Film Courage: How did you get your first script in the hands of John Carpenter?
Jim Agnew, Screenwriter: Well, it was the first thing I wrote. I’d been working as a producer on indie films and music videos and commercials and like I’m going to take the leap into screenwriting. I saved enough money for one year to just work on screenwriting and had this idea to do a very pulp fiction-type horror film, kind of non-linear. I had a friend who was a screenwriter (Sean Keller) who had become my writing partner and we’d never worked together. We just decided to write it and after three months just working on the script with no expectations. We ended up getting a manager from it because it was so unusual and odd and different than what was out there. Then from there I get a call a few weeks later saying John Carpenter read it, loves it! I grew up watching his movies and by the way he’s the greatest guy on the face of the earth. He’s the coolest dude you could ever meet. He read the script, liked it and was very interested in directing it. His process was to sit there with the script and read it aloud to us page-by-page and everything that he didn’t like or thought wasn’t good he’d go Come on, you can do better than that. Which was a learning experience in itself and it showed, it taught me a lot about what directors are looking for and what they want and he’s a great teacher. The film never got made but it was a really good experience and then from that we actually did an uncredited rewrite on his last film THE WARD, so it worked out great because we got paid to rewrite the film. So we’ve worked with Carpenter twice and he’s a really good dude.
Film Courage: And so this was the second script with you and your writing partner?
Jim: That was actually the first one…(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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