2008...What a fucking year. As a screenwriter, so much of my life is about keeping things quiet, close to the vest, on the down-low. Don't get me wrong, I love my job. Writing with my partner, Jim Agnew, is always interesting and fun and the job allows us to meet and work with our heroes. It's pretty fucking cool to have people like Dario Agento and John Carpenter calling us up to work on various projects.
The downside is the fact that I have to keep my mouth shut about various projects in the works. There are too many egos and there is too much money at stake for too many parties involved to go around chin-wagging about our work-for-hire. Makes for pretty boring bloggin' and explains why I haven't posted more frequently this past year. Sorry about that... I'll be better this year.
Of course the big news is that, after quite a few starts and stops, Jim and I actually got one of our films made last year. And it took a while, but that's just how it goes in this world. The seed of GIALLO was planted during a December '06 brainstorming session with Jim and, like most of "our" great ideas, it was really all Jim's idea. We wanted to write another horror script and we were sick to death of little Asian girls with wet hair, cabins in the woods and remakes of classic 80s horror. While wondering what was missing and what we'd like to see in the teaters Jim sort of blurted out "we need to make a flashy/trashy, super-stylistic giallo and call it YELLOW and put in every giallo premise we can imagine."
Three weeks later (January '07) we had a script that we loved dearly and had everyone in Hollywood confused and concerned for our career path. Oddly enough, a Seventies-style Italian thriller penned by two young-ish American screenwriters didn't exactly burn up the tracking boards. Jim and I knew we had something cool, but no one else was onboard. No one. Until... Jim had a cup of coffee with a Producer named Raphael Primorac, a Croatian producer who spent most of his youth in Italy. He got it and loved it. We were in business.
We quickly landed a director, an Italian television director who thought the idea of American kids writing a giallo thriller was just goofy enough to work. He was excited to start and everything ws going well until he was offered a high-dollar mini-series on Italian television and he was out the door.
We thought we were done. We'd already had one film collapse just days before filming earlier in the year and now losing the one director who seemed to understand and appreciate the material... FUCK! But then Raphael says "I know someone who knows Dario Argento, why don't we send it to him?"
Yeah, why not? Jim and I sort of shrugged it off. It seemed impossible and working in Hollywood you learn quickly to take everything with a grain of salt. But Raphael delivered... in a big way. Dario read the script on a Friday and agreed to do the film on Monday. We were floored. Daio Argento likes our script! He even liked the title, which of course had been translated from the English YELLOW to the Italian GIALLO.
The man who gave me so many nightmares is going to make our movie!
We were into casting immediately. First Asia, then Liotta then Vincent Gallo. And they all promplty fell out of the project for one reason or another. No big deal, we'd lost principal elemnts of this project before and we always managed to trade up. And the casting was no different. We traded up again.
Adrien Brody joined the cast and we were golden. He's awesome and gives a super-fucking-cool performnace as the tortured and brilliant Italian Inspector Enzo Avolfi. Emmanuelle Seigner (THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY, LA VIE EN ROSE) plays Linda with a burning intensity and the killer... well that's part of gialli, right?
I don't want to spoil anything, so a few quick highlights. It rained in Torino all through filming, giving the movie a wet, creepy look. Jim got to be the black-gloved hands of a killer in one scene. The entire film is shot old-school with NO digital effects...everything was in-camera!!!!We wrapped in June. Marco Werba composed an awesome symponic score and we're hoping to be able to announce a cool premiere event very soon.
So in addition to GIALLO, Jim and I were hired by Neo Art & Logic - you know, the folks who brought you FEAST - to write a Cronenberg-inspired bit of body horror called TERATOMA. It is disgusting and upsetting and really, really fun and we're hoping to have it set up shortly.
We were hired to polish a script for John Carpenter and Peter Block which we, unfortunately cannot discuss any further.
We re-wrote and completly revamped a reality show pilot outline for SciFi Channel and ContraFilm (really odd gig, but still kind of fun.)
We hooked up with good friend and awesome director Adam Green (SPIRAL, HATCHET) and are collaborated with him on an extremely fucking scary and fun project that is still searching for a home.
And Jim and I are just wrapping our latest spec script.
We met a ton of cool folks and made lots of new friends mostly thanks to Ryan Rotten's pre-FangoCon bash. Thanks, Rotten... you rule. I was lucky enough to finally meet and become fast friends with Rob G who also rules.
All told, '08 was as creatively fulfilling as a year can be... now if we could just get paid
All right this blog is already really long so I'm going to cap it with my top 11 films of the year. I'm a horror nerd, so of course it's a little horror-heavy, but these are the films I enjoyed the most last year.
1. LET THE RIGHT ONE IN - Amazingly stark and personal with sudden and jarring bursts of violence.
2. TRICK 'R TREAT - What Halloween really feels like in the hearts of kids everywhere.
3. THE DARK KNIGHT - You know why.
4. RAMBO - Holy fuck! Stallone is officially back in a huge way. this is the second best in the Rambo series (behind FIRST BLOOD) and I can't wait to see what Sly does with THE EXPENDABLES!!!!
5. WALL-E - A dystopian nightmare and the most challenging film yet from Pixar. I usually hate robot films, but Wall-E is soulful and touching and has some of the best pure visual story-telling I've seen.
6. THE FALL - A bit sappy, sure... but stunning - a visual feast.
7. PINAPPLE EXPRESS - The guiltiest pleasure of the year. And 80's buddy-action flick staring two stoners and the always wonderful Gary Cole. Plus a Huey Lewis song over the end credits!
8. IN BRUGES - This film is all over the place and I love it. Funny, violent, sweet and just plain weird. Check it out.
9. CLOVERFIELD - Kaiju!!!!!!!!
10. MIDNIGHT MEAT TRAIN - You might think I'm nuts for picking this one, but watching this in the theater was a joy. The story is nuts. The direction is slick. Vinnie Jones is creepy as hell. I didn't care for all the CG, but I still thought the entire film worked and I was hooked from the opening beat.
11. IRON MAN/THE HULK - Marvel hit both of these out of the park by taking control of thier product and presenting their heroes in a way that never panders and constantly delivers. Both films develop character quickly and all the action flows from character. Good job, Marvel... now don't fuck up THE AVENGERS!
That's it for now.
Happy Nightmares!