….
The second Harry Potter film, [Chamber of Secrets], had officially wrapped the previous day.
And the only thing left now was the long stretch of post-production - forty to fifty days of editing, sound design, visual effects, and final scoring before it could be released.
Again, the crew marked the celebration in two parts:
First, a smaller, quieter gathering reserved for the kids, stripped of alcohol and late-night chatter, filled instead with cakes, sweets, and silly games.
Then later, a grand celebration in a hotel ballroom, the kind of party where champagne flowed and the veterans of the industry mingled freely.
Regal, since he was present on set anyway, decided to join both.
He stood quietly at the edge during the hotel gala, then blended into the children's party, smiling as he watched the younger cast soak up the work of what they had accomplished.
Naturally, the team was excited to have him there.
Chris, editors and ADs cornered him with laptops and reels, eager to show off a few roughly edited clips.
They wanted to see his reaction - their previous director and the creator of the book.
But Regal declined politely with his trademark half-smile.
He didn't want to watch tiny unfinished clips in a hotel room.
He wanted to see the film properly, with an audience, in the dark of a cinema - to him, that was the only true measure of whether the film worked.
However what he wondered was something else–
The making of this sequel took longer than Regal had expected.
Even if one were to compare it with purely numbers of days, [Chambers of Secret] took thirteen days more over the first part.
Remind you, the first part was building everything from scratch.
That production had involved hiring the crew, casting unknown child actors, training them from scratch, designing and building massive sets, and figuring out how to translate an entire world onto screen for the very first time.
The second film though had none of those teething problems.
And yet, it still took longer.
Regal had been certain this one would finish in record time and be ready to release before [Spider-Man: Web of Destiny].
But the reality had reversed. [Spider-Man] came first, sweeping the box office like a tidal wave, while [Harry Potter] lagged just behind.
The irony was, he later realized, that the timing had been exactly as Columbus and the production team had hoped for.
It was all Regal making incorrect calculations.
They had delivered the film close to their planned schedule from the start, give or take five or six extra days.
Even those delays weren't because of their carelessness - they were weather disruptions, scheduling hiccups with child actors, and the inevitable re-shoots that happen on any major film.
By Hollywood standards, it was still remarkably efficient.
If anything, the extra wait came not from Columbus, nor from the kids, or from anyone fumbling the shoot.
The real delay was Regal himself - or more accurately, one of his other films.
If pushed they could release the film a month again.
But Red Studio executives weren't about to pit [Chamber of Secrets] against [Spider-Man: Web of Destiny] while it was still tearing up the charts.
To release both in the same storm would have been suicide.
So they made the pragmatic choice: slow the pace of post-production, polish in measured steps, and wait until the Spider-Man frenzy softened.
Only then would [Harry Potter] be released, when it could stand as an event in its own right rather than be overshadowed.
It was a decision Regal didn't argue with.
He knew the industry.
He knew the stakes.
Still, he couldn't help but marvel at how fast he worked compared to everyone else.
Even when he thought he was slowing down, his timelines seemed to outpace the norm.
In truth, he was operating in a league of his own.
….
Chirs didn't waste any time.
Post-production began the very next morning, almost without a break.
The footage, compressed into terabytes of raw material, had already been couriered across London to Red Studio's state-of-the-art facilities in Los Angeles.
There, advanced editing tech, staffed with technicians with experience to transform hours of film into a seamless story.
For Chris Columbus, the debutant director, this was a world entirely unlike the set.
On the soundstage, decisions came in bursts - half instinct, half impulse.
In post-production, everything was slow, painstaking, and thought out. It was the invisible half of filmmaking, where every last frame was looked at multiple times by multiple people - making their own judgements, and wordings he did while filming.
However, this session isn't about poking at his mistakes, but to working together and building a product they are aiming for.
There is a whole tiring and exhausting process for him with little experience.
So, he didn't shy away in shame, and asked for the best people around in the business to Red Studio.
He was looking forward to how an in-studio post-production works, unlike his indie projects.
Within a short time he collaborated with many people across divisions: editors, sound mixers, VFX supervisors, color graders.
