(This article was written for
The Vancouver Province on March 4, 2001)
By Peter Layton
Special to The Province
Every aspiring screenwriter dreams of his or her script being made into a movie. Realistically though, the odds against them are around the Lotto 6/49 level.
Maybe I should buy a ticket then, because last year a script I wrote was made into a movie.
In the spring of 1995, I had an idea for a film: "What would you do if you accidentally killed somebody but by walking away, you'd get away with it?
Called "A Lucky Shot", my story was about two American bear hunters who accidentally shoot and kill a B.C. game warden. While both men fire, only one bullet hits. Neither man knows who fired the fatal round. Panicky and in shock, one wants to turn himself in, the other just wants to bury the body, get the hell home, and pretend it never happened.
In the spring of '97, moving at the speed of procrastination, I took "Lucky Shot" to Shavick Entertainment, a local film company."Just put it over there", I was told. "Over there" was a mound of scripts uncomfortably close to a large wastepaper basket.
Six months later, out of the blue, I got The Call, the one every screenwriter fantasizes about. Shavick was interested and wanted to film my script.
There'd be no need for drugs if you could bottle the high I was on. I told friends, family, co-workers, strangers waiting at bus stops and became an Instant Movie Writing Expert.
And Mr.Expert was kept busy, rewriting the beginning, the ending and giving one secondary character a sex change from male to female. Then I was asked to put in a nude scene. Uh...two men out in the bush? But, hey, anything for my movie, so the new female character was given a husband for an unnecessary, awkwardly plotted nude love scene.
Still, it wasn't until late '99 that Shavick producer Brad van Arragon called to say that "Lucky Shot" would definitely be made. Only now I'd been traded.
"Lucky Shot" was now a Mind's Eye Production, a company based in Saskatchewan, where it would be filmed. Uh...men hunting bears in those thick Prairie forests? Ah, who cares, they're making my movie!
Jennifer Beals, of "Flashdance" fame, would play the Game Warden tracking down Craig Sheffer ("A River Runs Through It") and Corey Haim ("The Lost Boys"), the two bear hunters. Gabrielle Anwar ("Scent of a Woman") was cast as the fiancee to Craig, sister to Cory. Both producer Keven Dewalt and director Rob King assured me that there would be no major story changes. Except thank God, the unnecessary, awkwardly plotted nude love scene. It was now gone. I had to grin when they gingerly told me this, as if I'd be all upset.
After three giddy, exciting, head-swelling weeks, filming ended. While waiting for the final version, I saw videotapes of interviews and behind-the-scenes action, shot by the local Regina CBC station. Gabrielle Anwar won my heart forever by remarking on how good the script was.
Gabrielle, dinner's on me, anytime. You too, Craig Sheffer, and we could've done it when he came to Vancouver to do another movie. Trying hard to sound like a casual fellow industry pro and not a psycho-stalker-killer, I called their production office, saying I'd really like to talk to "Mr.Sheffer" about the "Lucky Shot" shoot.
He never called back. Maybe he never got my message. More likely, he just didn't want to listen to some writer babbling away about a project he'd already forgotten about. Truth is, if I was him, I wouldn't have called me either.
Kevin DeWalt, the producer, e-mailed me to say that the editing was almost finished, that it looked great, and, oh yeah, they'd change the title from "Lucky Shot" to "Without Malice".
"Without Malice"? A legal term? What is this, a courtroom drama? Maybe "Lucky Shot" was a dopey title, but it was mine, damn it! Wasn't there already a 1981 Paul Newman film called "Absence of Malice"? Aaaagh, those butchers are wrecking my movie! And they better not have cut out that beautiful nude love scene I'd worked so hard on!
OK, now I think I understand why Craig Sheffer never called.
On Aug.4, 2000, a VHS copy of my move was FedExed to me. Ripping the package open, I shoved the tape into my VCR. I couldn't wait! "Without Malice" opens with a surgery scene, so the credit I'd dreamed of for so long, "Written by Peter Layton," was over a man's orange-painted nipple.
I wouldn't care if my credit was over somebody's bare moon hams hanging out a car window, it was there, baby! It was there! And third in line, right after the producer and director, very cool.
Watching something on screen that's bubbled out of your brain is very weird. It's impossible to be objective. Usually when people ask me what I thought of it, I just say, "Well, the writing's great." But here's what I really thought:
First, the look of the film was completely different from how I'd imagined it, all frozen white land instead of lush green forest. While the weather gave the movie a stark beauty, it changed what I wrote and what was filmed.
In my script, a panicky hunter tosses his incriminating rifle into a Lake. In the movie, Craig Sheffer heaves it into a big snow bank on the shore. He had no choice: The lake was frozen concrete solid.
Corey Haim (left) and Jennifer Beals were cast in the movie.
Some scenes that were totally kick-ass in my mind just strolled by on screen, while others were far better than I'd ever hoped for. The soundtrack featured a sparse, haunting movie score, highlighting the trapped desperation of the two hunters. A bear attack and a logging truck accident weren't as wild and intense as I'd pictured but still believable, which is all you can ask.
All in all, I was liking it, until the ending came. "What the heck is this?" I asked myself. They'd changed the ending. Trust me, only the writer would notice or care. But I was the writer, so yeah, it did bug me. Still does.
I have no right to complain. Something I wrote was actually made into a film. Realistically, it shouldn't have happened and it may never happen again.
So to all you aspiring screenwriters out there, don't give up. Forget the odds, believe in yourself, keep dreaming and working...unless your scripts are better than mine, in which case, go meditate on a mountaintop for 20 years.
As of this writing, to my knowledge, "Without Malice" has not been released or aired yet anywhere. If you're interested, go on the Net and Google up "Without Malice". there are some press releases, a movie poster and 21 publicity stills.
Or just invite me over for dinner. I'll bring the tape and you can have a world premiere in your living room.
Peter Layton is a CBC-TV editor in Vancouver.
