I finally got this scanned and proofread. Hopefully I caught all the misreads my OCR software had done - but if not, it wasn't for lack of trying.
![[easter_wink]](http://www.dsboards.com/SMF/Smileys/classic/easter_wink.gif "Wink")
And even though a good deal of the article has absolutely nothing to do with the DS film, I still think it's quite interesting because it gives a really nice glimpse of who Seth Grahame-Smith really is. Though I definitely found one part about DS to be very interesting: that Grahame-Smith recently wrote a new voiceover for Depp for the film. I'm presuming that could mean that a scene or scenes have been cut from the film and a voiceover is required to explain whatever missing info they would have provided had they been included in the final edit. Though at least there could be a good chance that the missing scene(s) will show up in the DVD extras, if not actually in a director's cut. But I suppose we'll see...
Grahame-Smith_1.jpg (Notice Barnabas' hand in the center bottle on the right.)
THE MASTER OF THE MASH-UPSETH GRAHAME-SMITH blended Jane Austen with zombies and Abraham Lincoln with vampires. Now, with two movies and a novel landing soon, he's one of Hollywood's most sought-after young players.BY ALEXANDRA ALTER When Seth Grahame-Smith wants to torture himself, he scans the Web for harsh reviews of his books. He scrolls through comments calling him "a hack," "a one-trick pony," "an author of gimmick lit," "a cesspool of commercial crap."
Mr. Grahame-Smith refers to himself self-deprecatingly as "Mr. Junk-Food Literature." Unprompted he brings up a review of his forthcoming novel, "Unholy Night," which snarkily suggested that the book should have been subtitled "in 3-D."
It's a blunt dig, but not entirely unfair, he says. His books are cinematic by design. He sold the screen rights and script for "Unholy Night"-a thriller starring the Bible's three wise men-to Warner Bros. for close to $2 million. Lionsgate optioned his breakout best seller, "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies," which sold more than a million copies in 27 languages. A 3-D action movie based on his 2010 novel "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" hits theaters in June.
"I understand exactly what I am," says Mr. Grahame-Smith, a boyish-looking 36-year-old with a round, freckled face, ears that stick out slightly and reddish-brown hair. I'm a big, bombastic novelist and thrill-ride guy. I'm never going to win the National Book Award."
With two movies and a novel landing in the next three months, and two more scripts in development with Warner Bros., Mr. Grahame-Smith has become one of the most sought after young writers in Hollywood. On a recent brisk day in Los Angeles, he rushed from a staff meeting at his production company, KatzSmith Productions to an editing session for "Abraham Lincoln" at Fox postproduction studio, to lunch with an executive from Johnny Depp's film company, to a meeting with the willowy brunette actress Olivia Wilde, who dropped by to discuss possible roles. In between appointments he downed Starbucks lattes and fielded calls and emails from publicists, talent agents, directors and studio executives, sighing, cursing and occasionally muttering "Really?" in mock disbelief when his phone buzzed again.
Mr. Grahame-Smith has morphed from writer to Hollywood power player and is now a partner in a production company that is acquiring and commissioning scripts from other writers. The company has 15 movie and television projects in development, with deals at Warner Bros., ABC Family, Fox and Universal.
Hollywood veterans like "Jaws" producer Richard Zanuck say that Mr. Grahame-Smith is bringing a welcome infusion of weird, offbeat ideas and punchy humor to an industry that's come to be dominated by cookie-cutter reboots, comic-book adaptations and sequels.
Fueled by caffeine and anxiety, Mr. Grahame-Smith seems both exhilarated and terrified by his rapid rise. "I'm trying to grow into this role," he says. "The one thing you don't think about when you're dreaming of getting in is how scared you'll be when you get there-don't screw it up, please don't screw it up.'
Just three years ago, Mr. Grahame-Smith was virtually unknown. He was buried in student-loan debt and writing novelty books like "The Big Book of Porn" to pay his rent. His break came in 2009 with "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies," which he wrote for a slim advance of a few thousand dollars. It was an unexpected hit that spawned a microgenre of knockoffs by other writers, including "Android Karenina" and
"Wuthering Bites."
