole." Damian said, leaning in. "But basic human fear….
"When people see a billionaire in a mech suit or a soldier created in a lab, they see Humanity Plus. It's a tool, an anomaly, or a freak accident. In the end, it's someone fundamentally human using science to protect the status quo. They don't threaten anyone's place at the top of the food chain."
"Mutants aren't that." Damian tapped the binder. "Mutants are an evolutionary replacement, and Homo superior. It's the exact same dread Neanderthals must have felt watching modern humans emerge… the realization that your species is quietly becoming obsolete."
Regal took a slow sip, nodding. "Go on."
Damian paused for a second, as a subtle, wry glimmer touched his eyes as he looked across at Regal.
"Though... if we're being completely honest with ourselves, even that grace period has an expiration date, doesn't it?"
Regal didn't answer immediately, his fingers resting loosely around his mug.
"Right now, the public throws ticker-tape parades for a man inside an armor." Damian continued, his voice softening into a thoughtful, grounded rasp. "The novelty is fresh, and people feel protected. But human nature doesn't stay grateful for long. Where there is praise, there will eventually be stones."
"The very first time a skyscraper comes down during a botched rescue, or an unvetted vigilante makes a fatal miscalculation on live television, that worship will curdle into pure resentment overnight.
"People will panic, governments will demand leashes, and a writer of your caliber... there's no way in hell you've overlooked that inevitable fracture. You wouldn't construct a world this meticulously without already knowing that, sooner or later, humanity turns on all of its gods."
For a brief second, Regal was genuinely caught off guard.
He held Damian's gaze across the table, maintaining his calm, unreadable composure, but beneath the surface, a quiet shock went through him.
Damian had no access to the future.
…and he hadn't seen the private master slate locked inside Regal's head.
So he knew nothing about the brewing catastrophe of the Civil War.
The ideological split, legislative collars and the bitter collapse of trust that would one day pit Tony Stark against his closest allies when the world decided unchecked power was too terrifying to tolerate.
Yet purely through dramatic instinct and decades of understanding how power, fear, and human fragility operate, the older director had pinpointed the exact philosophical fault line of Regal's entire cinematic horizon.
The man really is a master, Regal thought, feeling a profound surge of respect for the veteran sitting across from him.
Regal kept the secret firmly to himself.
A knowing smile merely touched the corner of his lips as he gave a nod.
"Nobody holds a parade forever, Damian." Regal murmured softly. "The reckoning always comes. But until that bill comes due... the mutants are the ones left standing alone in the crosshairs."
"Understandable." Damian leaned back in, his fire reigniting as he tapped the binder.
Then Regal turned through the rest of the pages, and after going through most of them he slowly closed the binder and looked across the table.
"When I gave you the framework, Damian, I knew you had the technical chops." Regal said, his tone relaxed and sincere. "But you solved the core contradiction...."
Damian let out a small, relieved laugh, his shoulders dropping an inch. "So... we're making a movie?"
Regal had given him the X-Men source material, but they still hadn't decided which story to bring to the screen.
He already had every X-Men film script in his system, from X-Men (2000) to The New Mutants (2020), giving them plenty of material to work with.
The challenge now was choosing the right starting point and making an X-Men introduction that would leave every previous adaptation behind.
Regal pushed his chair back, stood up, and extended his hand. "We are. But not just one."
Damian paused mid-handshake, his brow furrowing slightly. "What do you mean?"
"I don't want you as a hired gun for a single release." Regal said, holding his gaze with quiet certainty. "Instead, I want you to take charge of the entire mutant slate. Casting, spin-offs, long-term story arcs, all of it.
"You make the creative decisions, build the team, and shape the franchise as you see fit. You answer only to me, and no one else."
….
.
At precisely 8:30 AM on Monday, December 30th, LIE Studios released a press statement that confused the entertainment industry.
The notification landed simultaneously on the digital desks of [The Hollywood Reporter], [Variety], and [Deadline], accompanied by a promotional graphic featuring an oxidized steel emblem.
A sharp, circular silhouette framing an unmistakable Roman numeral:
X.
The headline was simple, declarative.
–[LIE STUDIOS GREENLIGHTS 'MUTANT GENESIS' FOR 2018; ACCLAIMED AUTEUR DAMIAN PRESCOTT TO DIRECT FROM STORY AND TREATMENT BY REGAL SERAPHSAIL]–
The body of the release outlined the basic details of the production: an initial $140 million budget, full creative autonomy on the studio floor.
It formally ended Damian Prescott's months exile from feature filmmaking.
Within four minutes of the wire release, the internet ceased functioning normally.
—-----—
Twitter | Trending Worldwide
] #1 MutantGenesis
] #2 DamianPrescott
] #3 RegalSeraphsail
] #4 Magneto
] #5 ProfessorX
] #6 LIEStudios
—-----—
The reaction was immediate, visceral, and split between disbelief and excitement.
