I ignored this book for about 3 years. The cover gave me the creeps. Not
the image in the link below, I'm talking about the hardcover-it
was a woman's head on a spike. This was the late 80s and I was working
for movie producer Elliott Kastner (EK), and the book was on a shelf in
my office. EK had ignored it too-he was a literary snob and only made
"classy" books into films, and let's face it, a woman's head on a spike
ain't classy, just horrible. Then a friend of mine visited my office and
saw the book. He'd read it and said if I liked police/murder thrillers,
nothing could beat Headhunter. He told me I should try and make the
movie. So I took that image of the head on a spike home with me every
night to read the book. What can I say, the book grabbed me like Abel
Magwitch grabbed Pip in Dickens' Great Expectations, turned me
upside-down and shook the heck out of me. And when I got to the part
where the killer's identity was revealed I was so shocked, so utterly
blindsided that I cried out "no way!" and threw the book across the
room. Then of course I picked it back up and finished reading it. And
boy did I want to make the movie. I told EK and he said "okay run with
it" which I presumed meant try and produce the movie. So off I ran.
At
that time, Michael Slade was the pen name for three trial lawyers in
Vancouver BC. The main scribbler and spokesperson for the trio was a guy
named Jay Clarke (Jay still writes the books in the Special X series to
this day, but I believe he now writes them with his daughter instead of
the two other lawyers). I contacted Jay (it was easy to do things like
that working for EK, my first day on that job I had Gregory Peck on the
phone).
Jay told me the film rights for Headhunter were
unavailable-they'd been held in option for a few years by a company that
hadn't got the film made but was paying good money for the option. But
Jay had heard of EK and a movie he'd recently produced called "White of
the Eye" - a serial killer thriller, which was great but didn't make
much of a splash. Jay didn't care; he was so excited about EK's
involvement that we worked out a deal whereby I got the option for much
less than the other guys had been paying.
White of the Eye was
written and directed by Donald Cammell, who I immediately thought would
love to do Headhunter. I'd gotten to know Donald when he came to
Pinewood Studios to recut scenes in White of the Eye for the upcoming
video release.
By this time, Donald and EK were in the process of
trying to get financing for a script called "Jericho" that Marlon Brando
had written and wanted to star in (EK, Brando and Donald were friends
from way back). I told Donald about Headhunter and he agreed to read it.
He went back to Los Angeles and a couple months went by so I called and
asked him if he'd read the book. He said he had but I could tell it
wasn't true - I just knew he'd be more excited if he really had. I told
him not to worry and said just call me when you've read it.
Months went
by. Then one day, I was with EK going over the mail when the phone rang.
It was Donald calling from LA. And when he started raving about how
great Headhunter was, I knew this time he'd really read it. It blew him
away. He wanted to write the screenplay and make the movie. I thought we
were off and running. But naturally Donald wanted his usual writing fee
to adapt the book into a script, which was $75k. By today's standards
that's really cheap, but EK hit the roof and said there was no way he'd
pay Cammell that money to write that script. Again, EK didn't think a
book whose cover was a woman's head on a spike was worth the money. So
the entire project stalled and derailed and I never got to be the
producer of a movie that, in my opinion, would not only have come years
before Silence of the Lambs, but would also have blown that movie out of
the water. If I had the money and connections today, I'd adapt
Headhunter into a screenplay myself (doing it back then wasn't an
option) and make that movie.
So anyway, if you love serial killer
thrillers, and if you loved Silence of the Lambs (which I thought was
great and one of the best book to movie adaptations ever), I think
you'll agree that the book Headhunter makes Silence of the Lambs look
like Little Bo Peep.
Here's Headhunter on Amazon: http://amzn.to/105w57n
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