Interview: Lindsay Devlin (“Devil’s Due”) — Part 4
January has turned out to be a reliable month for Hollywood with regard to one genre in particular: Horror. This year was no different when Twentieth Century Fox released Devil’s Due, a movie that thus far has brought in over four times its production budget in box office revenues.
The movie’s success is one reason I was excited to interview its screenwriter Lindsay Devlin. Another reason is her extensive background working in Hollywood on the story development side of things.
Lindsay and I had a terrific conversation, and I’m pleased to share her many insights into the craft of screenwriting and the movie business, along with her creative process with the film Devil’s Due.
Today in Part 4, Lindsay wraps up some thoughts on found footage and lets us in on some other projects on her slate including a personal one that is likely to be her most important production:
Scott: I’m sure you’re aware that there are these found footage purists out there, who insist the conceit only works if we’re looking at the movie like it’s a documentary of some sort, either edited or raw.
I guess this goes back to Blair Witch Project, but Devil’s Due makes an interesting choice in that there’s multiple video sources. There’s the couple’s camera, a surveillance camera, there are cult members spying on the couple.
What was your thinking about this, and how did you end up landing on this approach that you used in Devil’s Due?
Lindsay: I think it is always a challenge. As you said, even if you give all the justification in the world, why someone’s filming something so much, and especially as things start to devolve, you really start to question why Zach would be filming his wife quite so much. So, there was sort of just the practical angle of, “We probably need some more coverage, some more sources,” but we also thought that the idea of the cult…
This was, we thought, a cool device to use the cameras in a very sinister, voyeuristic way to have the hidden cameras in the house.
Then it sort of, as you said, was a synchronistic kind of thing, because then you had both the logical reason to believe that the cult would do that, but then of course you get the extra coverage that they don’t know they’re being watched. So, you can have her in the bathtub, or just other moments of…sort of private moments of this couple, that you would otherwise get.
That was something that, to be honest, came with directors, because they had so much more experience with found footage. They’ve been doing that for years, and I certainly…this was my first experience, so we all brainstormed about that aspect of it, and came up with that device, and I thought it was really smart.
Scott: That speaks to one advantage you mentioned earlier when you’re using this type of narrative device, found footage, and that is you can stop and start the various video sources in such a way that you basically cut out the dull parts, and focus on all of the interesting ones. Did you find that to be the case?
Lindsay: Yeah, I certainly tried to keep it still feeling as natural as possible, so little moments that maybe at first don’t seem that exciting, but are just a couple doing something silly, or loving. Then, of course something creepy happens right after that.
It’s a balance of…it can’t be just like a scare, it’s got to be couched in something mundane, or something normal that then something else pops up, but yes, I think that that.
That’s definitely a fun way to kind of jump in and out of story, and not have to be quite so fluid with your storytelling.
Scott: I don’t want to give away the ending because it’s quite shocking, but did you always have it in mind, or did you go through any changes along the way?
Lindsay: If you’re talking specifically about what happens with Samantha’s character, yes. From the very beginning, I always wanted that to happen to her. But in terms of the last actual several frames of the movie, or what happens with Zach’s character, that changed quite a bit as the script evolved and even up through production and post production.
Scott: The movie has come out, and I just checked at Box Office Mojo, and it’s done $28 million domestic and international [Note: Currently $45M total]. I think the budget was reported at $7 million, for a movie released in January, that’s a really solid performance, and so I would imagine you got to be pretty satisfied with it. What is it like to have your first movie get released that you’ve written?
Lindsay: It truly is a surreal experience, especially because it happened so quickly by Hollywood standards. From the moment I had my dream to the day we wrapped production, was barely a year.
It was just hard for me to even fathom it was happening when it was happening, and then sitting in the theater with family and friends, and seeing it, and seeing my name, was…I can’t imagine a more thrilling feeling, to be honest. Obviously film is very collaborative, and I can’t take credit for it, even remotely, in its entirety.
There are so many choices that the directors came in and made, or the studio, or the producer, but I feel really proud of the end product. It’s not something maybe I ever would have necessarily envisioned me doing — everybody always asks, “Why did you write a horror movie?” or, “I can’t imagine you writing a horror movie, you’re so sweet.”