Mr. Grahame-Smith wasn't the first writer to put a bizarre spin on a classic tale (arguably, Shakespeare was a skilled practitioner of genre remixing). But he's become the mash-up movement's modern avatar. His irreverent literary reboot landed at precisely the right cultural moment. In recent years, digital remixing and sampling-once viewed as derivative at best and illegal at worst-has grown widespread in music, film, television and fine art. Mash-ups are no longer just kitschy parodies. Literary writers like Colson Whitehead
have experimented with horor and science-fiction themes. A zombie-infused Regency romance doesn't sound so ludicrous in today's mash-up rich environment.
In the entertainment business, which often views writers as interchangeable, Mr. Grahame-Smith has branded himself as a one-man factory for quirky, high-concept, multimedia franchises. Film studios see the built-in fan base from his books as a boon, while publishers see him as that rare commodity-an author with Hollywood ties, capable of engineering his own big-budget film adaptations.
"You hope and pray that any book you do gets made into a film, and here's a guy who's doing it himself from top to bottom," says Ben Greenberg, executive editor of Grand Central Publishing, which will publish "Unholy Night" on Tuesday.
Mr. Grahame-Smith wrote "Unholy Night" late at night on his MacBook Air, in hotel rooms and on airplanes and during breaks on movie sets. Like his previous best sellers, it presents a familiar story with a subversive twist. In his retelling, the fabled three wise men, who visited the infant Jesus with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, are not sages but thieves who escaped prison by posing as holy men. Pursued by the Roman army and King Herod's forces, they hide in a stable and run into Mary, Joseph and the newborn Jesus. The thieves become the unlikely heroes and protectors of the holy family as they all flee to Egypt, fighting off an evil wizard and a zombie horde along the way.
The book contains a clear blueprint for the movie. Mr. Grahame-Smith crafted it from the beginning as a book-to-film franchise, building in a cinematic, three-act story arc, a central hero and villain and carefully timed dramatic twists that he refers to as "beats," in screenwriter's parlance. He listened to movie scores from "The Mummy" and "The Lord of the Rings" while he wrote it.
The novel probably won't win over critics who regard Mr. Grahame-Smith as a literary parasite whose sole talent consists of taking existing stories and tossing in monsters and gore. But it's a pivot away from "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies," which Mr. Grahame-Smith created by grafting zombie scenes into Jane Austen's text. With "Unholy Night," a fully invented tale based on enigmatic biblical figures, Mr. Grahame-Smith aims to prove that he is more than just a mash-up artist.
"I don't want to be the guy who turns out the light in the genre-blending room," he says.
At 10:30 on a Tuesday morning, Mr. Grahame-Smith already seems exhausted. He's slumped at a large desk at KatzSmith Productions, the company he co-founded last year with his close friend and collaborator David Katzenberg, son of DreamWorks Aniingtion CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg.Stifling a yawn, he dashes off emails while finishing a new voice-over script for Johnny Depp to read in the coming movie "Dark Shadows," a soapy vampire saga based on a cult 1960s TV show. He emails the script to filmmaker Tim Burton, who's in London finishing the film. He pauses to check a text from his wife, who's home with their toddler son in Culver City, asking what time he'll be back.
Mr. Grahame-Smith's Beverly Hills office looks a bit like an adolescent boy's bedroom, except that it's immaculately clean. A blue electric guitar leans against the wall. An Abraham Lincoln bobblehead and a tiny oen coffin-a gift from Mr. Depp-decorate the desk. The bookshelf holds first-editions of Stephen King, Mr. Grahame-Smith's literary hero. Movie posters for Beetlejtuce" and "The Shining" line the walls.
His campy, juvenile sensibility infects the company. Mr. Grahame-Smith and Mr. Katzenberg, 29, fly a remote control helicopter around the office and ride motorcycles to work together. They met in 2007 at CBS, where they co-produced a short-lived Web TV show. They joke around throughout the day, taunting each other through their open doors. Occasionally, a good barb will make it into a script.
