Remakes are a dime a dozen in Hollywood these days, but every now and again a reimagined film actually works. Craig Gillespie‘s Fright Night with Anton Yelchin and Colin Farrell is a humorous, violent, action-filled romp, and has some heart to tie it all up. Part of the success of the remake of the 1985 original is the screenplay by vampire vet Marti Noxon. After spending years in the TV realm with both Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, Noxon has started to make a name for herself in every genre and medium she can. She has covered the aforementioned Buffy series, is currently working on Glee and even helped on Mad Men. Yesterday I had the great pleasure of spending some time on the phone with Noxon to discuss Fright Night and more.
Along the way we covered her aversion to jinxing the good vibe the film has, her own qualms with test screening, her dislike of 3D, the sneaker fetish in America, her go-to second set of eyes for bouncing around her work with and her involvement on Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Noxon also revealed shocking news that she actually penned a draft of Drag Me To Hell that didn’t make it on the screen. I gave her equally shocking information when I asked her if she thought David Tenant in full Peter Vincent garb looked like Michael Sheen from Underworld. That isn’t even all that we cover, either, as the interview went on for 25 minutes. Hit the jump for the full interview transcript, the audio file, and a timestamped breakdown for your convenience.
Time stamps:
00:22- Ask about her current whereabouts.
00:33- Asked what she had planned for that day. She had a meeting for Glee earlier that day.
01:06- Asked about further plans. She explains Diablo Cody’s method of rolling around on opening day and how she can’t see herself doing that.
01:48- I ask if she will go out and see it with the public this weekend. She explains her hesitation.
02:29- We talk about how the film is fun.
03:26- Is she going to keep tabs on the film from here on? She explains how she will keep an eye on the Tomato Meter and grosses.
04:45- If she enjoys the test screening process. She explains her own misgivings about them.
06:44- If it was easy for her to write Jerry’s switch from playing around to being deadly serious.
08:05- I ask her about the location of the shoot and how it felt to look upon the suburb she had always imagined vampires would take advantage of.
10:33- She explains that she wasn’t on set as much as she would have liked.
11:13- Who she utilizes to get advice and feedback on her work.
12:39- I ask if she saw the similarity in looks between David Tenant’s Peter Vincent and Michael Sheen from Underworld.
13:55- Ask her about Jerry having to get worked up to bare his fangs in the film, and how that came about.
15:33- I ask where the inspiration for the sneaker fetish critique came from.
17:27- We talk about 3D and she explains she doesn’t really like it all that much.
19:32- Asked if there was any other inspirations for the films from the modern day.
20:25- She tells me that she wrote an unused draft for Drag Me To Hell.
21:58- We discuss Zombieland‘s success and why we enjoyed the film so much.
24:11- We talk about her reteaming with Gillespie and how much freedom she had on Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.
Stream the audio file below or download here (right-click and save as).
The Film Stage: So, where are you at right now? You’re in LA?
Marti Noxon: I’m in LA. That’s where I live with my kids and my two crazy dogs.
Your two crazy dogs? [Both laugh] So what did you have planned today? I mean, obviously the phoner was a little bit delayed today, because you had to jump into Glee?
Noxon: Yeah, I’m consulting this year so I’m there, helping out, and every once in a while they expect me to do stuff. It’s weird.
[Laughs] It’s kind of crazy, in this industry, how they like to pull you out of things.
Noxon: Yeah.
Oh hey, you’re kinda signed up for this. So anything else planned for today or is just kind of a relaxing…
Noxon: You know, it’s funny because I was joking with a friend. I remember reading somewhere that Diablo Cody is like, “Yeah, when one of my friends or I have a movie come out, we rent a limousine and go from theater to theater” and I was like, “Ugh”, you know? I can’t… I think I’m just going to stay home and watch Real Housewives and eat junk food. It’s too nerve-wracking.
So you’re not all about the kind of going out and seeing how the… I mean, obviously this interview is for Fright Night…
Noxon: Right, right, right.
So you’re not going to go out and screen it with everybody else?
Noxon: I don’t know. I’m still really on the fence. I’m really excited. I’d love to see it with an audience, but I was really fortunate that I got to see it with a lot of test audiences, so I had a pretty unvarnished experience with seeing it with a bunch of people that haven’t seen it before. And like I said, and there were only like seven people there, I’d really be bummed out. Right now, the reviews have been really, really positive and people really like it. So that’s a really good feeling. So I guess I’m just not looking for a buzz kill. [Both laugh]
Yeah, the wrong audience can kind of kill that.
