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Chapter - 154
🕑 Added 2025-06-10 18:18:22 +0000 UTC[Title : Net Worth]
….
The August heat still lingered in the evening air…
The morning light poured in through the high kitchen windows…
Birds chirped distantly outside.
Regal sat at the head of the dining table, sleeves rolled up, the top two buttons of his shirt undone.
His plate sat pushed aside, a few stray crumbs left on the edge.
He held a fresh glass of grape juice in one hand - dark purple, almost black against the white porcelain cup - and a thick file folder in the other.
He looked… fine.
Focused, even.
His brow furrowed slightly as he flipped a page, scanning through the printed… papers.
He didn’t look tired. He didn’t look shaken. He didn’t look like someone who had woken up sweating in the dark, whispering the names of fictional children through uneven breath.
Across the table, Gwendolyn sat with one leg tucked beneath her, sipping from a mug of tea. Her laptop was open, a spreadsheet glowing faintly on the screen.
She glanced up at him once, just once, as if checking for signs.
There were none.
She didn’t ask how he had slept.
He didn’t ask how she was feeling.
And somehow… that made it feel heavier.
The silence wasn’t awkward. It was chosen.
Regal turned another page.
“Is that the file Samantha sent you?” She asked lightly, as though she were only half-paying attention. She wasn’t.
Regal looked up. “Yep.”
Another sip. Another page.
There was no mention of the dream.
No footnote to remind them of the way Rock had come barreling through the door, eyes wide. No appendix noting the sweat on Regal’s neck, or the way she had pressed her palm against his chest, only to feel his heart hammering like it was trying to break out.
And no mention, of course not, of that one tear. The one that had slid down the side of his face, stealthy and alone.
It was like it didn’t happen.
Except it had.
And they both knew it.
She glanced at her phone again, replied to a text - some meaningless industry small talk - then set it aside and reached across the table, plucking one of the printouts.
“How rich is my boyfriend currently?” She asked with a sudden mischievous smile.
Regal gave a low chuckle. “Huh… wanna take a look?”
She shrugged. “Alright.”
And just like that, the air shifted - from unspoken to work mode.
Their safe zone. Numbers lined up like obedient soldiers. Not just in neat columns, but with that smug clarity that only raw success could wear.
…and for once, they weren’t studio projections or market forecasts or the tangled early-stage budget of one of Regal’s ambitious monsters.
It is his net worth.
$265 million.
That was the final number in liquid cash.
Gwendolyn stared at it without reacting. That was something she had mastered long ago - how not to blink in the face of big money.
But she felt it. A tingle at the base of her neck. A strange mix of pride, danger, and distance.
Like she was watching a man become a continent - expanding by the hour, the minute.
That wasn’t new information. Samantha had texted her the figure three days ago, though Gwendolyn hadn’t brought it up. She wanted to hear it from him. Or see it on his face.
Still, seeing it now, that number sitting bold and final on a screen she didn’t have to unlock… it landed a little differently.
Two hundred sixty-five million dollars.
It was surreal. And yet - inevitable.
It hadn’t always looked this way, of course. Regal wasn’t born into this kind of empire. He built it, one wild risk at a time.
Less than two years ago, he had signed his first real contract - Everleaf Press.
A clean, quiet publishing deal that landed him $400,000 for [Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone] in its first month.
February 2, 2011.
Gwendolyn could never forget the day of their first collaboration.
Remembered the little to no buzz in the initial days. Remembered reading the book and realizing, mid-paragraph, that it was going to change things. Just not how much.
Most people would have bought a house. Or at least a new car. A Rolex. Something shiny to prove to the world that they had arrived.
She remembered asking him what he would do with it.
He didn’t even pause.
He told her he was going to burn it.
Figuratively, of course. Every cent was poured into [Following]. A psychological film with no recognizable actors, no studio clout, and absolutely no commercial promise.
People who heard it laughed… Though most of them didn't care.
Even though he proposed to her, and the fact that she had accepted him, she hadn’t known him then, not truly, but the archives told the story.
And the man sitting across from her now… yeah, she believed in him.
She believed the madness. Arrogance. The stupid, pure, blind faith in his own taste.
Anyways, the film cost nearly everything.
And then it made $253.3 million.
Gwendolyn remembered watching it in a theater the first time. Remembered leaning back in her seat with that cold burn in her chest, the one that said:
He’s actually done it.
Regal’s deal with the distributor earned him 18.3% of the gross: $46.34 million. Not a penny of it had come from compromise.
And then came the DVDs.
Oh, the DVDs.
By the end of August 2012, they had pulled in $79.34 million. She read the contract herself - he had negotiated a 50% cut for the first year, 75% after.
That meant $19.84 million was sitting clean in his ledger, still growing. Samantha had probably helped draw it up. Smart girl.
She paused here. Tapped the side of her cup.
It would have been enough fortune.
For most people, it would have been more than enough.
But Regal wasn't like most people.
And then came [Death Note].
Gwendolyn thought, was the moment the world tilted. She remembered it all too vividly, and the way people talked.
As if it were suicide. As if he had lost his mind funding a $55 million film out of his own pocket.
…it was just Regal and a script that gave her chills when she read it - second time.
He took a small writing and directing fee. Just $2 million.
Like that even mattered. Because when the film closed at $488.8 million, she didn’t need to see the paperwork to know what that meant.