…..
| @FilmBuffer: "DAMIAN PRESCOTT IS BACK?! I assumed Hollywood blacklisted him for refusing studio executive notes?! And Regal handed him the X-MEN?! This is the most insane director-IP pairing in cinema history."
| @Cin_Sam43: "Except for LIE Studios, everyone else in Hollywood treats comic books like colorful merchandise commercials. It's already massive how they turned MervelD comics into this spectacle movie characters. And to think they are planning to do it with X-Men is just too daring, and hired the most uncompromising, dark drama director in North America to helm it!! They must have steel balls.
| @C_Vault_99: "Regal just conquered the Golden Globes, swept eight Oscars, made $380M in one week with an R-rated Zombie film, and on a random Monday morning he casually drops: 'By the way, here's my X-Men project with an exiled auteur.' The man does not sleep."
| @Looper_10101: "A $140 million R-leaning, practical-heavy mutant film under LIE Studios. Following Train To Catch's historic box office run, Regal Seraphsail essentially has an infinite line of credit with theater owners."
….
Reddit | r/movies | [Megathread] LIE Studios announces 'Mutant Genesis' directed by Damian Prescott
| u/CelluloidJunkie (18.6k upvotes): "What people under 25 might not realize is that before his fallout, Damian Prescott was considered the heir apparent to the most Legendary Directors. His films had this brutal realism and every conversation felt like a standoff. The reason studios exiled him was because he refused to edit his films into two hour PG-13 pop-corn flicks. For Regal to not only give him a budget, but full creative control over the shoot? That's an ideological statement against the studio system."
| ↳ u/Indigo_LA (5.2k upvotes): "Regal's genius is talent reclamation. Now he's taking the industry's most respected exiled director. It's brilliant."
….
Across the city in Burbank, inside the top-floor executive suite of Pixy Studios–
Richard Bethell stood behind his desk, staring at the front page of the morning edition of [The Hollywood Reporter] open on his iPad.
Beside him, Julian Vance, Pixy's Executive Vice President of Production, sat rigidly on the edge of a sofa, holding a folder filled with quarterly box office actuals.
"How bad is the international bleed?" Bethell asked, his voice low, gravelly, and dangerously quiet.
Julian swallowed hard, not wanting to open the folder. "The foreign rollout for our holiday fantasy tentpole is stalling in fourteen major territories. In the UK, Train To Catch out-grossed us by two to one over the weekend. In South Korea, our screens were cut by forty percent to make room for midnight encore screenings of Keanu's movie. We're tracking to miss our fourth quarter global theatrical targets by at least sixty million dollars."
Bethell didn't answer immediately. He slowly tapped the surface of his desk.
The sting of the box office deficit was bad enough, but what made his stomach twist with fury was the announcement currently lighting up every trade screen in town.
[Damian Prescott]
Bethell had personally terminated Prescott's multi-picture contract, pulled the plug on his distribution slate, and quietly spread the word across the producers' guild that the director was erratic, impossible to manage, and box-office poison.
Bethell had buried him.
Or so he thought.
"Who brokered the deal?" Bethell asked, turning slowly toward his VP. "...and brought Prescott to LIE Studios?"
"...it's Sr. Stephen Hawking." Julian replied.
"HIM!!? What's their connection?"
"We don't know the exact details, but our sources confirm that Prescott visited Regal during the filming of Train to Catch. It's reasonable to assume they reached an agreement back then, with the deal finalized during Prescott's visit to LIE Studios a few days ago."
"...well, whatever." Bethell sneered, a venomous edge cutting through his tone. "The man is an insubordinate, arrogant talent. He will drown in the first thirty days of principal photography."
"I wouldn't bet on that, Richard." Julian said cautiously, leaning forward. "LIE Studios isn't Pixy.
"Regal gives his directors complete creative freedom on set. Just look at what Lena Crawford achieved with Order of the Phoenix. She went from directing half-hour multi-camera sitcoms to winning Best Director at the Oscars, largely because Regal gave her the resources and support to realize her vision. If Damian Prescott gets the same freedom, backed by Regal's screenplay framework..."
Julian trailed off, but the unspoken implication was real.
If Damian Prescott delivered the film he was capable of making, it wouldn't just be another profitable blockbuster.
It would be a critical and cultural triumph that would cement LIE Studios as the undisputed artistic capital of American cinema.
Bethell picked up his coffee mug.
For seven years, he had watched Regal Seraphsail rise from an unknown indie upstart selling self-published web manuscripts into a multi billion dollar cinematic predator.
Every time Pixy tried to counter-program against Regal, he outmaneuvered them, turning every genre they dismissed as lowbrow or past its prime into another box-office success.
And now, Regal had picked up the very weapon Pixy had thrown in the trash, and handed it a new project, and aimed it directly at the heart of the industry.
"Get the development committee into Conference Room A." Bethell ordered, turning from the window with cold resolve in his eyes. "I want the entire 2018 and 2019 slate restructured by tomorrow morning. Every franchise, sequel and project awaiting a greenlight. All of it."
"What's the directive?" Julian asked, standing up.
Bethell stared at the [X-Men] headline glowing on his monitor.
.
….
[To be continued…]
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