Noxon: And it can happen. You know? They can turn on ya.
Oh yeah. Well, one of the things that I kind of discussed with a lot of my friends after seeing the film… I think I saw it on Tuesday, actually. At the end of the day, for most of these films, we’re not going in expecting a lot of great dialogue, or a lot of great plot points, or things like that. With this film, it does kind of give you that, but it’s also fun. And that’s one of the big, key things for a lot of these films, sometimes they’re not even fun.
Noxon: Right.
And that’s where, if you get a handle on a property like this, and you can’t even have fun…
Noxon: Right!
That’s a huge disappointment. So, you’re done writing on this film. You said that you’re kind of wary of going out and seeing it again with another audience.
Noxon: [Laughs]
And I can understand that. But, are you going to keep tabs on the film?
Noxon: Oh, absolutely. I mean, we will all be watching the grosses. It’s funny because I don’t generally read reviews and I really haven’t, except for one. Somebody sent me one and said, “You can read this and you should send it to your mom.” [Both laugh] But I try to stay off of… you know. But I’d be lying if I said wasn’t checking in with the studio pretty frequently about how our [Rotten] Tomato rating is going.
[Laughs]
Noxon: And one of the executives that I love, who I’ve worked with on a bunch of projects now, has been refreshing every five minutes. [Both laugh]
Oh, I know how that goes, because sometimes I like to check out ratings on Friday mornings and see them rapidly update and see where that Tomato Meter goes.
Noxon: Right. Is it going to go up or down. It’s anybody’s guess. And so until we were up around 50 reviews, we were really nervous. Because it can plummet when the top critics weigh in.
[Laughs]
Noxon: But we’re pretty fresh. And in terms of the performance, I mean, it’s a really tough market out there. So anything can happen.
Absolutely. You mentioned the screening process, that you’ve screened it a lot. Directors are kind of cold and hot on it. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of middle ground for the advance screenings…
Noxon: Definitely, yeah.
And the test screenings. But they can actually make changes a lot of the times. They’re working on different edits, they’re working on different shots and things like that. Whereas, for a writer, that’s like 95% of your material is up on screen and there’s no recourse a lot of the times.
Noxon: Right, yea.
Yet you still enjoy it?
Noxon: Um, you know… enjoy would be generous.
[Laughs]
Noxon: What I do appreciate is that you can… You can’t always tell what’s not working because audiences… sometimes they’ll have a reaction to a scene, for instance, like, “That scene is boring, because they just talk.”
[Laughs]
Noxon: Or, “That scene isn’t interesting.” Because, you know, you can’t always rely on that. Sometimes they don’t understand the kind of totality of the experience. If you don’t have that scene there, even though you feel like you’re momentarily bored, you really aren’t going to feel as much in the end when that guy dies. [Laughs]
Exactly.
Noxon: You can’t always listen to group consensus on stuff like that. But you can really feel what is working. You can feel when something is funny because it will land. It will land with enough people that you get a sense of that. Like, not everybody laughs at the same thing, but there’s a consensus in laughter, and there’s a consensus in fear. We definitely tighten the movie and we went through a lot of different versions and ultimately, it’s interesting, we probably ended up closer to the first cut than far away from it. But we tested a lot of different possibilities before we got back… back to basics.
OK. One thing that I really love about the original and this film is that Jerry… “Jerry the Vampire”…
Noxon: Jerry. [Laughs]
He kind of plays with his food a little bit. He’s kind of having fun. I mean, he is bored with it, but he is bored with it. He isn’t always terrorizing, 100%.
Noxon: Right, right.
And as the film goes along, he hits a switch.
Noxon: Yeah.
And all of a sudden, he just becomes a monster. He doesn’t care anymore. He’s all about getting Charley. Was it difficult to kind of keep that balance and him reigned in?
Noxon: Um, no. I mean, that, again, is something that was really fun about the original movie. He doesn’t want to kill the next door neighbor kid. That’s a little bit too risky. A little bit too close to home, you know what I mean?
Yeah.
Noxon: So he tries to kind of just warn the kid off. But once he realizes that kid’s not going away, yeah, he becomes a nightmare. [Laughs]
Absolutely.
Noxon: And that was some of what we had fun with with the new version. We just went for that. Once the chase is on, there’s no down time for coffee and a chat. It’s pretty much solid action from then on.
Absolutely. When we first see the suburbs that they’re staying in, and you shot it in… New Mexico?
