Preface In 1994, I wrote a screenplay titled Anaconda. I wrote it on spec (that’s movie talk for writing a script before you’ve sold the story). I knew it was a good idea, high concept, as they say in the biz. It took my agent all of about three days to make the sale. My contract included one rewrite, which I completed during 1994, and after that, the story was in the hands of Sony Pictures. If you know a little about the film business, you might know that screenwriters typically have no control over what happens to their story once they’ve turned in the script. Directors tend to have more freedom, but often don’t have final control over the theatrical release. With the advent of home video and DVDs, the “director’s cut” has become a well-known medium, providing an opportunity for directors to share their preferred version with fans. But a film writer, with no control over who changes his work, or how so, typically can only hope for the best. In the case of Anaconda, I was fortunate. The casting was an incredible stroke of luck, from a writer’s POV (that’s movie talk for point of view). I had Jon Voight in my movie, an Academy Award winner with a household name who had starred in legendary films like Midnight Cowboy, Deliverance, and Mission: Impossible. I also had the phenomenal luck of having several then- lesser-known actors in my movie who later became some of the most famous and beloved entertainers in the world, including Eric Stoltz, Ice Cube, Owen Wilson, and of course, J-Lo. I was fortunate, too, in the changes that were made to the story after I did my work. The camp that helped make Anaconda a cult classic was added later. As I said, I was lucky. Still, over the years, I imagined telling the tale the way I originally envisioned it. But I had never written a novel, and frankly, I wasn’t sure I could do it. Film writing is very different from novel writing. A screenplay is a scaffolding on which a film is built: directors, cinematographers, costume designers, composers, sound teams, lighting crews, special effects magicians, editors, actors, and many others all work to together to tell the story, like an orchestra comprised of many instruments playing together to perform a symphony. I had been working collaboratively in filmmaking for my entire career. Could I tell a fully-realized story as a solo act, with only my own words? I don’t mind telling you, I had my doubts. Meanwhile, I began a collaboration to co-author a children’s novel based on an unproduced screenplay I had written a few years after Anaconda. The script Fishtale was also sold to Columbia, but the project had never gone into development. I always loved the story, and of my many sold-but-unproduced screenplays, Fishtale was, for me, truly the one that got away. I teamed up with my tremendously talented and good friend Catherine Masciola to create the middle-grade adventure novel Fishtale which was published in 2012 to good reviews. I became more confident and decided to tackle Anaconda. “Do it,” said Catherine, “it’s your writer’s cut.” Publishers, however, didn’t quite get the concept of a writer’s cut. A book called Anaconda made them think of a tie-in (that’s movie talk for a prose version of a screenplay, usually published in paperback shortly after a film is released). But a tie-in wasn’t what I had in mind. The advent of self-published eBooks gave me a new opportunity to connect with readers. My friends encouraged me through the many long months of hard work necessary to craft a novel. So now, I present to you Anaconda: The Writer’s Cut, my vision of the story which I originally conceived back in 1994. I hope you like it. Hans Bauer Kerrville, Texas January 2014
Posted on: Sat, 30 Aug 2014 15:24:27 +0000
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