"Feast" Writers

[Gillyflower Cooms]

The "Feast" writers Melton & Dunstan got the rewrite job for "The Tingler" according to the trades today...These guys have taken off. In the last few months they sold two scripts ("Midnight Man" and "Neighbor") to Dimension and got another deal for a third movie. Dunstan's gonna direct "Midnight Man" and the untitled project. Plus, they sold a TV pitch called "Vinyard" to Fox and wrote "Saw IV" with a deal to write V & VI. :eek:

[LIMAMA]

NO NO NO!!! This is so WRONG!!! THE TINGLER is a B movie classic. Leave it alone!!!

[Signal30]

Well, William Castle was all about the hype which rarely (if ever) was delivered on by the movie. There's a lot of wiggle room (ahem) to play with in remaking The Tingler, although the guys that wrote Feast seems like a very odd choice.

Is it going to be a comedy?

[Willoughby]

Is it going to be a comedy?
You mean it's not already?

[Jake Schuster]

When "The Tingler" first opened selected seats in certain cinemas were wired to provide a low-level electrical shock timed to beats in the movie. I know; I was there.:eek:

[dpaterso]

When "The Tingler" first opened selected seats in certain cinemas were wired to provide a low-level electrical shock timed to beats in the movie. I know; I was there.:eek:
Radical electroshock therapy via your assbone. That could explain a lot.

-Derek

[Geoff Alexander]

The "Feast" writers Melton & Dunstan got the rewrite job for "The Tingler" according to the trades today...These guys have taken off. In the last few months they sold two scripts ("Midnight Man" and "Neighbor") to Dimension and got another deal for a third movie. Dunstan's gonna direct "Midnight Man" and the untitled project. Plus, they sold a TV pitch called "Vinyard" to Fox and wrote "Saw IV" with a deal to write V & VI. :eek:

They have yet to prove themselves, IMO. Haven't read "Neighbor" but I found "Midnight Man" to be incredibly obvious with a problematic ending. Perhaps it's been rewritten since the draft I saw.

[Geoff Alexander]

They seem to have proved themselves in the opinions of buyers, who continue to hire them.

That's funny. Have you read Midnight Man? What did you think of it?

[Gillyflower Cooms]

They have yet to prove themselves, IMO. Haven't read "Neighbor" but I found "Midnight Man" to be incredibly obvious with a problematic ending. Perhaps it's been rewritten since the draft I saw.

Wuz up with the ending? MM is the flick that Creativexec is producing.

[Geoff Alexander]

I'm not a buyer, so I'm afraid I'm not familiar with their work.

I just think there's something to be learned from successful writers. Rather than dismissing them, I find it more helpful to try to identify what it is about them that keeps getting them hired.


SPOILERS****************

I didn't dismiss them, I said I didn't think they'd proven themselves--at least not on the strength of the draft of Midnight Man which I'd read. They could very well end up turning out some great material. No doubt, they know how to execute a genre piece well but, IMO, they need to do better concept wise. As to the ending, this is something that I read seven or eight months ago, but I felt it was nihilistic in a way that would really piss off an audience. It's very tough to watch a protagonist go through Hell only to see them meet a painful end at the movie's finish. Very tough to take. Now, this may be a conscious choice to try and push the envelope in terms of defying audience expectations, but I think it's the wrong choice (and it didn't feel like a choice to me, it felt more like they couldn't figure out a way to end their movie). So, it's subjective, and I could well be wrong, which is always the case with this stuff.

[Geoff Alexander]

This is one of those rare occasions where I agree completely with Best.

From a business standpoint, if you're selling & getting hired at the rate these guys appear to be, then you've "proved" yourself in probably the most important way any aspiring new writer needs to.

"Proving" yourself as a writer aesthetically/critically is an entirely different matter (though certainly not entirely unrelated) and is hugely subjective and open to endless debate.

What's not subjective, though, and can actually be definitively determined are executed contracts and signed checks. :)

Now, that's proof that you're doing something right.

They've certainly proven that they can write commercial genre fare--at least, they've proven they can write the sort of thing that *appears* to be commercial genre fare in that it looks like a lot of stuff out there which has done well recently.

And power to them. I'm all for success, be it writers, actors, directors and yes, even producers! So good on them for their recent sales.

As to the material, I think we're applying a different system of measurement here, which is perfectly fine.