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David
answers questions submitted by fans from all over the world. He's
answered questions like, "What made you decide to become
a writer?" Or, "Of the books you've written, what's
your favorite?"
This section
of the David Morrell Network takes you up-close-and-personal with
David as he answers fans' most Frequently Asked Questions. Simply
click on each of the questions to learn more.
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| How many other movies have been made from your fiction? |
| Apart from FIRST BLOOD and its two film sequels, THE BROTHERHOOD OF THE ROSE was a four-hour NBC miniseries in 1989. Highly rated, it premiered directly after the Super Bowl and starred Robert Mitchum, Peter Strauss, David Morse, and Connie Sellecca. It was true to the novel and turned out very well, I think. I keep looking for it on cable TV, but it never seems to show up. I came across a commercial videotape of it and was alarmed to find that it was cut to 90 minutes and barely recognizable in terms of my book. A short story of mine, “But at My Back I Always Hear,” was filmed as an episode of the Showtime series THE HUNGER. An original teleplay of mine, “Habitat,” was produced for the syndicated TV series MONSTERS. A lot of other material has been optioned (which means a producer had a specified time period in which to try to get a production off the ground) or sold outright. These include TESTAMENT, THE TOTEM, THE FRATERNITY OF THE STONE, THE FIFTH PROFESSION, ASSUMED IDENTITY, EXTREME DENIAL, BURNT SIENNA, and CREEPERS. Michael Douglas’s production company was associated with EXTREME DENIAL and Pierce Brosnan’s with BURNT SIENNA. Even so, nothing happened. The politics and uncertainty of the film business are amazing. Of every hundred novels that sell to the movies, perhaps only one adaptation gets filmed. I’ve written several short stories about the movie business (see “Dead Image” in my collection BLACK EVENING and “Front Man,” which originally appeared in the anthology MURDER FOR REVENGE). I’ve also written a long chapter about the film business in LESSONS FROM A LIFETIME OF WRITING. |
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| How did you get the idea for FIRST BLOOD? |
| In 1966, I was a Canadian who came to the United States to study American literature at Penn State. Vietnam was hardly mentioned in the news in Canada, so I had no idea what the war was about when my fellow graduate students became obsessed about it, partly because of fears that they'd be drafted. Penn State's English department required its graduate students to teach rhetoric, and in several of my classes, I encountered young men recently returned from the war who had a lot of trouble accepting me as an authority figure. We got to talking. I learned about their difficulties in adjusting to civilian life: nightmares, lack of sleep, depression, defensive reactions to loud noises, what we now call post-trauma stress disorder. By 1968, Vietnam was regularly mentioned on the TV network news, often with graphic images. Meanwhile, Civil Rights riots had begun and were destroying several of America's inner cities. These riots were in part related to the war inasmuch as impoverished Blacks had a lot more risk of being drafted than rich Whites did. I got to thinking that the images of the war weren't much different from the images of the riots. Eventually I decided to write a novel about a returning Vietnam veteran who brings the war to the United States. That's a short answer. A longer one can be found in my introduction to the Warner paperback of FIRST BLOOD. I also mention FIRST BLOOD at length in LESSONS FROM A LIFETIME OF WRITING. I did an audio commentary for the DVD of the movie and wrote liner notes for the RAMBO TRILOGY boxed set. |
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