After about a half-hour of watching this like a normal movie I grew disenchanted.
Just didn't care.
Switched over to the DVD extras to mine what nuggets I could from there.
Having read the wiki synopsis of the
1973 version, directed by Romero from his own screenplay rewrite of Paul McCollough's original screenplay
The Mad People, I see that the 2010 remake is roughly the same in principles.
"The script dealt with a military bioweapon that was accidentally released into
a small town, with the military subsequently trying to cover up the incident
and the townspeople revolting. Romero revealed that the military subplot
was only featured in the first act of the script, and the rest of the film focused
on the survivors and their attempts to cope with what was happening."So this film is supposed to be not so much horror as action/adventure/thriller with strong horrific elements that propel the situational actions of the protagonists.
The producer/money agreed to plop $250k if Romero re-wrote with an emphasis on "the military takeover of the town".
Done.
So the die was cast.
Lettuce follow the bouncing ball for the remake...
-
Scott Kosar wrote screenplay for producers Michael Aguilar and Dean Goergaris, having optioned the rights to The Crazies directly from Romero and they also had a deal with Paramount Pictures.
- Aguilar and Goergaris then approached director
Breck Eisner to be director with Romero being on board as executive producer. (Several other "executive producers" would follow).
- Eisner liked the script, but had a different take on it, so he hired another writer,
Ray Wright (Puh-leeeaze! Who thinks up of these preposterous names I ask you?!), to do a rewrite of putting the movie in the military's point of view, turning it more towards action and less towards horror.
- Meanwhile, Paramount decides this paltry $20M project is beneath it's new image it wanted to carve, releases it to Rogue Pictures.
- Rogue is bought by Relativity Media.
- Relativity releases it to Overture Films OCT 8, 2008 for production and distribution.
And then guess what?
- JUL 23, 2010 Relativity Media takes over the distribution and marketing operations of Overture Films!
Ha!
Who's got the crazies, now! :o
Anyway, all (poor) Ray Wright's re-write of Scott Kosar's re-write of George Romero's re-write of... uh... who was it? Oh! Paul McCollough's original screenplay
The Mad People aside, director Breck Eisner re-writes a bunch of it in the field and with the help of pretty much anybody who wanted to.
Click there =>
The Crazies, DRAFT 02/20/07 CURRENT REVISIONS BY RAY WRIGHT <= for fish wrapper.
Notes:The "throw away" secondary character of Rebecca had her role expanded because the Dir/Prod "liked her".
Director did a lot of research... ahem! The Director had his SFX people, mainly
Robert Hall and his Almost Human Inc. crew do a lot of research to develop the "look" of the crazies with
grrrreat emphasis that they NOT look like zombies!
The director (not the writer) did a lot of research for proper military containment capabilities and haz-mat procedure.
45 day shoot, from March - May 2009 for interior shots in Perry, Georgia and April 2009 for exterior shots in Lenox, Iowa.
So that's...
FEB 2007 R.Wright's draft date
to
APR 2009 final shoot days= 2+ years
Winter's Bone director and producer took about the same for pre-production of their 24 day shoot.
FEB 2010 release date (d@mn near the end of it, too)
= 3 years from R.Wright's draft date
Don't hold your breath, peeps.
Tax incentives from both states drove shot locations.
Budget and time constraints changed many scenes.
Alllllrighty, then.
Ya'll go on and obsess over weenie little thangs in your screenplays, now. Ya he-ah?! ;D
But first, enjoy Breck Eisner's 10 minute student film he wrote (MFA thesis film for the University of Southern California), AKA how he got started in this mess.
<object style="height: 390px; width: 640px">Honestly, disregarding the cinematic aspects and focusing on the screenplay action and dialog itself, this doesn't "sound' much different than many of the shorts submitted here.
I can't identify it exactly what the difference is but it's there.
I'll pull a Billy.
Interesting Production notes:
http://www.participantmedia.com/files/pdf1/Crazies_Production_Notes.pdf