David Fuller's "Sundance," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Sundance by David Fuller.

The entry begins:

As a recovering screenwriter (a term my wife coined for me a few years back, so when you hear others use it, you’ll know from where they stole it), I know the ‘business’ pretty well. And I know casting and how it works. I didn’t write the novel to be made into a movie, which is why I wrote it as a novel. But people talk, and when writing screenplays, you always start with your favorites, a little list you keep in your head. The dream list. Sometimes you even write the names down in case your agent bothers to ask who you see in the role. He’ll ignore your suggestions, but it’s nice to be asked. But before we get into the Pitts and the Clooneys and the Costners and the Hamms, when it comes to my novel Sundance, we had better begin at the beginning.

Robert Redford may well be available. And if I had written the novel twenty years ago, he would be the hands-down first choice. But if you cast him now, then you have to cast an older Etta, say Helen Mirren or Judi Dench. Even if you nudge their true ages up a notch for the story, keeping in mind the Sundance Kid would have been 46 in 1913, this perhaps is a notch too far.

So here’s how it will work: You’ve got that list of four or five guys, movie stars, because our image of the Sundance Kid was created by a Movie Star. And you go after them, and this is in no particular order. Well, Brad Pitt loves your project, he wept when he read it, he laughed, he was on the edge of his seat, and he...[read on]

Learn more about the book and author at David Fuller's website and blog.

The Page 69 Test: Sweetsmoke.

The Page 69 Test: Sundance.

Writers Read: David Fuller.

My Book, The Movie: Sundance.

--Marshal Zeringue