Literally days after the disappointing theatrical release of The Beastmaster in North America, as I was digesting the less-than-stellar box office results and coming to grips with two years of creative interference on that film, I received a call from the world-famous Italian producer Dino De Laurentiis. I was summoned to meet with Mr. De Laurentiis at his very pricey family bungalow in the back of the Beverly Hills Hotel. I brought along Paul for the meeting.
A diminutive man with limited English skills, Dino had just finished cooking pasta for his extended family. As our meeting began, Dino told me how much he liked The Beastmaster and asked if I knew why he had summoned me. Knowing that he was producing the long-in-the-works major motion picture version of Frank Herbert’s epic novel Dune, I half-jokingly responded, “So, director David Lynch has dropped out and you want me to take over and finish Dune for you?” Dino did not like my attempt at humor and shot me an irritated look. He said that he did indeed want to offer me a job to direct a picture, but it was not Dune. He told me he was producing a sequel to Conan the Barbarian entitled Conan the Destroyer, and it would be filming with Arnold Schwarzenegger in Mexico starting in just three months. Would I like to step in?
Great! My next project would involve months in another country filming another muscle-bound hero in a loincloth for another strong-willed international producer for whom English was a second language. Just my luck. To say I was crestfallen to be summoned to meet one of the most successful film producers in the world and be offered another sword and sorcery movie right after finishing The Beastmaster was a serious understatement.
Later that night I read the Conan sequel script. It was immediately apparent that this predicament was even worse than I imagined it could be. The script was just downright lousy. Nothing compelling, cardboard characters, not even any unique action. It was just a dumb retread of the original. I didn’t sleep a wink that night as I agonized over this situation. I was completely conflicted. How could I possibly pass up an offer to make an eighteen-million-dollar movie with worldwide studio distribution and get paid extremely well for it? The Beastmaster didn’t exactly light the theatrical box office on fire. However, this new Conan project was pretty much the same kind of stuff I had been working on for two straight years, and with that script it would be supremely difficult, if not impossible, to make a good movie out of it. The Beastmaster reviews had been less than kind, and to add insult to injury, my film was skewered for being a Conan rip-off.
I had no idea where I would get funding for my next movie. Was it time to sell out? Two long days of agonizing and I made the decision that I had to turn down Mr. De Laurentiis. When I called Dino to inform him of my decision, he gasped in surprise. I told him I might consider directing Conan if he would give Paul and me the opportunity to rewrite the screenplay. He responded forcefully that he wasn’t looking for writers or coproducers, just one director, and there was no time for a rewrite anyway. The phone conversation ended rather badly.
I wouldn’t direct another film for more than three years. And during that time I would be lying if I told you I never second-guessed that decision. How could I have passed up the chance to work with one of the great action stars of my time on such a huge budget? (In my defense, The Terminator had not been made yet and Arnold was not yet taken seriously as an actor.)
* * *
To my surprise, several months later Dino called back and I was elated and relieved to hear that he wanted to submit another project for me to direct. I guess the lesson there is that turning someone down isn’t always a bad strategy.
Dino had made a deal for several Stephen King books and this project was one of them. He didn’t tell me anything about it—just said he would have the project delivered. I was an immense fan of Stephen King and was so excited for the opportunity to be involved with something this modern master had created! I literally sat by my front door, counting the minutes, waiting for Dino’s messenger service to deliver the source material to me. My mind was racing. Would it be a book? If so, which one? A short story? Perhaps a completed screenplay written by Stephen King himself? How cool would that be! The messenger rang the bell and then a thick envelope was dropped into my hands. I tore it open to find … a calendar.
Well, it actually was a very short book inspired by a calendar that King had created with esteemed illustrator Bernie Wrightson. The calendar told the story in monthly format of a werewolf infestation in the small Maine town of Tarker’s Mills. In the calendar, the werewolf would strike every month on a holiday. Much like Phantasm it had a young protagonist, Marty Coslaw, who is the only person in his town who understands the nature of this evil. Complicating things for Marty: he is a young paraplegic confined to a wheelchair. How could a boy in a wheelchair possibly confront this beast? The first werewolf attack is set on New Year’s Day in January, the second is on Valentine’s Day in February, et cetera. The final throw-down between Marty and the werewolf occurs, of course, on New Year’s Eve. The title of the calendar/book was The Cycle of the Werewolf.
What a difference from Conan the Destroyer! This was a project I could quite literally sink my teeth into. There was no agonizing. I was in. I rang up Dino bubbling with enthusiasm, and told him without guile that I could make a great movie of this story. Dino grunted an OK. I asked if Stephen King might adapt the story into a screenplay and he told me no, that King was busy. Then he told me that he would send me the first screenplay he commissioned, which he did not like. So began the big problem of Cycle of the Werewolf—getting a screenplay.
* * *
I read the first-draft screenplay and did not like it at all. It was a rote retelling of the story without the monthly structure of the calendar. I was convinced that the calendar structure should be maintained and told Dino so. He invited me to come to New York City and meet and discuss.
