Jekyll's Daughter, The Movie

Good news, bad news, of course…

Spending a lot of late nights on TeamSpeak— kind of like Skype without the camera on. Late for me because I’m on the Eastern Seaboard and they are on the West Coast. For now the whole thing is virtual. The next steps are setting up a project wiki— a BBS with timetables and goals. There’s something about a kickstarter campaign too… but I don’t know much about that yet.

Most of the people on the production team seem pretty nice, easy to work with. Starting with a screenplay for a short promo video…

I still have my doubts. They tried to buy the rights outright but it was a low-ball offer and I politely turned it down. Obviously they do not have much money (or backers, I’m guessing). Can they really pull this off? I don’t want this to be cheesy in anyway…. They were very happy to find I had done all my historical research at least. No anachronisms.

They have their doubts about me too. A little button-pushing on their part but also legitimate concerns: Namely book sales, numbers, and fan base. Both woefully lacking in their yes. The companion site to JD only gets about 5,000 hits a month. Low to their standards. I did point out that I do almost no marketing at all, and that I haven’t updated the site’s content in, well, sorry to say, years… They were not impressed, but it wasn’t a deal breaker either. TG! There was the usual stuff about being committed to the project… Are you kidding me? Can we say dream come true?

Anyhow, someone on their side suggested the idea that I serialize the story on Facebook. Not an idea I would ever have. And I’m still not crazy about it. Surely that’s been done before? Probably… well, what the heck, I guess it’s worth a try. They think it will help my numbers and I’m guessing, demonstrate commitment. 

A movie, seriously?

A couple of days ago, I was approached by a small independent film company interested in turning Jekyll’s Daughter in to a movie, on the the big screen. Wow! A film. The cinema. WTF? That would be huge. I’m not allowed to say much… Just that we are in preliminary negotiations.

I can’t name names, producers, or the production company… not that I’d really ever heard of them before.

On their side, somebody called the story, Masterpiece Theatre Meets Classic Horror. Downton Abby meets Mr. Hyde….Really? 

Thank god for public domain. And though I’m loathe to admit it, they’re probably right. I just never thought about that way when I first wrote the book. Argh— marketing!

I have my share of doubts. Not so much about the company’s legit-ness. They haven’t asked me for money! That’s a huge plus to me! And I’ve reminded them several times that I have no money to give. I checked them out the best I could and it seems like, that in one form or another, this particular production company, or it’s core members at least, have released several small budget movies. They have some film festival cred, a couple of awards, a straight to DVD movie and one that made it to the big screen. Hmm— I missed that one.

But I’m really wondering if they can pull this off. To my mind it will take at minimum, really good English actors; not Americans trying to pass, realistic, atmospheric settings for the year 1911, not to mention the period costumes, (OMG) and some special effects to pull this off. I’m thinking that’s one helluva budget already. They have given me assurances… kind of vague assurances right now… it’s not a whole lot to go on. 

Also, this is a labor of love. No pay, just a share of profits after release with royalties beyond that… And an explicit— though my lawyer hasn’t read it yet— contract that absolves me of any production debt, or marketing debt should the project fall flat. That makes me happy!

Also on the plus side, my creative vision remains in tact. Whatever that means. Aside from a few suggested rewrites, I would have creative control over the project and I would be credited. My big concern was about showing the character unfolding ambiguously (spoiler alert). Was Henri in the throes of a huge delusion? Or is this really happening? They seemed to like the idea of using mirrors to tell that part of the story visually.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated!