Monday, November 12, 2007
Webcast interview: Stephen King and Frank Darabont
I received word a little after noon on Monday (Nov. 12) that a webcast press conference with Stephen King and film director Frank Darabont would be taking place at (gulp!) 2 p.m. eastern, translating to 1 p.m. central time, meaning - YIKES! - about 45 minutes in my North Central Texas future. Just enough time for me to stress out installing Paltalk software and coming up with a couple of potentially intelligent questions for the King of Horror and the director/writer of his latest screen adaptation.
I needn't have bothered with the question prep - pretty much the entire 50 minutes of Q/A was given over to on-site media folks (at New York's Regency Hotel), with only a final two questions rushed into play by online correspondents at the end of the proceedings.
The event was webcast on Paltalk as a segment of Hollywood Now with Joanne Colan. Since the guests of honor (aka "interviewees") were about 10 minutes late showing up, Joanne had time to play a few teaser clips from the movie and note the fact that director Darabont - who has made two previous major motion pictures from Stephen King source material - was inspired to do The Mist as a fast-and-loose rapid-fire production after viewing Danny Boyle's shoot-from-the-hip zombie picture, 28 Days Later. The whole movie was shot over a period of 37 days, Joanne informed us; she kept referring to The Mist (in its originally-written form) as a "short story," though of course it was actually a novella (sniff-sniff, nose in air).
The event principals eventually took their places on the podium and began talking. Here, in ascending order of interest, are the dozen most interesting/juiciest revelations made by Stephen King (SK) and Frank Darabont (FD) in response to their media questioners:
12. "Frank has a child's imagination and adult sensibilities," says SK - which is why he likes having FD interpret his stories on film, and hopes to work with him "at least four more times."
11. "It's always about the human core of the storytelling," says FD, re. SK's fiction; "It's about what's going on with the people, not the monsters."
10. "Fear is a survival function... It's kind of a pit bull in the human mind - it needs to be walked and petted occasionally." - SK
9. "Fear and anger go hand in hand - there's always someone standing by to say, 'we have the answer.' " - SK
8. "Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's Children of the Corn." - SK, re. film treatments of his writings
7. "I have nothing against religion... but religion cross-pollinates with politics." - SK
6. King still listens to rock & roll, but has lately added alt country to his playlist, referencing Ray Wylie Hubbard and Cross Canadian Ragweed.
5. Would he (SK) ever consider directing a movie again? His lone prior directorial effort was Maximum Overdrive (1986), about which he commented: "It'd be great to direct a movie when I wasn't coked out of my head."
4. Re. the "Splat Pack" film auteurs: "It feels like I'm not dealing with reality; more like a Japanese Noh play or something. They (the films) don't feel like the work of grown-ups." Plus, King went on to say, they're so dang predictable.
3. "I used to have a big WANG, but I was younger then." - SK on his writing routine
2. King lives half the year in Sarasota, FL, where he met a matronly lady in the grocery store one day who said: "I know you - you're the guy who writes those gruesome horror stories. I prefer uplifting fiction, like that Shawshank Redemption.". "I wrote that," says King. "No, you didn't," says the lady.
1. FD actually wrote a new ending for the film version of The Mist, and SK proclaims: "I loved it." But it's so strong, SK goes on to say, he thinks there should be an advisory tacked onto the credits that says: "If you reveal the ending to this movie, you'll be hung by the neck until dead." (Yep, that's really what he said.)
What? Still with me? For those of you who are gluttons for trivia (or just serious fans), here are the remaining items discussed during the interview:
* Origins of the novella: it was written at the request of Kirby McCauley for his Dark Forces anthology, during a period of time when King was creatively "blocked." While mulling over the assignment, he visited a local grocery and got to thinking about all the plate glass windows and how they'd be vulnerable if something horrible were to happen outside.
* Premise of the story line: "If we mess around with the unknown, something horrible will happen." - SK (FD cites this as the "first law of horror physics")
* Frank's biggest fear: "People." Stephen's: "I'm afraid of everything - it shows in my work." (He's particularly fearful of rogue nukes, currently.)
* SK has had two different play versions of Carrie pitched at him - he claims he'll entertain any treatment idea that makes any kind of sense, though no word of a Carrie musical is in the offing.
* According to FD, SK "took horror out of the ghetto and put it into the mainstream."
* The appearance of the military in the movie is "incidental," according to FD.
* "The reasonable people always are caught in the middle." - FD
* "He (SK) is getting less angry as he gets older; I'm getting more and more pissed off." - FD
* Eyes of the Dragon is slated to be made into a French cartoon.
* Favorite writers/author influences: Richard Matheson is mentioned first by both men (I Am Legend given as example); also tossed out by SK and FD as sources of inspiration are Robert Bloch, Jack Ketchum, Bentley Little, Kelly Link, Charles Beaumont, Jack Finney, Rod Serling and Ray Bradbury, in addition to comic book writers such as Jack Kirby and Mike Mignola.
* The character of Mrs. Carmody (the false prophet/megalomaniac/religious fanatic villain of The Mist, played by Marcia Gay Harden), was sort of inspired by the rantings of Jack Van Impe, who SK and his brother listened to while growing up.
The Mist - a Dimension Films production being theatrically distributed in the U.S. by Metro Goldwyn-Mayer Studios - opens Wed., Nov. 21 nationwide. My advice: see it right away - and don't reveal the ending.