Noxon: Yeah.
This suburb. I remember when I saw it and they have the title credit, Fright Night, and it’s all in 3D. By the way, that looks awesome.
Noxon: Doesn’t it look great?
Yeah.
Noxon: The first, you know, little hit.
Exactly, yeah. But one of the first things that kind of struck me was…I almost got chills because looking at that neighborhood, thinking, and you’ve mentioned this before…It’s a great setting for these monsters to kind of come out and live because it’s very secluded. I lookedat it and I’m like, “There’s a suburb in the middle of no where.”
Noxon: Yeah.
When you arrived on set, was that kind of the feeling? Like, “Wow, this is perfect.”
Noxon: Yeah, I mean I had that experience again and again because Craig Gillespie and the whole team he assembled was just so strong. Like the first time I went to the set and saw the Peter Vincent stuff, it’s so much better than I’d even imagined. But yeah, the idea of doing a horror thing in Vegas was really appealing to me. I was super excited about that and I had come in with that, pitching that, as part of this. And it was a little nerve-wracking, because I wasn’t sure they were going to bite.
Heh, yeah.
Noxon: And when they did, I was so thrilled because I had been thinking for a while, “Where better to be a vampire?”
Exactly.
Noxon: There’s kind of parts of the suburb where there’s a ghost-town because of the economic downturn and the mortgage crisis, and people sleep all day sometimes. Party all night, or work all night, and it’s got this sort of transient population. And all of those elements just made it feel like, “Well, this is the best.” Craig totally got it, he really captured that sense of alienation and kind of isolation. But also it’s a little nod towards the old Spielberg movies that I love so much.
The Amblin…
Noxon: Yeah, the kind of Amblin, tract home suburb feel. I actually wrote a little piece for CNN that’s up right now. Just a little essay about why I found that so attractive.
Awesome. You mentioned that Craig Gillespie had brought you onto the set. I’ve got the sense from reading some other interviews with you that you were there for a large portion of the shoot. Is that true?
Noxon: Actually, I wish I had been. I was there a little bit. I was there as we were getting into some of the early stuff. But I, unfortunately, have two little kids… and I couldn’t be there as much as I liked. But there was definitely a lot of communication about what was going on.
As a screenwriter, and any kind of writer, a second set of eyes is kind of important. Sometimes it can really help you hone in on material. Is there a go-to person for you that you bounce scripts off of?
Noxon: I’m really good friends with another writer… a female writer named Laeta Kalogridis. She was one of the writers on Avatar, she wrote Shutter Island.
OK, yeah.
Noxon: She’s another…
Didn’t you do a Comic-Con panel with her?
Noxon: Yeah, I’ve done a couple with her. And she’s a super, awesome chick who’s into writing strong, female characters. Unfortunately, there aren’t too many women who write genre. I mean, there’s a lot of women who write it… there’s a lot more now than there used to be.
Definitely.
Noxon: Melissa Rosenberg, and Laeta, and I think there is a whole new gen of young writers coming up who are totally fluent. But at least at my age, there isn’t a ton of us, so we all know each other pretty well. [Both laugh]
Close knit, yeah.
Noxon: We’re a pretty close knit little group and I love her feedback. She just is super smart and sharp. We talk all the time about what we’re doing and we show each other our stuff.
Awesome. OK. This is kind of a burning question I want to get your reaction on. When I first saw David Tenant as Peter Vincent…
Noxon: [Laughs]
There was an immediate double-take.
Noxon: Yeah.
And, come on, be honest. How much does he look like Michael Sheen from Underworld.
Noxon: [Laughs] That’s really funny. I never thought of that.
You never thought of that?
Noxon: I never thought of that.
For some reason, I just kind of completely blanked and I kept on thinking, “I didn’t remember Michael Sheen was in this film.” I kept on thinking, “No, no, that’s somebody else.” And then there’s this great moment where he kind of uncovers himself. Then it kind of shows through, “Hey, this is David Tenant.” But in full, Peter Vincent garb, it was creepy how much he reminded me of Michael Sheen from Underworld. [Laughs]
Noxon: That’s really funny. I had never thought of that. Um, yeah, good call.
Kind of getting back to the screenwriting process. Jerry has moments in the film where he kind of noticeably works himself up to be able to bare his fangs or fully transform. Was that something you, Gillespie, and Farrell developed as a group or was that in your script?
Noxon: Oh, no, that was in the script. [Laughs]
Awesome.
