Screenwriters Matthew Stuecken And Josh Campbell Talk 10 Cloverfield LanePosted by Wilson Morales
March 11, 2016
Coming out this week from Paramount Pictures is 10 Cloverfield Lane, which will hit theaters on March 11, 2016.
Aside from the trailer, not much has been said about the plot of the film, but Bad Robot producer J.J. Abrams said: “The idea came up a long time ago during production. We wanted to make it a blood relative of ‘Cloverfield.’ The idea was developed over time. We wanted to hold back the title for as long as possible.”
The tagline for the film is “Monsters come in many forms.”
Directed by Dan Trachtenberg, the film stars John Goodman, Mary Elizabeth Winstead and John Gallagher Jr. The script was written by Josh Campbell and Matthew Stuecken.
At the recent press conference, both screenwriters talked about crafting this story and keeping mum about its plot.
What inspired you to write this and which one of built your own doomsday bunker?
Matt Stuecken: It actually started where I just had an opening scene for this idea in my head, and Josh and I were working separately at that point, and I pitched him the idea of that opening scene and he liked it so much that we decided to collaborate on it, and it was the first project we had done together, and less than two months after we started writing it was when Bad Robot and Paramount had decided to acquire the screenplay. And we were so excited ‘cause you just can’t do better than Bad Robot. So it was pretty amazing.
Were you guys concerned about selling a screenplay that only had three parts to it?
Josh Campbell: I think we thought there was a real market for small, contained thrillers that maybe have really big ideas. I think that’s the same thing that J.J. and Paramount saw in it. Honestly. We sat down to write something that we thought was very makable. We hoped it would end up this way. We knew Bad Robot was the perfect home for it, but we didn’t dare to dream that high when we were writing it.
At what point did you decide on keeping the plot a secret and how is the film any relation to Cloverfield?
JC: We wrote an original screenplay, and it wasn’t meant to be a sequel. ‘Cloverfield’ wasn’t in our minds when we wrote it. During the development process, the idea came up that it could be in the Clover-verse. Honestly, when we first started thinking about it, we were a bit surprised. But the more you think about, and as people start to see the movie, it will make a lot of sense, in terms of the tone and turns and twists, as well as the thriller aspect. So, we got really excited, because we knew it was the right choice to make.
How challenging was it to find levity amongst the intensity and what do you think is so appealing about dark themes?
MS: I think in any movie like this, you need to give the audience a break. If you keep them feeling like something bad is gonna happen every second of the film, it becomes too much and you tend to become numb to it. We were lucky to have worked with such a confident first time director and such great performances so you’re in this bunker for so long but you want to be there. They’re such engaging people and I think that’s a testament to the work that the actors and the director did.
JC: I think to be fair also, the actors found stuff that we didn’t always necessarily see in some of the lines, which really elevated them beyond anything we can hope.
How did you envision the character that John Goodman plays? Did you always have someone in your head and what did you think it would take to play?
MS: The drive of the screenplay, or the drive of the story was “Where does the truth lie?” You had to make him all different things. He had to terrifying in one moment and then he had to comforting in the next. He had to be true too. He had to be authentic. It was a real tough balance. I couldn’t imagine anyone doing it better. He does have such intensity and at the same time levity and he brings it all, which is great.
Are there any movies or TV shows that influenced you when it came to tone and environment and genre that you want to create?
JC: I think it was important for us to play with genre expectations. I think that when people see a trailer they know what the movie is nowadays. Audiences these days are really savvy towards their entertainment. So we did our best to zig when people expected us to zag as much as possible, in the plot and with the characters. We pulled from a lot of different influences, as a result because we didn’t want to go down the same road that other people had previously.
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