Overall Chirs, despite the stress - he was enjoying the whole process.
…
Surprising to even him, Chris was granted full creative authority by Regal, who insisted Red Studio give him complete rights during post-production.
Still, there were definitely limitations on him compared to someone of Regal's success, but that is something he had to earn while providing results.
Even this level of leeway is something only few could hope for, and Chirs is grateful and determined to get everything right.
He is really excited to see Regal's reaction for a few crucial sequences as soon as possible, but could only wait for the film to release.
….
Regal, on the other hand, was busy in planning the release strategy.
From the start, he had insisted that Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets be tied directly to the newly printed fourth volume's sales.
That meant aligning Red Studio with Everleaf Press, an unusual partnership built on the promise of mutual promotion.
Originally, Regal's idea was simple: dedicate the final page of the reprinted books to a teaser for the upcoming film.
But the marketing teams pushed further.
In a bold twist, Everleaf Press inserted a giveaway on the last page, a lucky ticket granting readers access to a special early screening of Chamber of Secrets.
It wasn't just a gimmick. It was a calculated promotional strategy designed to feed both the book and the film.
Sales of the novel would surge, ticket interest would spike, and each medium would sustain the other.
Regal understood exactly what the team was planning.
Children who didn't win tickets would still want to watch the film. Parents who brought their children to see the movie would want the novel as a keepsake.
It was a cycle of mutual amplification - a marketing loop.
But brilliance came with risk. If either half faltered - a poorly received book or a weak film - the backlash would drag the other down.
Negative press spread like wildfire, and both Red Studio Everleaf knew how ruthless tabloids could be.
It was a gamble with no safety net, which paid off for today, and nobody can predict what will happen tomorrow.
But luckily this time, they don't have to worry about that.
And as for Regal, he never doubted about the future books or film releases, and was more confident than anyone else with the strategy.
Now seeing the strategy doing the mass pull, Regal doesn't even think there is still any need to push the promotions as aggressively as before.
Just a sequel film of a billion dollar film alone is something that will make waves.
The studio, however, wasn't nearly as fearless.
[Spider-Man], though finally slowing down in its eleventh week, was a billion-dollar phenomenon.
That translated to nearly 120–135 million tickets sold worldwide.
The executives couldn't ignore the question hanging in the air: how many of those people would turn around and buy another ticket so soon?
Wouldn't the next release suffer a natural dip in turnout?
It wasn't an unreasonable concern.
Hollywood even had a name for it - Blockbuster Slump.
Whenever a monster hit dominated the market, films released in its wake tended to feel the drag for two or three months.
Regal cut through their doubts in one sentence:
But Regal brushed their worries aside with a single, measured statement.
"You're underestimating the audience. People don't stop watching good films. Yes, Blockbuster Slump exists, but it only exposes the weak ones - the half-baked projects that would normally skate by in quieter months. Those films get crushed when the bar is raised. Ours isn't one of those."
The room quieted.
No one fully understood the scope of what Regal was pushing for.
Some thought he was reckless, others that he was some sort of savant.
….
Meanwhile, the children were given a brief reprieve from the madness.
Their contracts wrapped, their press schedules temporarily quiet, they returned to schoolwork and ordinary life, though "ordinary" was relative.
Everywhere they went, whispers followed.
Harry Potter wasn't just a role anymore - it was their faces on posters, their names in gossip columns.
The end of one shoot meant nothing; in truth, their journey had only just begun.
Back in the edit suites, Columbus reviewed Lily's unscripted hug with Daniel for the twentieth time.
Each time he smiled.
That raw, startled reaction - it was lightning in a bottle, a moment no amount of directing could have manufactured.
He leaned back in his chair, glancing toward his editor.
"Sometimes the kids know better than us, eh?" Columbus said with a faint grin.
He smiled back. "Sometimes?"
The countdown had begun.
Forty days.
Maybe fifty.
And when the film was released, Regal knew the world would never look at the [Harry Potter] franchise as just children's films anymore.
.
….
[To be continued…]
★─────⇌•★•⇋─────★
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