Their goofy banter masks a carefully calibrated business relationship. Mr. Katzenberg handles much of the Byzantine diplomatic work that comes with making movies-coddling agents and gently delivering bad news. The pair has leaned on Mr. Katzenberg's Hollywood pedigree and connections-Mr. Grahame-Smith unabashedly praises the perks of his partner's Rolodex-to get meetings with producers and actors. They regularly meet with stars like Cameron Diaz, Jack Black and Charlize Theron. Mr. Grahame-Smith, meanwhile, oversees writing projects and bnngs a stream of over-the-top story ideas. "I don't know how his messed up head works," Mr. Katzenberg says of his friend.
Mr. Grahame-Smith's first goal was to shepherd his own book-to-film projects. He's since developed bigger ambitions. KatzSmith has been snapping up scripts by other writers, optioning literary works and developing remakes and sequels to popular films. Last summer, they signed a two-year producing deal with Warner Bros., which gives the studio a first look at projects; in exchange, the studio pays heat and salaries for KatzSmith. So far, Warner has bought four of the movies that KatzSmith has pitched them-including two that Mr. Grahame-Smith is writing-an unusually high hit rate, says Greg Silverman, the studio's president of production. The projects span the genre gamut from comedies to horror, but share a sly, irreverent sort of humor that pokes fun at cinematic formulas. "They always put a new twist on it," says Mr. Silverman. "They respect the form, but they also subvert and disrupt the form."
A little before 11 a.m., Mr. Grahame-Smith joins Mr. Katzenberg and Jay Ireland, the company's vice president of development, in a conference room to get status updates on some film and television projects. A crowded whiteboard lists 15 projects, ranging from an adaptation of a young-adult novel to a remake of the Stephen King novel "IT."
Ms. Ireland starts at the top of the board with "Murders and Acquisitions," a dark comedy set in the world of high finance. The screenwriter, Jonathan Stokes, will deliver a draft in a few weeks, she says. She skips over "Beetlejuice 2," a sequel to the 1980s cult film starring Michael Keaton. "Nothing to do there," she says. Then she gets to "The Scorpio Races," a best-selling young-adult fantasy novel by Maggie Stiefvater, which Warner Bros. optioned for KatzSmith to develop. Mr. Grahame-Smith's head snaps up from his iPhone.
"We don't have a f--- writer," he says, glancing at a list of screenwriters. "There are 1,000 A-list writers in this town, and we've talked to eight of them."
"Is Charlie Kaufman on that list?" Ms. Ireland asks.
"No, but that's a good idea," Mr. Grahame-Smith says.
Ms. Ireland mentions that a writer recently pitched a horror movie for KatzSmith to produce. "It's got that zombie thing," she says.
"Pass," Mr. Grahame-Smith says.
"You don't want to do any more mash-ups," Ms. Ireland says.
They quickly run through the remaining projects: "Rolling With Dad," an animated TV series starring a Stephen Hawking-like genius as a suburban dad, which Mr. Grahame-Smith and Mr. Katzenberg created for the cable network Adult Swim; "Extra Curricular," a TV show for ABC Family about high-school students who develop superpowers after a chemistry-lab explosion; "Fire Teddy," a comedy about an office drone who befriends the man he's supposed to fire, which they sent to the actor Jack Black; and "Alive in Necropolis," a feature film based on a noirish detective novel set in a city of graves. Finally, they get to "Night of the Living," a stop-animation monster movie that Mr. Grahame-Smith is writing and co-producing with Mr. Katzenberg and Mr. Burton.
"You need to write 'Night of the Living,'" Ms. Ireland says firmly.
"When?" Mr. Grahame-Smith protests, gesturing at the full whiteboard.
Then Mr. Grahame-Smith and Mr. Katzenberg begin arguing again about who they should hire to write "The Scorpio Races." Ms. Ireland fails silent, exasperated.
"Look at her face!" Mr. Grahame-Smith says gleefully. "She wants to kill us. And then kill herself."
