Film Courage: How long after selling your first screenplay did you sell your second?
Jim Agnew, Screenwriter: It happened pretty quick because the next screenplay, I don’t know if it was the next thing we wrote, but one day I was at the Tower Records, the old one where you could rent videos and DVDs.
Film Courage: On Sunset?
Jim: Yes, they had two. The one across the street that had the DVD store in it and I was looking at DVDs. I had this idea it was Dario Argento, I saw his he had a section. I was like his movies are cool and I watched a lot of his movies from the 70’s. We should do a retro kind of Dario Argento film and that was when horror was really hitting its peak in like 2007-2008. Let’s just write a 70’s type thing that has all those tropes and just have fun with it and we did. Literally, I don’t know how this happens, two months later this friend of mine who’s from Italy goes Oh, you have something like Dario’s movies? I’ll send it to Dario. Okay. I didn’t really know this guy that well. Then I get a call a week later, it’s Dario Argento on the phone from Italy. He’s like I love your script. I want to do it. So that movie got made. I think the universe just wanted that movie to get made. We had a lot of problems with the production but it was just strange. It was like one day sometimes the universe just leads you right in certain directions because I like his movies. Let’s do something like his retro 70’s throwback film and then he literally directed it and Adrien Brody was in it. So how does this happen from the concept of being in that video store, a year later I was in Italy on set? Sometimes things just have a weird synergy. Projects have a weird synergy too. That’s the other thing people have to realize. It’s happened to me so many times where I’m banging my head trying to get this movie made and it’s just not working and then sometimes you write something and every step of the way it just snowballs. It connects at the right time and right place. I don’t know why but it just does and that did…(Watch the video interview on Youtube here).
BIO:
Jim Agnew is a director, writer and producer, known for The Capture (2017), Rage (2014) and Game of Death (2011). A former contributor/writer to Film Threat who played guitar for the Industrial Rock group Hate Dept. Jim has worked with such directors as Dario Argento and John Carpenter as well as Oscar-winning actors, producers and writers.
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