My first feature movie goes into production on July 18th in Louisiana.

“The Darkness” the journey of a father to get to his kids when sunlight & people inexplicably disappear.

Written with the film’s director, Simon Foster.

With Christopher Eccleston playing the father, Scout Taylor-Compton his daughter and Michael Biehn, Shawn Roberts and Francis Fisher in supporting roles.

Cinema and DVD deals were agreed at the Berlin Film Festival earlier this year and release is scheduled for Spring 2012.

Once the movie has been released we will post the original spec script and the final shooting script so a comparison between the two can be made. Personally I think the changes that have been made to suit budget, location and what came about in development, will be of interest to many.

Tagline: There's Only One Rule: Don’t answer the phone.

Awesomely exciting! Great cast, although the logline does remind me quite strongly of Vanishing on 7th Street.

Congrats Ron!  Doesn't get better than Michael Biehn.

Will definitely be neat for people to be able to make a direct comparison between spec and shooting script.

Congratulations, Ron!

I will really enjoy seeing a real comparison between a spec and shooting script.

...and this sounds like a movie that would be interesting to me and up my alley.

Sandra

Well done Ron.

Any chance you could fill us in a bit on the process you went through to get the funding and the cast together?

Rick.

Quoted from Scar Tissue Films Well done Ron. Any chance you could fill us in a bit on the process you went through to get the funding and the cast together? Rick.

Simon Foster, the director and co-writer approached me after he read my material on InkTip in October 2005. He sent me a two-page outline of his concept and asked if I would be interested in writing the screenplay.

As I had only started writing at the beginning of that year I jumped at the offer, agreed a deal, signed a contract and started work in December. By February 2006 I sent him the first draft. We had a development meeting in March and between us polished the first draft into a screenplay we were both happy with.

Simon, who is also producing the movie, worked out the budget, prepared the business plan and his pitch to financiers and visited Cannes that year with some good results.

Initially, everything seemed to be good for a shoot in 2009, but then suddenly with the collapse in the financial markets we were back to day one, overnight.

Simon went looking again but this time with a lower budget of $1.5mil as opposed to $4.5mil and I worked on editing the script to reflect the changes in budget.

Through contacts and friends Simon had established in the industry as a musician, gradually he raised fresh interest in the premise and at the start of this year things came together again for a rescheduled shoot, initially for March this year, but again delays crept in here we are in June nearly six years since I received the first email from him.

Getting Pamela Wallace, (Oscar winning writer of Witness) on board as an executive producer and Lindsay Chag as the casting director was a big step forward in getting a quality cast together within the budget.

If there are lessons to be gleamed from this, it is don’t stop believing in yourself and don’t give up

Congratulations to you!

InkTip is always looking for success stories, so if you haven't already, you might want to let them know about this.

Maybe your story would be good for the Simply Radio podcast?

Thanks,

Jerrol, knows of the project and no doubt will publicise it soon.  

I know I'm way late for the dance but congrats, Ron. I remember you mentioned this one a while back. It'll be interesting to see exactly why the sun disappears.

Michael Biehn, huh? Bringing out the classics.

PS: Lame tagline but what the hell.