Interview (Part 4): Lori Evans Taylor

In July, Lori Evans Taylor sold the spec script “Bed Rest” to MGM. Deadline reported it this way:

Spec is a Hitchcockian thriller in the vein of Rear Window and What Lies Beneath, centering on a pregnant woman who is isolated and confined to bed rest.

I reached out to friend of the blog Chris Sparling, whose screenwriting credits include Buried, ATM, The Sea of Trees, and The Atticus Institute which he also directed. Chris is adding the role of producer to his credits with “Bed Rest”. He got me in touch with Lori and we ended up having a great one-hour conversation.

Today in Part 4, Lori provides details on the sale of her spec script “Bed Rest”:

Scott: How did you intersect with producers Chris Sparling and Karen Rosenfelt?

Lori: We actually finished a version of “Bed Rest” last fall. It was similar to the current draft, with the exception of a few key changes. We went out to a few production companies and one company wanted to develop it, so I worked with them for a while. It just became a different movie. The development slowed down.

Then in May, my managers and I, we decided to step away from the situation and rethink how we wanted to approach “Bed Rest”. When we did that, two things happened.

One is I went back to my original script and I made a few key story changes.

Then, at the same time, Chris Sparling, who is also a client of Kaplan/Perrone contacted them about getting involved with more projects as a producer. So they said, “Hey, we have this contained thriller right now. Maybe you want to give it a read and jump on as a producer.” Chris is actually a master at the contained thriller. He wrote Buried and ATM, so it seemed like a perfect fit.

He ended up reading the draft that got developed with the production company, and right after that we started talking. I told him, “I’d love to go back to my original draft, and here’s what I want to do.” Bless his heart he actually ended up reading a few different drafts right out of the gate.

So I incorporated my changes and then we started working through the script. He was really instrumental. Being a contained thriller guy, he had great instincts about when to milk or double down on certain moments, and when to go for a slow burn. He was a great collaborator.

That script is the version we took out in July. We took it out to producers first who then took it to studios. Karen Rosenfelt read it and loved it. She’s the one who championed it at MGM, and MGM purchased it.

It was actually a really cool experience, because my managers went out with the script the day I left for vacation.

I knew we were going out but I didn’t know the scope of it. I also didn’t want to get my hopes up too much. I always felt Bed Rest was a very producible movie, but specs are really hard to sell these days, especially without attachments.

But as the week rolled on, I started getting some really promising calls from my managers saying, “We’re getting some interesting bites. Some really big producers, they’re loving the script. People are attaching themselves. We’re going into studios.”

It was catching on like wildfire, but it didn’t feel real to me since I was on the East Coast. Sporadically throughout the week I would check online to see if I could find anything, but I never did. Then on Friday afternoon I happened to Google “Bed Rest, Lori Evans Taylor” just to see if anything would come up, and suddenly an article popped up on TrackingBoard.com, “Smoldering Spec Bed Rest Scorching Through Town.” Suddenly, it all became very real.

As I was reading the article, that’s when my manager called and said, “Hey, we have a bite. MGM just made an offer.” So it happened very quickly, and it was really exciting.

Scott: It’s so funny when they go out with the news item about the deal that MGM acquired it, they say, “The first script deal for Lori Evans Taylor.” You read that, and you’re like, “Oh, she’s a rookie scribe,” but as it turns out, you’ve worked in the business for several years, and the script itself went out in the fall. It’s not like an overnight success story, you write the script, send it out, boom. It has this long history to it.

Lori: It does. I laughed when the headlines came out, tyro and rookie. I’ve been hustling for a while now so I’m not exactly an overnight success. But I am certainly a newcomer in the eyes of a lot of people in the industry.

I equate Hollywood to a private party. It’s a hot ticket. Everybody wants an invitation. By selling Bed Rest I finally got my invitation. I finally got to stroll into the party. But the fact is I’ve been waiting outside for a long time, behind the velvet ropes, freezing my butt off, waiting for the bouncer to call my name.

Scott: What’s happened since you sold the script?

Lori: We immediately jumped in and met with MGM and Karen Rosenfelt and Chris Sparling. MGM is really excited about it. They’re very passionate about the project. They have some thoughts so we’re moving forward with a rewrite. Now I just need to go do my job and get it made.

Scott: The bottle water tour I assume. You getting meetings off this?

Lori: Yes.

Scott: How’s that been?

Lori: It’s been amazing. It really has. It’s nice to finally get a piece of work out in the feature space. I’ve met a lot of people on the TV side but to break open on the feature side has been really gratifying.

I sent a few questions to one of the producers on the project Chris Sparling. Here are his responses:

Scott: Putting on your producer’s hat, what elements of the “Bed Rest” script resonated with you when you first read it?

Chris: My first reaction was to Lori’s really smart solution for the haunted-house-movie conundrum: why doesn’t the protagonist just leave? By putting the main character on bed rest, physically unable to escape the specific danger, the problem cannot simply be solved with common sense. But then, the more times i read the script, the more i started to connect with the dramatic elements of the material. It’s a survival story, in the supernatural sense, but it’s also a story of survival set in the natural world. the main character, hindered by her circumstance, must overcome insurmountable odds to protect her unborn child. That premise would make for a great drama all on its own, but, to be honest, it would have been a difficult movie to get made — especially at a studio. So, by marrying that dramatic premise with a genre conceit, Lori made both of our jobs much easier in that regard.

Scott: You’ve got a strong track record as a screenwriter with contained stories. Given your experience, were there any particular points of focus you worked on with Lori in the script polish phase?

Chris: Contained stories, I’ve come to learn, undergo a unique sense of scrutiny because viewers are given ample time to dissect what they’re watching. In more open stories, because you’re quickly bouncing from one location to the next and watching interactions between a wide variety of characters, there’s very little time, scene-by-scene, to fully digest what you just saw before you’re already onto the next scene. Contained stories, by contrast, allow viewers to focus quite sharply on a single environment and the small number of people who occupy it. In working with Lori in polishing her script for “Bed Rest,” this was always on my mind. We set out to make the film bulletproof to logic criticism (well, at least as close to bulletproof as possible). Streamlining and clarifying the supernatural mythology, for example, was something we spent time on getting right. It couldn’t be convoluted and/or not make sense; it had to be clear. Not boring or unworthy of deeper thought, but still clear. otherwise, the audience would have time — for the aforementioned reasons — to pick it apart.

Scott: As a producer on the project, what’s next?

Chris: What’s next for the project, or what’s next for me? If you’re asking about the former, it’s helping Lori create a new draft that addresses the studio’s notes. I’ve partnered with some great producers on this project, and we’ll be doing all we can to get her movie made (eg., getting the script to filmmakers we like for it, trying to attach talent, etc.). If you’re asking about the latter, I’m excited to continue producing other people’s material, in addition to writing and directing my own. I’m currently producing a project with a really talented writer/director, based on an idea I brought him. I’ll be seeing a first draft of the script soon, which hopefully begins a process similar to the one I experienced with Lori on “Bed Rest”.

Tomorrow in Part 5, Lori shares some thoughts on how she approaches the craft of screenwriting.

For Part 1 of the interview, go here.

Part 2, here.

Part 3, here.

Lori is repped by ICM Partners and Kaplan/Perrone.