Saturday, December 18, 2004

So - Why Frankenstein vs the Wolfman?

After RAVEN 2, I was developing a number of projects, none of which seemed to be coming together. The two rules I have, when working on filmmaking projects, is a) don't repeat yourself, and b) cross another genre off the to-do list. The first RAVEN satisfied my desire to do a superhero/dark avenger/Goth action movie; with the second I was able to do a gritty, satanic private detective thriller. I wrote a script for Raven 3, but felt I was mandated to tie up loose plot threads, which ultimately wasn't very interesting. I then wrote a 3-part crime story anthology (one piece was actually backstory on Lucas Foster), but after the initial writing, I lost interest in that one as well.

One idea that had been floating around in the back of my brain for a while centered on three orphaned pickpockets, in a non-specific, Dickensian time period. These three kids teamed up with a aging Ernest Hemingway-type to combat a supernatural Jack the Ripper. The story also featured a secondary character - a reanimated man with no past, who was tasked with collecting and burying the city's plague and murder victims. Over the course of the story, he went from being a suspect to an asset, possessing a natural condition that rendered him immune to the villain's power. I could see the characters clearly, but I could never get the story to work. The group needed a better nemesis.

The current trend of horror movie team-ups gave me an idea... what if the reanimated fellow in the story actually was the Frankenstein monster? Naturally his antagoinst would be the Wolfman. My proposed story would follow the same basic outline as the orphan idea. Except, I would make the monster the one the kids partner with, and have the writer be the Wolfman. By creating new backstories, I felt energized - further distancing the characters from those made famous by Universal studios. This idea caught fire. I have been a horror movie addict for my entire life, and although the two Raven movies have horror elements, I haven't yet made a movie squarely set within the genre. I had visions of skeletal woods, full moons, and crumbling graveyards and knew this was the one I wanted to do.

As of now, I'm working on some preliminary animation. I don't consider myself to be in full production mode yet; that'll come after the voices are recorded. This is kind of a head start. I'm working on a scene that comes late in the movie, the final battle between the Monster and the Wolfman, which has little dialogue. I plan to make a major update to the site after we get the voices done, in early 2005. I'll be posting cast and character info, the full script, the poster, and the first images from the movie. Stay tuned!