Noxon: I mean, but he really went and did…I mean, there was a reference to the fact that he…that there’s a scent. The first reference to it in the movie, he mentions that his mother gives off a scent. And then Colin, I think, really developed that idea. So it was in the script, but it wasn’t nearly as developed as it became. I think he really grasped that and was like, “Oh, I’m going to really go at that.” [Laughs]
There’s certain moments in the film where it kind of really plays off, because you’re kind of looking at him and saying, “Why isn’t he, you know, fully developed yet?” and then, you can tell there is something he has to have happen before he can get to that point.
Noxon: Well it’s also, he just has to get…I mean, I think he was just treating it a little bit like, you know, he has to get excited. [Laughs]
Exactly. Yeah. I mean, he has to feel like there’s a little challenge at least before he can go into that mode.
Noxon: Right, right, right. He has to get himself worked up.
[Laughs] There’s a great moment where Jerry kind of notices the shoes that Charley is wearing. It’s in the first 20 minutes or so, and I don’t want to go into too much detail, but you’ve talked about how you did kind of fly-on-the-wall research to nail down the teenagers and get that sense. Was that something that came about because of that?
Noxon: Um, I was aware…I mean, I’ve had some…some of the offices I’ve worked in, some of the writer’s rooms, some of the assistants are super down with the whole tennis shoe thing. [Both laugh] And I also live in a neighborhood where there’s a bunch of really exclusive shops that sell…You know, I live in the middle of Los Angeles where there’s like these stores on La Brea where I’ll see people lined up, and it took me a while to realize, they’re lining up for a shoe. A shoe thing. So I did a little research, and you know, it’s not something I know about. I mean, I know about lining up for shoes, but those are, you know… those are on sale. [Both laugh]
Exactly. Yeah, you’re not lining up to buy them full price.
Noxon: But yeah, I just thought it was funny because a lot of his stuff is about manhood, and he wears these awesome sneakers that are supposed to be worn by professional basketball players, but he doesn’t really wear them for basketball. [Laughs]
Exactly. Yeah, that’s always the joke, is, you know, if you see somebody walking around with a $120 dollar pair of basketball shoes, and you ask them to go play basketball, they’ll laugh at you. It’s like, “Psh, I don’t play basketball.”
Noxon: Yeah. Yeah. [Laughs]
It’s like, “What?! Come on.” But uh, one thing that’s kind of going around right now is the talk about 3D.
Noxon: Yeah.
From what I can tell, this is your first project that implemented 3D.
Noxon: Yeah.
Did you get a chance to work in some set pieces for that or did it come about too late in the game to kind of tweak some scenes, or things like that?
Noxon: We knew we were going to shoot in 3D. I think that Craig Gillespie, who is the director, did such a great job. I feel like his point of view about it was really more about wanting to make it feel like a more immersive experience, but he didn’t want to overdo the 3D element. He wasn’t into doing a bunch of gags with it. So I didn’t really write to it. Honestly, I’m not a huge fan because I feel like it degrades the picture.
Well, and I will say this, the first 60 minutes of the film, there’s a lot of night scenes.
Noxon: Yeah!
And you know, look, you’re wearing glasses, and it’s going to darken the image, and there’s been a lot of debate about… are theaters running it at the right luminosity…
Noxon: Right.
And, unfortunately, it does kind of play out on this film especially where there’s so many dark scenes and your characters aren’t exactly wearing bright, colorful clothing. So, it can get difficult to keep track of…
Noxon: It just gets muddy.
It is. It is.
Noxon: And they can film it however they like, and it was filmed beautifully. It’s not a question of how it’s filmed but it is a question of how it’s projected. And too often, I feel like I’m underwater. So I’m not crazy about it. If I have a choice, I like to watch the regular old… regular old, 2D.
[Laughs] Yeah, definitely. Near Dark was brought up in a lot of interviews, and it’s funny because one of my press friends was just asking about seeing that film and I actually just happened to have a Blu-ray for it, and I was like, “Yea, I have this film.” And this interview is coming up, so… and I want to say, that is a great little vampire flick for a lot of people that haven’t jumped on the bandwagon.
Noxon: Yeah, it’s a gem.
But, are there any modern vampire films, or even horror films, horror comedies, like maybe Drag Me To Hell, that were a modern inspiration? Not just, you know, films from the ’80s or ’70s, or things from even beyond that.
Noxon: Well, it’s pretty funny that you would mention Drag Me To Hell, because I wrote a version of that movie. [Laughs]
[Pause] Wow. OK.
