Interview (Part 2): Gary Whitta

A few months back, I had the opportunity to interview screenwriter Gary Whitta whose movie credits include The Book of Eli (2010), After Earth (2013), and the upcoming Star Wars: Rogue One (2016). Having recently seen his first novel “Abomination” published, Gary and I had a wide-ranging conversation touching on a host of subjects which I think readers will find quite interesting.

Today in Part 2, Gary and I dig into his thought processes related to the movie The Book of Eli, how he pounded out a draft of that script in one week, selling it, eventually to star Denzel Washington:

Scott: Your first spec sale was “Reaper”.

Gary: Yeah, that was a long time ago. I have a poster on my wall from when we first set it up that says, “Coming 2005.” And I’m told by the current producers that it’s still coming! That’s a constant reminder to me that sometimes, films can take a very long time to make, if ever. The development of scripts into movies often moves at a glacial pace, you really do need a lot of patience in order to not get frustrated, that’s something you learn very quickly.

Prior to “Reaper”, I had broken in by getting a manager with a sci-fi spec I wrote called “Oliver”, which was a very ambitious post-apocalyptic adaptation of “Oliver Twist”. A piece of writing that got my foot in the door and representation, but it wasn’t really the best script to try to sell right off the bat. It was very elaborate, not cheap to make, as a first-time writer you’re unlikely to sell a piece of material like that. So my managers asked me what else I had — which, by the way, is a question you always need to be able to answer, always have more than just one idea to talk about. So I rattled off a bunch of ideas. I said, “I’ve got this one. It’s a supernatural war about a private detective who gets a job working for the Grim Reaper.” They responded to that idea as something they’d have a better chance of selling, so I wrote it and we did sell it to an independent production company. Since then it’s been through several directors, the original producers went bankrupt, it’s changed hands several times and yet somehow it’s still alive and we’re finally trying to get it make later this year. It’s funny, since the movie that is about the gray area that exists between life or death, this the movie itself refuses to die and also has so far refused to get made. It’s been very stubborn in both directions.

Scott: Before we talk about your new novel, “Abomination,” I’d like to explore the movie The Book of Eli, which you wrote. I watched it again recently and really enjoyed it. Here’s the IMDb summary: “A post‑apocalyptic tale in which a lone man fights his way across America in order to protect the sacred book that holds the secrets to saving human kind.” What was the inspiration for the story?

Gary: It originally had really pulpy roots. It started out as me just wanting to do a classic wandering hero movie. I grew up on a lot of classic samurai films, on Westerns, iconic characters like The Man With No Name, Zatoichi, and even Obi-Wan Kenobi. Star Wars was, of course, very much influenced by the great samurai and Western heroes that came before it. I’ve always loved that romantic notion of the wondering nomadic hero, the warrior prophet. He’s a peaceful man, but if you get in his way, you’re going to regret it. I’ve always wanted to do my version of that character, it feels very mythic to me.

For a long time, Eli was a very pulpy character. I was trying to find some way to elevate the character and come up with a idea that would make the film more than just a piece of popcorn entertainment. I needed something more substantive to carry the film thematically. The idea of the Bible, how it may be the last copy and why it would be so important to protect a piece of literature and who else might want it and for what reasons… that was the light bulb moment that gave me enough red meat to feel that there was a real movie there.

Scott: Urban legend has it that you wrote this script on spec and didn’t tell anyone about it including your agents and managers. Is that right?

Gary: That’s absolutely true. There’s always a battle in this business between what attracts you creatively to writing something and then what the potential for that piece is commercially. I may have an idea for a script that I really want to do, but it’s such an out-here idea that the idea of it ever getting made as a film seems very, very remote.

You’re always looking for that balance between art and commerce. For me, it needs to be an idea that I can get creatively excited about, while also having the confidence that at the end of the process it has enough commercial appeal to actually sell it and see it get made. But with Eli, I kind of threw all that away because I was really so in love with the idea creatively that I didn’t care if it passed the commercial smell-test. The idea of a crazy old man with a Bible in one hand and a sword in the other just didn’t seem like something that would sell. And it was really violent too, the original script it more violent than the finished film, we had to tone it down quite a bit. But creatively I was so excited by it that I just didn’t care. I knew that if I called my managers or my agent and told them the idea that they would talk me out of writing it. So I never picked up the phone, I just went and wrote it.