He owned it outright.
He distributed it.
43% of the entire gross.
$210.18 million.
She wanted to laugh. Not out of disbelief - but because she believed it.
She had believed in him since the moment he showed her that absurd, beautiful, obsessive vision for what Light and L could be.
DVDs hadn’t even dropped yet.
And yet she already knew - they were going to explode. Again.
Then [The Hangover] happened.
If someone had told her two years ago that Regal, mister noir, mister monologue, would direct a comedy, she would have laughed harder than the audience ever would.
But he did.
Red Studio covered the cost.
Fine.
But even then, Regal negotiated his share pretty well for his first collaboration with a studio production.
An $8 million upfront fee. And a 35% investment share.
It made $620 million worldwide.
Regal’s return? $217 million.
She exhaled - quietly. The kind of breath you don’t realize you are holding until it’s gone.
She didn’t say anything.
Because how do you say anything after that?
Not wow.
Or how did you do it? Not even congratulations.
She just sat there, eyes resting on him.
Not because he was rich. But because he had built it all with bare hands and blood.
And he was still not done.
He had barely caught his breath. Not even enough time to reflect or slow down or savor. Because the moment he tasted what power actually felt like, he moved again - sharper, hungrier, smarter.
MarvelDC.
The word made her lips curl - half smile, half reflexive tension.
Gwendolyn had known that world.
Knew the old men who ran it like it was their sandbox. Knew the scripts that got shredded in boardrooms full of cigar smoke and recycled ideas.
And Regal? He didn’t buy into it.
He bought through it.
$61 million for a 20.5% stake.
He outbid Stan Lee’s share.
And, she knew - what that meant - in rooms that never took him seriously before.
Then, like dominoes tipping into silence, two more shareholders caved.
9.25% each.
Gone.
Regal had 39% now.
The rest was scattered like feathers across old hands and passive wallets.
No one else mattered.
But here’s what no one wrote about.
The quiet moves.
$10 million across indie studios.
Small tech firms, names no one could pronounce yet.
And something called cryptocurrency, a term she only heard from him as he invested in Bitcoin mining - it is a small group - just $150K worth.
Gwendolyn had rolled her eyes then.
Now she wondered if he had seen the future again. These weren’t accounted for in his official net worth. Because they were wildcards.
But Gwendolyn could see the board he was setting.
And then… there was Comic-Con.
The debut. The thing that made her pulse flutter when she saw it for the first time: the teaser visuals of [Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone] - his vision, rendered in hues and shadows and impossibly real stills.
He had spent just under $150,000 to pull it off.
Every cent felt like a masterstroke.
It is what helped him into jumping to the [Harry Potter] film adaptation with Red Studio.
He invested 5% of the production budget - a massive bite of $10.5 million to $11.5 million upfront, depending on final totals.
He took a $10 million fee as writer-director.
But then - then - he secured 14% of net profits from gross box office.
19% total stake.
That film wasn’t even in production yet.
And already, Gwendolyn could feel the earth shift under its shadow.
And finally, finally… he bought himself something.
A home.
$3.14 million.
Tucked in the infamous Hollywood Hills.
But here was the part no one liked to think about.
Tax.
The red ink in the corner of genius.
In 2011, his taxable income came to $47.34 million - that first burst from [Following], the book deal, some scattered earnings.
Federal tax: 35%.
California state tax: 10.3%.
He paid $20.1 million that year.
Clean with no offshore dodges or loopholes.
In 2012, it exploded.
$455 million in declared income.
Gwendolyn remembered the number when she first saw it. It looked like a phone number from another country. Real. But almost impolite to say out loud.
But again–
Federal tax: 37%.
State tax: 13.3%.
Even after deductions, philanthropy, and reinvestment, Regal owed $208 million.
And he paid for it.
Gwendolyn didn’t even try to imagine what it felt like to write a check that large to a government.
But she knew what it meant.
No tricks and games.
Just raw, transparent arithmetic.
And after all that…
After the risk, the success, the fire, the precision, the sacrifice-
What remained?
$265 million.
That was Regal’s net worth.
Gwendlyn stared at him now, across that table.
Tablet screen black.
Steam curling up from her untouched drink.
And she…. Asked herself.
What is he chasing after? Money? Power?
…what is his end game?
The day moved on, and the coffee cooled. They talked about casting, scheduling, and set builds. Notes were taken. Memos drafted.
But beneath it all, under every word and every silent pause between them… was something they weren’t saying.
Sometimes people don’t talk about certain things.
Not because they are hiding.
Not because they don’t trust.
But because some things change you in ways you can’t put into sentences.
Some things demand silence.
.
….
[To be continued…]
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Comments
David Morehouse
I think it's pretty cool to have Regal live through his scripts. Not sure how I feel about him not telling Gwen about it. I know it's only a little bit but it feels like he'd brush it off like: "Oh it's just a dream through the story, I had some great ideas for shots and visuals haha!" Like he wouldn't be telling everything, but it feels like he's putting Gwen in a hard place of simultaneously not wanting to ask him if he's alright and being afraid that he isn't. Overall though, the suspense is building. I can't wait for the Harry Potter shooting arc! I wonder if they'll start working on #2 while #1 is still in post production in order to keep the youth of the actors? So much suspense!