Before being hired I had to pass muster with the Paramount Studios brass, who would be distributing the film. I arrived at the Paramount lot and was ushered into the plush offices of the studio boss. It was the easiest meeting I’ve ever had. Frank Mancuso was an approachable, nice guy. We exchanged pleasantries. He asked me if I thought I could make a good movie out of the property and I enthusiastically said yes, and that was it.
My wife Shelley and I arrived in New York and were put up at the Mayflower Hotel, a block from Dino’s offices in the towering Gulf and Western Building. Shelley was six months pregnant with our first child, so it was an exciting trip on many levels. I lugged onto the plane with me my trusty Apple II computer, packed inside a cardboard box. I had stuffed the tiniest computer monitor I could find into my suitcase. I had owned the Apple II for a couple of years and had good results with an early word-processing program called Word Handler II. For the first time I was determined to try to write a screenplay on a computer, and Cycle of the Werewolf would be a great opportunity.
I met with Dino in his grand office overlooking Central Park and was introduced to his translator, Sergio Altieri. Sergio was a big, affable Italian guy and we became fast friends. Sergio told me that Dino required him to translate all submitted screenplays into Italian for Dino to read. It was a huge job and Sergio was constantly busy doing his translation work. Sergio was also an aspiring writer and later went on to a successful career as an Italian-language novelist with a lot of well-received sci-fi books to his credit. I think Sergio may have been lobbying Dino behind my back for the job, because Dino informed me that he had assigned his translator to cowrite the Cycle of the Werewolf screenplay with me. I really didn’t mind the idea of working with him; I liked Sergio a lot and he was savvy about the inner workings of the De Laurentiis empire. I thought that might come in handy later.
I carried my Apple II over to the DDL offices and we began work in Sergio’s little office. I don’t think anyone there had ever seen a screenplay written on computer, so Sergio’s coworkers frequently interrupted and I was forced to explain and demonstrate what we were doing.
I was very excited to be working on Cycle of the Werewolf. Stephen King, in my mind, was (and still is!) a national treasure and had crafted a horror story with real heart. What I thought could make this story great was really zeroing in on the capabilities of Marty, our young hero. Here was a kid who could not walk, who was doomed to spend his life in a wheelchair, marginalized and dismissed by everyone in his town as being disabled. Yet Marty was tough, resourceful, and probably smarter than anybody else around. This was a character the audience would root for.
I was not too keen on the title of the book. It made me think of werewolves on motorcycles. I believed we could do better for the movie. I had an idea that Marty’s wheelchair might have a small factory insignia on its back that read SILVER BULLET MANUFACTURING, CO. And that is where the idea to title the movie Silver Bullet came from. I envisioned an opening title sequence featuring a blast furnace with fiery molten metal, where bullets made of liquid silver were being fabricated.
From the beginning Dino boasted that he had already hired Italian effects designer Carlo Rambaldi to create the werewolf. Rambaldi had garnered much success with his creation of the character E.T. as well as his work on the articulated head from the film Alien. A few years earlier Carlo had received tremendous notoriety for creating an infamous thirty-five-foot-tall mechanical King Kong, which Dino promoted relentlessly for his seventies remake of the original. I remember being terribly disappointed in the theater when I saw the finished film because Rambaldi’s Kong was only on-screen for less than twenty seconds.
Despite Rambaldi, I was of the opinion that most movie werewolves looked terrible and were just not believable. As I began writing the screenplay, and even though I had not yet seen any of Rambaldi’s concept art, I was determined to design the movie so that the werewolf was obscured as much as possible. In Jaws, they saved the shark for the third act. Why couldn’t we?
This was the first time I was to butt heads with Dino. He could not understand my concern. I told him I did not believe that an animatronic werewolf would hold up on the big screen and that we should not show it until well into the film. He insisted we fully show the werewolf in the opening scene, just like in the book. Rather than immediately destroy my relationship with this powerful producer, I asked him to bear with me and let me write him a few pages of screenplay and read what I was thinking once I put it down on paper.
I had what I thought was a great idea for the opening scene, which might address both our concerns. King’s story opens with Arnie, a railroad worker, drinking and working in the early morning darkness of New Year’s Day, trying to clear snowdrifts off the train tracks. He is confronted and killed by the werewolf. In my screenplay draft, it’s a full moon and we see Arnie through a mysterious point of view as something tracks him through the falling snow. Then we see glowing eyes, watching from the darkness, and finally reveal that the POV is from a menacing, and large, gray wolf, which is stalking Arnie through the woods. Arnie is oblivious, still drinking, as the large creature slowly moves in for the kill. Just as the wolf is about to pounce, suddenly a shadow crosses its face and the beast stops in its tracks. The wolf, startled, looks up, and suddenly two large claws snatch the animal, jerk it up into the air and, as the wounded creature shrieks in agony, it is torn in two. Arnie hears the mayhem, then looks around to see—the black silhouette of the huge werewolf—framed against the full moon—the creature howls in triumph. Cut to main titles.
