….
[Next Day | March 1, 2014]
Regal sat in his office.
Samantha's voice crackled through the intercom. "Alexander Tobias is here to see you."
Regal smiled. "Send him in."
Alexander entered like a hurricane, all nervous energy and barely contained excitement.
He had been like that since Regal first met him three years ago - a film school graduate with more passion than polish, working as a production assistant on a commercial shoot.
Regal had recognized something in him immediately: hunger, yes, but also an instinct for storytelling that couldn't be taught.
"I got him." Alexander declared, collapsing into the chair opposite the desk as if the news had weight.
Regal didn't need clarification. "Keanu?"
"You know I wasn't going to settle for anyone else." Alexander said with pride.
Regal studied, his former protégé. "You thought he would say no?"
"I thought he would at least stall for some time to think about it, or want script changes, or, I don't know. Something. Instead, he just read it right there in the commissary and said yes. On the condition that I don't water down the vision."
"Very Keanu." Regal picked up the script sitting on his desk - Alexander's fourth draft of [The Matrix] - almost similar to something he had remembered, but not an exact copy.
He had read it twice already, making notes in the margins. "You have done strong work, Alex."
"You really think so?"
Alexander's question came out tentative, almost reflexive.
For someone whose [Whiplash] had shaken half the industry awake, Alexander still looked for Regal's verdict like a student waiting for grades. It was charming in its own way, but there would come a point where the instinct would need to fall away. Until then, Regal didn't mind being the one he steadied himself against.
"I am certain." Regal said. "Your framework is disciplined. The philosophy supports the narrative instead of hijacking it, and you have built it with a long tail - mythology seeded from the beginning, studios love that. Give them something to franchise."
He thumbed to a dog-eared page, one of several he had marked. "But the third act… I have a few notes."
Alexander was already leaning forward. "Alright. Tell me."
Regal tapped a finger against the margin of the marked page. "Your final confrontation with Agent Smith. As it stands, Neo wins through acceptance - he stops resisting the rules of the Matrix and dissolves into them. Thematically elegant. But…" He let the sentence breathe, calibrating it. "It risks drifting into abstraction. You need a payoff that satisfies the mind and the gut."
Alexander frowned slightly. "So what are you thinking?"
"Keep the essential acceptance, and the transformation part. "But give the audience something they can see. A moment where Neo doesn't just manipulate the world, he glitches it. Breaks its grammar. He stops bullets, yes, but goes further. Let him become the anomaly the system can't parse. Show the Matrix straining, fracturing, struggling to interpret what he's become."
Alexander's eyes sparked. "Like a virus."
"That's one way to interrupt it. He is the bug in the system. The one thing the machines didn't account for - human unpredictability." Regal tossed the script back. "And that visual rupture? It tees up your sequel cleanly. The machines will have to adapt to this new threat."
"I see it. The code itself breaks apart around him."
Regal stood and walked to the window. "When do you pitch the studio?"
"Friday. If Keanu's officially attached, they will bite, and we also have your backing… My only fear is the budget."
"You will need leverage." Regal said. "A bankable name for Trinity would help."
"I know. I am thinking about that." Alexander stopped pacing. "Someone who can do the physicality but also has the gravitas."
"Cast unknowns in the smaller roles though." Regal advised. "Save your budget for the leads and the effects. Remember, for this project the spendings that don't project on screen are spendings that shouldn't be."
"Like I would forget that, teach."
Regal didn't dignify the nickname; he simply replied. "Good."
BuZZ–!
The phone on his desk vibrated, cutting through the room. One glance at the caller ID shifted Regal's expression, subtle, but unmistakable.
He raised a hand to silence Alexander before answering–
"Hello?"
"Yes, of course, Mr. Hawking." A brief pause. "Where and when?"
Another pause.
"I will be there."
As he ended the call, the silence that followed was thick with unasked questions. Alexander sat frozen, replaying the name in his head.
Mr. Hawking? Alexander wondered.
Not Stephen Hawking Jr. The tone had been too deferential and formal.
Which meant… The Stephen Hawking?
Regal set the phone down, returning to his earlier calm.
"So… Regal, is the rum—"
Regal lifted a finger, slicing the question in half. "It isn't confirmed. Don't talk about it."
"Right. Sure." Alexander nodded quickly.
But internally, he crumbled a little.
He had walked in proud of securing Keanu Reeves, an achievement by any standard, and found himself standing next to a man casually arranging a conversation with Stephen Hawking Sr.