But, ultimately, what I’m most proud of is that we set out to make an elevated genre film, and make it character driven, and make it about something. And because I know where it came from, it literally came from something very personal to me, I am proud that I feel like the end result is representative of where I started.
Even though a lot of different creative choices were made, and not all of them were mine, I still feel like the core is there.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIlmP5LuGOM
Scott: Another bit of synchronicity: The movie comes out, and it turns out you yourself are pregnant. Is that kind of strange? Like to go and do these things, like baby showers, and shopping, and all this stuff like in the movie, only you’re doing it for real now?
Lindsay: It’s totally crazy. I wonder what movie I would’ve written if I wrote it after being pregnant, and really going through it, versus sort of my fears imagining pregnancy.
I guess, in a weird way, I’m glad it happened that way, because I think sometimes the fear of the unknown is more terrifying.
Because I think when you go through it, yeah, there are some scary moments, and some tense moments, but ultimately you feel like, “Oh, it wasn’t that bad.” So, I think, it happened at the right time, but it certainly is very, very ironic timing. The day my film debuted was literally when we announced our actual pregnancy to our group of friends. Everybody thought we were joking at first, but, no, that’s the way the universe played it. We joked that it was the sequel: “Devlin’s Due.”
Scott: You’re attached to a number of other projects you’re writing. I’d like to ask you about a couple of them. Reboot: “When the world becomes affected by a deadly virus, a pair of zombie teenagers plot to exact revenge against those responsible for the outbreak.” That’s a YA novel isn’t it, originally?
Lindsay: It is.
Scott: That’s with Chernin Entertainment, so how’d you get involved in that, and what’s the status on that project?
Lindsay: That was a book that was sent to me, and I thought it was just a really exciting world. Dystopian YA novels like Hunger Games, and Divergent are certainly a popular genre. I was really drawn to the characters, and sort of unconventional love story.
I also thought it was a great new challenge for me, because I had done horror, and supernatural horror, and I had written a big fairy tale script, and so this was something more in the sci‑fi genre. I pitched my take on it, and they hired me. I just finished my most recent rewrite for the studio, and last I heard they’re going out to directors.
Scott: That’s exciting.
Lindsay: Yeah.
Scott: Then Beta: “In a future world where the very rich use clones as their enslaved workforce. One new Beta clone begins to discover the dark mystery surrounding her origins.” That’s I believe at ABC, and that’s also an adaptation, isn’t it?
Lindsay: Yes, also another YA novel originally. We aged it up, so the characters were a little bit older. It was a really great experience. It was my first TV pilot, and similar to Reboot set in the near future, slightly dystopian world, but very different thematically, and very different world creation.
So, very much enjoyed that, TV is just so fast paced and exciting. You write the drafts just lightning fast, and you get your answers even faster.
Scott: Isn’t it interesting, Lindsay, we started off the conversation you talking about when you were six and seven years old, and you’re writing these stories, and one of your favorite movies is Watcher in the Woods, and you were really drawn to these otherworldly type of stories, and here, I’m looking at these two projects, and both of them deal with these kind of otherworldly type of environments.
Lindsay: Absolutely. I’ve only recently started to look back at the movies, books, and early childhood influences and realize ‑‑ when you’re young, these things really stay with you. I feel so lucky to now be writing in the worlds that excited me back then.
Especially, there aren’t that many women writing in the genre space in Hollywood, so I feel particularly lucky that those were my early influences, because I feel like it makes me stand out a little bit from the crowd.
Scott: Parenthetically, I wish you the best of success personally, but also just more generally to break down that conventional wisdom in Hollywood like, “Only guys can write horror.” Anything to create more opportunities for a greater diversity of writers in all genre spaces.
Lindsay: Thank you, and I’m certainly not alone. There’s a handful of women writers who are very strong in this space. What’s even more striking to me in 2014 is there are still so few female directors. I don’t know if the percentage has changed at all in the last many decades. That’s something I’d like to do.
Scott: Writing director.
Lindsay: Yes. I look back to my childhood at the fact that I was always directing everybody in my little productions, so I feel like I will be right at home on set. {laughs}
Tomorrow in Part 5, Lindsay reveals some of her trade secrets in terms of the craft of screenwriting.
For Part 1 of the interview, go here.
Part 2, here.
Part 3, here.
Lindsay is repped by UTA and Mosaic.
Twitter: @DevlinLindsay.
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