He hustles out of the meeting, cursing quietly at his buzzing phone. He climbs into his Prius and drives to a bland office building to meet with director Timur Bekmambetov, who directed the 2008 Angelina Jolie film "Wanted." For the next hour, they pore over footage from "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter," studying a few action sequences that need more dialogue. Mr. Grahame-Smith jots down lines that give the grunting, snarling vampires more personality. He scribbles furiously, filling up five pages of a black leather notebook that he carries everywhere. He promises to send the lines the next day. Then he rushes to a lunch meeting to discuss a possible scriptwriting project for Johnny Depp's production company. He reluctantly turns down the offer, citing an overbooked writing schedule.
Mr. Grahame-Smith never set out to be a novelist. As a kid growing up in Connecticut's Fairfield County, he was a theater geek with an asymmetrical skater haircut and a bedroom full of Stephen King and Dean Koontz novels. His mother edited books for a small publisher; his stepfather was a rare-books dealer who kept a library of 5,000 titles in their basement. Mr. Grahame-Smith dreamed of making movies like "E.T." and "The Goonies."
He studied film at Emerson College and moved to Los Angeles after graduating in 1998, with no job. He found work as an assistant at a television production company specializing in home-and-garden and history shows. Most days, he made coffee and delivered dry cleaning. At night, he wrote film and TV spec scripts and queried agents. He left the ne6twork after five years to devote himself to screenwriting. To pay his rent, he got a job as a contract writer for Quirk Books, an independent publisher in Philadelphia. He wrote novelty books such as "The Spider-Man Handbook" and "How to Survive a Horror Movie," for advances of $5,000 to $10,000.
"Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" was his editor's idea. Mr. Grahame-Smith dashed it off in six weeks, and Quirk printed just 10,000 copies. They sold out immediately and Quirk went on to print more than a million. The book debuted high on the best-seller lists, launching Mr. Grahame-Smith virtually overnight as an internationally best-selling author. Suddenly, publishers and producers were chasing him.
He sold his next book, "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter," to Grand Central for $560,000 as part of a two-book deal in 2009. When "Abraham Lincoln" hit the best-seller list (and earned the praise of renowned Lincoln scholar Doris Kearns Goodwin), Mr. Grahame-Smith renegotiated his book contract. For his next two books, he'll receive an advance in the mid-seven figures. He's planning a follow-up to "Abraham Lincoln" for his next novel, focusing on the vampire character Henry Sturges. He wants to write it like a police procedural, and has been reading novels by the best-selling crime writer Michael Connelly to study the genre.
Mr. Grahame-Smith ascended the ranks of Hollywood quickly, gaining leverage with studios and producers after more than a decade of trying to break in. Tim Burton optioned the movie rights to "Abraham Lincoln" for $15,000 based on an outline for the novel and hired Mr. Grahame-Smith to write the screenplay. Mr. Burton liked Mr. Grahame-Smith's work so much that he hired him to rewrite his gothic movie "Dark Shadows," starring Johnny Depp and Michelle Pfeiffer.
Mr. Zanuck, the producer, says he was surprised when Mr. Burton replaced his longtime scribe, John August, with Mr. Grahame-Smith. "At that time, nobody had heard of him," he says. Within a few months, Mr. Grahame-Smith completely restructured and rewrote the screenplay, injecting it with campy humor that plays up the film's absurd premise: Barnabas Collins, a vampire played by Mr. Depp, emerges from a coffin after 200 years to find himself in the polyester, lava-lamp world of 1972.
As a sign of how far his stock has risen, Mr. Grahame-Smith sold rights to his new novel, "Unholy Night," to Warner Bros. for $400,000, and got an additional $1.5 million to write the screenplay. "Harry Potter" producer David Heyman has signed on to co-produce the project with KatzSmith.
Mr. Grahame-Smith now feels he's in a precarious position: sought-after, buoyed by hype but still unproven in the metric that matters most—box-office returns. He fears he'll quickly fall out of favor if his coming movies tank or his next screenplay lands flat.
"This business is so fickle," he says. "Writers come and go. Heat comes and goes."
31 days 3 hours 38 minutes 19 seconds until the day the Depp/Burton Dark Shadows is released(ET)!!
Topic: Depp/Burton DARK SHADOWS Is In Production!! (Read 719890 times)