Alexander couldn't help the small, helpless laugh that escaped him.
Convincing Keanu suddenly felt like the second-most impressive thing that had happened today.
Regal pulled out another folder, this one thicker. "I took the liberty of identifying some potential DPs. People who understand how to frame movement as language, not noise. Your Matrix world needs its own visual temperature, colder, slightly sick with green, unnervingly precise. A world that feels wrong even before the audience knows why."
Alexander took the folder, but his eyes were on Regal. "I still dont get it why are you the one not directing this yourself? This idea - you gave it to me, but you could have kept it."
Regal had expected this question eventually.
In his previous world, the Wachowskis had reshaped the medium with this story, rewired the language of action filmmaking. A part of him - deep, instinctual, would have loved to be the one to bring that revolution to life here, with his own hands, his own voice.
But he had chosen not to. He had handed the blueprint to Alexander and stepped back.
So he chose the truest answer he could offer without revealing the rest.
"My slate is already overflowing." Regal said calmly. "This story deserves daylight, not dust. And you are the one who can carry it there." He added. "I trust you with it, Alex. That's all."
A faint smile tugged at his mouth. "Just remember who gave you your first shot when you are onstage accepting your first Oscar."
Alexander didn't laugh this time. "Always. Everything I know about directing, I learned from you."
Regal exhaled, half amused. "Don't get dramatic. Go prep for Friday."
They shook hands, and Alexander gathered his materials.
At the door, he paused. "Regal? Thank you. For everything."
After Alexander left, Regal returned to the window.
He thought about [The Matrix], about what it would become. In his old world, it had revolutionized action cinema, influenced a generation of filmmakers, spawned countless imitators.
In this world, it would do the same. But it would be Alexander's revolution. And somehow, that felt right.
His intercom buzzed. "Your two o'clock is here."
Regal checked his watch. The VFX team wanted to discuss something about [Superman].
He smiled to himself.
"Send them in." Regal said, and turned to face whatever came next.
…..
A week later, Alexander had managed to get a studio onboard for [The Matrix], and now he, along with Kenau were on their way to meet VFX Studio - which was the second most important for the film, while the first being the action choreography.
They pulled into the parking lot of a nondescript building that housed one of LA's premier visual effects houses.
Alexander was slightly doubtful with worries of finding the capable technical director to discuss the feasibility of his most audacious sequences.
Inside, they were greeted by Denzel Bale, a wiry man in his forties with circular glasses and a perpetually skeptical expression.
His office was cluttered with computer monitors displaying wireframe models and particle simulations.
"Alexander. And Keanu Reeves." Denzel shook his hand.
"Hello Denzel."
Denzel was straightforward. "I was personally informed about your project by the Unique FX CEO. So it must be serious."
"It is…."
Alexander set his laptop on the desk and pulled up his pre-visualization files.
For the next hour, Alexander walked Denzel through the bullet time concept, using crude animations he'd created in basic software.
The idea was simple in theory but nightmarish in execution: freeze a moment in time while the camera continued moving around it at normal speed.
Denzel watched in silence, occasionally pausing the playback to zoom in on specific frames. When Alexander finished, the VFX supervisor went thoughtful.
"…This is bold." he said finally. "Brilliant, maybe. Or the kind of thing that gets people fired."
Alexander didn't blink. "But is it doable?"
"Technically? Yes. We would need to set up a rig with maybe a hundred still cameras in an arc around the subject. Each camera fires simultaneously, capturing a single frozen instant from a different angle. Then we interpolate between the frames to create the illusion of motion."
Keanu leaned forward. "How long would that take to set up per shot?"
"Days. Maybe a week for complex sequences." Denzel pulled up some calculations on his computer. "And that's just the photography. The post-production to blend everything seamlessly... you're talking months of work per major sequence."
"We have the budget for that." Alexander said firmly. "What about the code? The green falling text that represents the Matrix itself?"
Denzel smiled slightly. "That's actually the easy part. We can generate that procedurally. The hard part is making it feel organic, like it's revealing something rather than just being decoration."
They discussed technical specifications for another hour before Marcus finally sat back and gave his assessment.
"You are out of your mind." he said plainly. "But… if this works? It will change how action is shot for the next decade." He reached out his hand. "I am in. Just don't say I didn't warn you - this is going to test every limit we have got."
.
….
[To be continued…]
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