Noxon: I wrote the draft before the draft they shot. And the funny thing is they, at that point, wanted to go much more in the direction of comedy. Almost like a romantic horror comedy. So I did a draft that was much more sort of chick… chickey, chick driven. And, you know, shockingly, they went back to the version that Ivan and Sam wrote. [Both laugh] I can’t blame them for that. But Sam Raimi is a huge inspiration, and his ability to do the sustained horror slapstick is brilliant.
I don’t know if you recall the film all that vividly, but there’s a moment where she’s being stalked by this demon, and she’s climbing up the stairs and locks herself in the room.
Noxon: [Laughs]
And there’s a scene of this wall, as soon as she closes the door, and there’s this cat hanging from a poster.
Noxon: Yes!
And it says, “Keep Hanging On.” And it’s this super intense scene, and all of a sudden you see this image, and I remember it just hit so well in the theater when I was watching it.
Noxon: Yeah. Well he’s just so… I mean, Evil Dead 2 is one of my favorite movies, hands down. And then I just thought Zombieland was inspired. I loved Zombieland.
You know, it’s disappointing because I will say this. I kept track of it as far as box office, and when I first heard about it, I thought, “Zombies, Woody Harrelson, and rated R” and I thought, “Wait, wait, wait… this is great. This is exactly what I want.” And it did well for what it is. It is an R-rated horror comedy, but it didn’t do as well as I was hoping it would do.
Noxon: I think it’s all about what you shot it for and I feel like if you make the movie for a price… I think that movie actually, in Hollywood circles, is considered a real success.
Absolutely. And like I said…
Noxon: But it wasn’t as widely accepted as you would have hoped given how good it was.
Exactly.
Noxon: And how funny it was.
And the cameo was…
Noxon: Brilliant.
I don’t know if you were paying attention all that much, but it was really kept under wraps so well and in this age, you know…
Noxon: Yeah, that’s true. They really did a good job. You’re right.
That was kind of incredible.
Noxon: Yeah, you’re right. They did a pretty amazing job keeping that a secret, because you know, what a great surprise it was. And I didn’t know about it. I try not to read reviews for other people’s movies, because I just like to go in fresh and form my own opinions, so I didn’t read anything about it. I just had a lot of people say, “Oh, you’re going to love it.” And the same with District 9. So many people were like, “You’ve got to see this movie.” So, once I caught them, I still didn’t know that much about them which was so great. So yeah, when he showed up I was just blown away. I was like, “WHAT!?” [Both laugh] He’s actually in the movie.
You’re going to be jumping into the zombie genre for Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Obviously you’re going to be reteaming with Gillespie. How much are you… I believe you are doing rewrites on the film?
Noxon: Yeah. I did some rewriting on it. It’s not cast yet, so we’re not exactly sure when, but yeah, I worked on it a couple of months ago. I’m really excited. I hope it gets made. It’s such a fun project.
Are you kind of hampered by what’s already there or did you get free reign to kind of go and…I mean, obviously the novel kind of took off and was on bestsellers lists.
Noxon: Right? What a trip.
So, were you having to hone in and stay along the lines of what was already there, or did you kind of get to play around with it?
Noxon: Uh, a little bit of both. There were certain areas in the movie where they were like, “This is something that we really want you to invent.” And there were other areas where it was like, “This is really working.” A lot of the script, it was written by David O. Russell, you know… he’s no slouch. [Both laugh] And a lot of it was super delightful and funny, so it was just about certain areas where stuff needed to be reimagined. And also about doing some work with the Elizabeth character because, you know, I am a chick, and so is she. So I had some stuff to bring to that.
Heh, absolutely. OK, so, she did say final question so I will thank you for sitting down and taking time out of your busy day.
Noxon: My pleasure. Thanks for talking to me.
Alright.
Noxon: Bye bye.
Even though we covered a ton of ground, I still had a second page of questions left on the table for Noxon. One thing that became clear as we talked was that Noxon is very humorous on her own. She also was refreshingly honest and unafraid to speak her mind. I have to admit that I was being thick when she kept implying that Jerry basically has to become aroused before he can really vamp out, and I kept saying it was the challenge he was after. I look forward to speaking with Noxon again about her future projects once they go into production, and I am especially keeping an eye on Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. As for Fright Night, it’s well worth seeing although I would avoid 3D. The price isn’t really an issue, but there are a fare number of scenes at night. Remember, this is a film about a vampire, and he doesn’t sparkle in sunlight.
Fright Night is currently in wide release.