By Steve Newton
Back in December of 1992 I wrote a feature article on the filming of Needful Things for the horror magazine Fangoria.
Among those I interviewed for the story were screenwriter W.D. Richter, whose previous genre credits included 1978’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers, 1979’s Dracula, and 1986’s Big Trouble in Little China.
Richter had also directed 1984’s The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension, a quirky adventure science-fiction comedy that I loved, so I was more than happy to call him up at his home in Massachusetts and get the scoop on how he’d tackled Stephen King’s 700-page novel of 1991.
First off, I was wondering how you got involved in Needful Things?
Hoooph [exhales loudly]. I was writing another script for Castle Rock, and they had gotten the first draft of the script that they commissioned from a writer named Larry Cohen. Actually I think it was a second draft, I’m not sure. They were uncomfortable with the direction it was going. They were interested in having Peter Yates direct the movie, and Peter had read something of mine that he liked and he said, “You’ve got somebody working here right now for you that I would like to have do the next draft on this.” And they asked me if I’d put down what I was doing a take a whack at the book.
I went back to the book–nobody wanted to rewrite the other script, I think they just felt that for whatever reason it was going in the wrong direction. So I worked with Peter Yates on the book to do a brand new screenplay.
Had you read the book before that?
No, I had never read Stephen King before.
Not a word?
Not one, no. I tend not to read much contemporary fiction, I tend to read nonfiction. So I was unfamiliar.
I was wondering how you went about adapting the 700-page epic.
Ahhhh [sighs heavily]. I shudder thinking how I went about it. We broke the book down. Oh god, it’s really daunting if you try to be too systematic about it because you just start to think it can’t be done and probably should be a mini-series. So I just started at the front and tried to economize as I went along. You know, if an idea occurred to combine something or skip over something, I’d take it as it came, and work though a long first draft–that was still considerably shorter than the book–to feel it was starting to be a movie.
And then that would get chewed over by everybody concerned, and I’d go at it again. And there’s a sort of a process where I can say to myself, “Well, if I’ve got a 700-and-something page book down to a 150-page screenplay, and that screenplay existed and I hadn’t created it, and somebody handed it to me and said, “Could you adapt this 150-page screenplay into a 120-page screenplay?”, that would seem doable, like something you could accomplish.
So you sort of psych yourself out along the way, saying “I can keep reducing this thing”. Unfortunately, I think when [director] Fraser Heston got on board he started putting things back into it, and it’s puffing up a little, as I understand it.
I was wondering if you’d seen any of the other films that have been made from King’s work.
Oh sure. Not religiously, but…
From what you’ve seen, what would you say makes his movies work as opposed to ones that don’t work, from the writing aspect.
Hmmm. See I’ve never been able to compare the source material, even from the ones I’ve seen, and that’s really a tough one to comment on, because there’s probably a specific answer for each book and each problem presented, and some of his books are very different. Some of them are more supernatural, some of them more character-driven, some are tightly conceived, and others are very long. So I think success or failure depends on a lot more than just an easy single observation.
If you could have had your choice of writing a screenplay to a King book, picking any of them, which one would you have chosen? Well…I guess since you haven’t read them that’s a dumb question…
[Laughs] Well it’s not dumb if I think about the movies that have been made; that would be my only reference, you know. I didn’t like the size of Needful Things, but I liked that the characters were pushing the action a lot. That appealed to me enormously, and I think [Max von Sydow’s character Leland] Gaunt was really really well written, and it was fun to try and work him carefully into a tighter structure.
How did you go about humanizing the devil in your screenplay?
Well I loosed him from his store. He doesn’t just sit there behind the counter; you meet him about the town some more. And I did that for a couple of reasons. I thought it would be potentially visually boring and constricting to have to keep returning to the shop and photographing him across the counter. I think that King has more ability on the page to make each scene sound different, you know, because he can come at it a little differently and you’re inside Gaunt’s head and you’re thinking Gaunt’s thoughts, but I was very concerned that we would be in Gaunt’s shop over and over and over again. And Peter Yates felt the same way.
I also thought that part of Gaunt’s strategy would be to look like an ordinary person. It seemed imperative that people didn’t think he was weird or removed or reclusive and then be afraid to get close to him. So the way he insinuates himself into the town is to become part of it. So he walks the streets and he goes to the coffee shop.
We made a change and moved [Bonnie Bedelia’s character] Polly out of…I can’t remember what she was…was she in a yarn store or something?
Something like that, yeah.
She runs the cafe now, so it’s a crossroads–people pass through her world, and it made condensation… You know, there’s a way that you can compress a bit because you don’t have to take a side trip to go see Polly, you can actually go and see her where some of the other business people would be. [J.T. Walsh’s character Danforth] Keeton would conceivably be in Polly’s place of business if she had a cafe, never if–he doesn’t knit. So you have to kinda do stuff like that, and that brought Gaunt into the world.
Did you know who was in the cast when you were writing the screenplay?
Oh no, God no, because we didn’t even really have a go-ahead. We didn’t have a screenplay. They basically considered it a first draft.
How did you feel when you found out who was playing your characters?
Well I sort of learned it along the way, you know. There’d be discussions, and Peter Yates had his ideas, and then Castle Rock’s and Peter’s were sort of presented to Fraser, and he had his. So it was a rotating group of names, and it would get narrowed down. I’m very happy. I haven’t seen any footage–because I’m not up there [in Canada]–but to me they’re all real actors.
The way you wrote Gaunt, do you think Max von Sydow will be able to bring it to life?
I don’t know. I’ve never met Max von Sydow. It’s gonna depend on what Fraser and Max von Sydow concoct. It’s a whimsical part. It’s scary, but it requires a certain sense of delight from the devil. He’s not just ominous, sinister, and serious about what he’s doing, so we’ll see.
I guess you’re probably best known for directing Buckaroo Banzai, which I’m quite a fan of. I’ve got my own copy on video.
Oh! Wonderful!
That’s an excellent movie.
Thank you.
I was wondering: as well as sci-fi, do you have a place in your heart for horror?
Oh definitely. Actually I like horror films more than I like science fiction. I grew up on scary movies.
So you wouldn’t mind doing more horror if the projects come your way.
Not if they’re good quality. And they’re character-driven, again. I think it’s important for a writer to continue to explore human behaviour, not just plot mechanics or one-line, clever–what would you say–hooks for movies. I like to write all sorts of different things if the idea seems worthy of all the effort.
Some would argue that, considering how the Needful Things movie turned out, whatever W.D. Richter wrote for it was definitely not worth all the effort. Here’s my original review from when it was first released in theatres back in August of 1993.
To read more than 350 of my other reviews of horror movies released theatrically in North America between 1987 and 2019, go here.