Interview: Justin Marks — Part 4

Screenwriter Justin Marks has been described as the “most gainfully employed professional fanboy on the planet right now.” Understandably so given the fact Justin has written such projects The Raven, Super Max, Suicide Squad, Shadow of the Colossus, Hack/Slash and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea: Captain Nemo.

The Hollywood Reporter recently featured this guest column Justin wrote called “My Life as a Screenwriter You’ve Never Heard Of.”

Justin has written over 20 movie projects. This interview in 6-parts offers an informed perspective of the craft from Hollywood’s front lines.

Today in Part 4, Justin discusses the low-budget project he wrote “Come Sundown,” what he’s learned about making an indie movie, and his foray into writing for TV:

Scott: Out of the mix of all these projects, there’s another one I’d like to talk about, which is significantly different, it seems like. “Come Sundown” which is an indie action thriller. Elgin James, who I interviewed here, is attached to direct. It’s described as a road trip that takes a dark and violent turn when a family is taken hostage and a doctor must match wits with a dangerous criminal, in order to save his wife and daughter. Was that a spec script?

Justin: Yes, I wrote it just before Voltron. It was the first personal movie I ever wrote. And it’s evolved significantly with Elgin. When I first wrote it, I was just coming off of a really bad break‑up and living with a friend in Park La Brea, as two single guys, trying to figure out their way into world. In Park LaBrea, you meet all these young families moving to the city. And there was such a tension, between these families who had everything, and me, an assistant at the time with no career or girlfriend, who had nothing. So I decided to write a relationship story between a doctor who has everything… a wife and a kid, and really everything to lose, and this criminal who had nothing, and nothing to lose. In their own universes, these two would be indestructible, but when you put them together they will destroy each other’s lives.

Scott: What’s been your experience trafficking in the whole indie film world?

Justin: [laughs] You need a great producer. Fortunately, we have one. Jamie Patricof, who produced Half Nelson, Blue Valentine, A Place Beyond the Pines, has great taste and great energy. Which you need, because Jamie and I have been working on Come Sundown for years. I’m almost ashamed to admit how long we’ve been working on it. But that’s what happens with indie movies. They have to be good enough to stay with you. I remember him talking about Blue Valentine. I think it took them eight years to get that movie made. The stories have to stand the test of time, but so do the relationships with the people you work with. It’s equally infuriating as the studio game. But you’re peddling a different material. The rewards can be really great if you manage to make it in the right way.

Scott: One last project, a TV project that you did for SyFy “Rewind”. It’s described as, it revolves around a team of military field operatives and civilian scientists who must use untested technology to travel back in time to alter past events, in order to change the future and avoid a devastating terrorist attack.

Justin: That’s the description they released. Isn’t that the most generic description you could ever imagine? [laughs] It so doesn’t capture what was two and a half years of my life, trying to get that show on the air. [laughs]

Scott: What was the genesis of that project?

Justin: I’d always been really interested in time travel, as any writer has been. I had some very specific ideas for how it could be done in a non‑paradoxical universe. Lloyd Braun, who is a great producer, great editor, used to run ABC. Now he has his own company, with Gail Berman. Lloyd also wanted to do time travel and had this very specific hook into the world. I said, “This is the perfect opportunity to marry my vision of time travel.” We did. We sold it to SyFy. It was a long process to get the pilot green lit. We went and shot it with the great Jack Bender last year.

For me, I had a movie produced and I’ve done some, what do they call it? It’s such an old‑fashioned term, but “script doctoring” on movies that have been made that don’t have my name on them. But I’d never really gotten to be part of TV, where the writer gets a seat right next to the director, because you’re the executive producer. You actually have to answer questions, which is such a strange thing. Normally, it’s the director’s show and you’re just there to see that everything makes sense and that the script is being protected. Or the story is being protected. But in the case of TV, you’re making money decisions, and casting decisions, and design decisions.

That process also taught me another valuable lesson as a writer, which is that every scene has to pass the get-up-at-5-am test. Production is exhausting. Getting up before the sun rises and working all day, it’s brutal. So the scene you’re writing, the one that’s going to be shot that day, it has to be worth the trip. It has to be worth bringing 200 people out of bed, and into the Canadian winter to create something. It’s hard to envision that when you’re at your desk, so far removed. You just write off a scene and say, oh well, it’s a dry, necessary scene. But shooting that dry, necessary scene for 16 hours in the winter… it’s awful. You have to be excited to shoot it. Because if you’re not, and you wrote it, then certainly no director, or cast, or 200 crew members are going to be excited about showing up.

Scott: Are you still interested in TV?

Justin: Very much so. I’m in fact doing two television projects [laughs] as we speak. I really like TV. I think it’s great for writers, because it’s not just about the writer being king. It’s also about learning the responsibility and accountability that comes with being king. I’ll never forget, there was a character I wanted to keep in the “Rewind” pilot and we didn’t have the money for it. I said, “Well, what do we do?” They said, “You have to go find the money.” I sat down with the 1st AD, and we looked through the script, and we found the money.

Tomorrow in Part 5, Justin shares some of his thoughts about the screenwriting craft.

For Part 1, go here.

For Part 2, go here.

For Part 3, go here.

Please stop by comments to thank Justin and ask any questions you may have.

Justin is repped by CAA and Madhouse Entertainment.

Twitter: @Justin_Marks_

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