Everything is nothing until it is something
A while back, I had some interest from Hollywood in a short story of mine. I’d had nibbles now and then over the years, but this was different. It was fun and exciting and, damn!, the discussions petered out after three months or so. Somehow, I managed to take the disappointment in my stride. As my screenwriter friend, Matthew Cope, had cautioned me at the outset, “Everything is nothing until it is something,” especially where film and TV are concerned. And nowhere are Matthew’s words of wisdom more applicable than in the “overnight success story” of another writer-friend, Lawrence C. Connolly.
One story, one day, one phone call
Maybe you know Lawrence. He’s published tons of short fiction and has several collections available from all the usual sellers. One of his stories is a brilliant exercise in horror, written way back in 1988, and originally titled TRAUMATIC DESCENT. After a string of rejections, it was bought in 1991 by editor Thomas Monteleone and finally published in BORDERLANDS 3 in 1993.
Okay, are you following me here? It was five years from when Lawrence wrote the story till it appeared in print. But this wasn’t the end of it. In 1994, White-Wolf Publishing reprinted DESCENT in a paperback collection. Great. Fine. But nothing out of the ordinary. Short fiction often generates added income for authors in the form of reprints. And then another six years went by …
It was August 2000 when Lawrence’s phone rang. The caller was David Slade, director of 30 Days of Night and The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, along with episodes of Breaking Bad, Hannibal, American Gods, and the jarringly creepy Metalhead episode in season 4 of Black Mirror. David had come across the White-Wolf paperback in a London bookshop, he’d read DESCENT, loved it, and hoped Lawrence would permit him to make a movie of it. Better yet, he promptly purchased a 3-year option on the story. Wow!
And then … and then … and then …
Two years later, in 2002, Lawrence and his co-writer, the late Charly Cantor, turned in the final draft of the screenplay—now retitled THIS WAY TO EGRESS. Clearly, this was every writer’s dream and it was about to come true for Lawrence C. Connolly.
So what happened next? Nothing. Zip. Zero. Nada. Pre-production on the film came to an abrupt and unceremonious halt as other priorities shunted EGRESS to the side.
You bet it was crushing. All that time and effort down the drain. But what could Lawrence do, other than carry on, writing, teaching, writing, dreaming, writing, persisting, and writing? In the years that followed, the original story was reprinted yet again in BEST OF BORDERLANDS, as well as in Lawrence’s own collection, THIS WAY TO EGRESS. While he never forgot the film-that-almost-was, he also put the experience behind him, maintaining his prolific ways. It didn’t happen, so it didn’t happen. That’s the way it goes sometimes.
A happy ending thirty years in the making
Suddenly, it was 2015 and, out of the blue, Lawrence heard from David Slade again. A new movie was in the works—a horror anthology that would include five short films. Would Lawrence be willing to revise his feature-length script into the shorter format? In an instant, every up and down was forgotten. Even knowing the risks, Lawrence didn’t hesitate to accept.
After thirty-years of rejection, surprise, hope, disappointment, disenchantment, and excitement, THIS WAY TO EGRESS finally made it to the big screen. Indeed, it’s the fourth of five short films that make up the R-rated NIGHTMARE CINEMA. Starring Mickey Rourke as The Projectionist, it features the work of directors Mick Garris, Joe Dante, Ryuhei Kitamura, Alejandro Brugues, and, of course, David Slade. (For trivia buffs, take note that Richard Chamberlain of Dr. Kildare fame co-stars in the film.)
NIGHTMARE CINEMA premiered at the 23rd edition of Montreal’s Fantasia International Film Festival this past July (2018). Since then, it’s made the rounds of other festivals, earned an impressive 92% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, and will roll out to a wider audience in 2019, both in movie theaters and on AMC’s Shudder. Best of all, the most critically acclaimed of the five short films to date is Lawrence’s THIS WAY TO EGRESS, with Elizabeth Reaser in the lead.
So what’s the lesson here? Beats me. Except perhaps that “overnight success” can be years in the making and, more often than not, the determining factor is blind luck. If David Slade hadn’t gone into that London bookshop …
To learn more about NIGHTMARE CINEMA, Lawrence C. Connolly, and the scary stuff that’s going on inside his head, click here.