In all humbleness, I thought this was an elegant solution to the dilemma and a great way to open the film. We start the movie with a misdirect by having the big, scary gray wolf threatening Arnie, but it turns out that scary animal is actually the little guy and there is a much larger beast to worry about. And best of all, we only show the werewolf in silhouette; we save the big reveal for later in the film.
Dino hated it. “No, you need to show the entire werewolf in the opening scene. Carlo Rambaldi will make a great creature. You will show it all.” So my meticulously crafted opening was immediately scrapped.
Despite the setback, Sergio and I went to work to complete the screenplay. We found the easiest way to do this was to divide up the months of the Cycle of the Werewolf calendar. I took seven months and Sergio took five and we went to work.
* * *
I really enjoyed living in New York City for those few weeks and working there as a writer. As planned, Shelley returned to Los Angeles after a week and I remained at the Mayflower to finish the script. I loved that working on Silver Bullet gave me a legitimate reason to just hang out in such a vibrant city, but in my off time, I could be a tourist. Spring was around the corner and every afternoon I would walk along the south side of the park to get some exercise, and almost every day I would bump into Dino there. His offices in the Gulf and Western Building were on Columbus Circle, but he had a luxury apartment in Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue. Like clockwork Dino would return to the office along Central Park South after taking a midday nap in his apartment. Sometimes he would notice me and grunt a hello as we passed each other.
When Sergio and I were each finished with our drafts, we collated them and handed them in for Dino to review. The next day I received a disturbing call from Sergio. “Dino hates the script. He wants to see us in an hour.”
I entered Dino’s office with trepidation. He was grumbling and immediately launched into a ten-minute Italian and English rant about how bad our draft was. I really felt bad as he railed at us. He had spent good money to bring me out and put me up and I genuinely wanted to please the man. As I listened to him rant, something dawned on me. Dino was only criticizing Sergio’s chapters and not mine. He was not aware of who wrote what. What should I do? A more politically astute writer might have immediately thrown Sergio under the bus and deflected the blame onto where it was deserved. But Sergio was a good guy and he had been extremely warm and welcoming to me. So I sat there and accepted the blame alongside him. Dino finished his rant and then informed us that Stephen King would be in the office the next day and we would all be meeting and discussing the project with him.
The next morning, I arrived early and was ushered into Dino’s office. King had not yet arrived. A shoe-shine man was on his knees in front of Dino, buffing his black leather loafers. I sat quietly in my chair beside Sergio mulling over a simple question. How much would the most successful and possibly most wealthy movie producer in the world tip for his shoe shine? It’s not often you get to witness how the mega-rich tip. Sergio kept pestering me with questions about the script, but I could not be bothered as I waited for the upcoming transaction. The shoe-shine man packed his gear and stood up. Dino reached in his pocket and laid one thin dollar bill in the man’s hand. I figured that I had just witnessed the secret to financial success.
Stephen King arrived and I was surprised by what a kind, warm, and gracious guy he was. He was tall like me and dressed casually in jeans. Here we were, sitting with probably the greatest living writer in our lifetime, and he just seemed like the guy next door, the perfect pal to hang out with and knock back a couple beers. I tried to start some small talk about how much I liked his books but he didn’t want to talk about himself; instead he generously shifted the conversation to Phantasm and how much he liked the flying ball.
Dino cleared his throat and the meeting began. I jumped in and confessed to Stephen how much trouble we had been having in adapting his calendar to a movie and, without asking Dino’s or Sergio’s permission, just blurted out a request for him to step in and write the screenplay for us. He graciously demurred, saying he was very busy on several other projects, but asked us where the problem areas were. Sergio and I listed out all our concerns and the roadblocks we were struggling with and he said he would think it over and see if he could come up with any solutions.
I had been in New York for over a month and had received the news that my air ticket home had been booked for two days later. I surmised that Dino had given up on Sergio and me as a writing team; then the hotel phone rang. Sergio said, “Don, get over here. A fax just came in from Stephen King.” I raced over to Sergio’s office and he handed me three pages of single-spaced text. King had gone through each of our concerns and had provided a solution to every one. His notes were brilliant. We could take his suggestions and easily rewrite the script and fix everything now. We were back in business!
I followed Sergio as we eagerly hustled over to Dino’s office. We looked in to see Dino at his desk reading King’s notes. He gruffly motioned us in and we sat down opposite him as he finished reading. I didn’t completely comprehend it at the time, but I now believe his next utterances sealed my fate in regard to Silver Bullet. Dino scowled and uttered, “Humpf.” And he tossed King’s notes over his shoulder as if throwing out the trash. My jaw literally dropped open. It made no sense until it did. This guy was clueless. He had just been handed a gift from the greatest writer of our generation and was happy to trash it. And he was in total control of my movie.
The next day I flew back to Los Angeles and forgot about Silver Bullet. Shelley and I had more important things to focus on.