It didn’t seem like so much of a risk because it was already pretty well formed as a story in my head. One of the interesting things about Eli is that it’s not particularly complicated. It has very few moving parts in terms of the structure and the mechanics of the plot. So I didn’t have to spend a lot of time breaking the story. I knew who the characters were. I felt like it was something I could write very quickly. And I was so enamored with the idea that I felt that the only way to get it out of my system was to write it out, exorcize it that way.

I wrote it very, very quickly over the course of about a week. I did a vomit draft in six or seven days, 20 pages a day, 20 hours a day, working really, really feverishly on it. When it was done, I sent it to my agent, and I don’t think they knew what to make of it at first. Again, if I had pitched them the idea, they probably would have talked me out of it. But we sent it out and we sold it. I think in the end, it’s a lesson that in trying to find that balance between creative and commercial appeal, you always err on the side of what excites you creatively. That’s the only way to write honestly. A lot of people like to chase trends. They see a hit movie, and then they want to try to emulate that movie. That does not feel creatively satisfying to me at all.

Scott: If I could drill down into the protagonist of the story of Eli, played by Denzel Washington, you mentioned that you’re fascinated with these classic wandering hero types and The Man With No Name from the Sergio Leone Dollars Trilogy. Yojimbo comes to mind, the 1961 Kurosawa movie.

Joseph Campbell refers to a hero as someone who gives him or herself over to a cause bigger than themselves. Eli certainly qualifies. He’s got this goal with the sacred book to give it to someone who can put it to good use.

He doesn’t even know specifically where. He’s heading West. In some ways, it’s like, he’s given himself over to something requiring almost blind faith. I’m curious, were you at all influenced by this idea of the Hero’s Journey?

Gary: Yeah, it’s interesting. The Joseph Campbell stuff is not something that I ever really studied in any depth until I started working on Star Wars, at which point I really immersed myself in it because it’s such an integral part of why the Star Wars movies work as well as they do. When you see a story that really, really appeals to you ‑‑ one that resonates with you down to your bones ‑‑ they always come back to those classic mythic heroe’s journeys. That’s why we’ve been telling the same stories to each other for the last 5,000 years. I think a lot of those lessons we learn simply by osmosis, by watching the classic heroes like, as you say, Yojimbo, and Seven Samurai, and Star Wars.

With Eli, a big theme of his character was selflessness. It’s funny, a lot of people who saw the movie assumed I was a Christian because it has this a religious message. If anything, I’m an atheist. But I thought it was a fascinating mythology and I’ve always loved the idea of the basic Christian message of “love thy brother as thyself”. That’s the one thing Eli takes from the Bible, he has lived that message, and that’s what I hoped people would take from the movie, the idea was it’s not just good enough to go around saying that. You’ve really got to live your life by that principle. And so Eli has given up the last 30 years of his life in service of this mission that is not about him. It’s much, much bigger than him. He doesn’t even necessarily fully understand why he’s doing it, but he understands it’s important enough that he’s going to sacrifice his life for it. I’ve always felt like that he somehow knew that once the mission was done and once he had delivered that book, he would probably die. Because in his mind that’s why God put him on earth, to do this one thing, and once it was done, he was done. So yeah, I was always very attracted to that idea. You see it in “Abomination” as well, this theme of selflessness and caring about others more than you care about yourself.

Tomorrow in Part 3, Gary and I go deep into an analysis of The Book of Eli.

For Part 1 of the interview, go here.

To learn more about Gary’s 400 page historical fantasy novel “Abomination,” go here.

To purchase “Abomination,” go here and here.

Gary has graciously agreed to answer reader questions, so if you have any, please post in comments.

Gary is repped by UTA and Circle of Confusion.

Twitter: @garywhitta.

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