Wb Belief In 'dreamcatcher' Clear From Showest Screenings

"Dreamcatcher" director: There's no better way for a studio to show it believes in a film than to give exhibitors an early look at it.

A case in point is Warner Bros.' upcoming screening at ShoWest of the supernatural thriller "Dreamcatcher" from Castle Rock Entertainment in association with Village Roadshow Pictures and NPV Entertainment. Directed by Lawrence Kasdan, its screenplay by William Goldman and Kasdan is based on Stephen King's book. Warners will show the film to ShoWest attendees March 6 at 2:30 p.m. at both Bally's Jubilee Theater and the Paris Hotel's Paris Theater.

"Dreamcatcher" doesn't open until March 21, when it goes into about 2,500 theaters. The early buzz is that it's very scary and very commercial. Produced by Kasdan and Charles Okun, "Dreamcatcher" is executive produced by Bruce Berman. Its ensemble cast includes Morgan Freeman, Thomas Jane, Jason Lee, Damian Lewis, Timothy Olyphant, Tom Sizemore and Donnie Wahlberg.

"I heard about the book," Kasdan told me. "I had done 'Mumford,' an ensemble comedy (that's) very quiet and gentle, and I was looking for more of a robust story, something I could sort of cut loose with a little bit and use some of the effects I've been wanting to use and shoot some of the action I've been anxious to do for a while. And this story was perfect for it."

Kasdan read King's book shortly after it was published in 2001. "Castle Rock had bought it. They had done so many Stephen King books," he said. "And I had a relationship with those guys going back years, never having done a picture with them, but knowing them well over the years and always felt that was a good place to work. They had actually made my son's (Jake Kasdan) first movie, 'Zero Effect,' and they had confirmed all my good impressions of them with that. They treated him great. When I asked them about the book, they said, 'Welcome aboard.' William Goldman had already started to break the thing down into a screenplay. Bill and I had known each other for 10 years. We were in the Soviet Union together right before it broke up on a Writers Guild trip. I knew that we could work well and he was more than happy to have me come in and work with him on a draft. Then he stepped away and I wrote the shooting draft."

As easy as it was to get the ball rolling on "Dreamcatcher," production was another story. "The production was very difficult. It all takes place in a blizzard," Kasdan explained. "We had to go to British Columbia where there was reliable snow. We were six weeks out in the elements and when there wasn't real snow, we were making snow. And it was cold. It was 27 below some nights. But when you take on a thing like this, it's part of the attraction really. You know it's going to be an adventure."

Logistically, needless to say, a shoot like this one is very complicated to plan. "You can make all the snow you want blowing through the air -- it's difficult, but you can do it -- but you can't fill a huge panorama with it. You have to find some (real) snow," he said. "We found a piece of forest about 500 miles north of Vancouver in a town called Prince George, where we could control it. We could use roads and make roads where we had to to shoot things (and) where we could make our snow and clean it up without being disturbed. So you find a place like that and then you make it your own back lot."

Finding such a place typically isn't easy and takes a number of trips to scout locations. "We looked in Maine. We looked in Michigan and Minnesota," Kasdan noted. "There obviously are financial advantages to British Columbia, particularly at that time. But the truth is, it was the best location for us because it gave us the biggest piece of forest. It had access to a reasonably sized town where we could put a huge crew. And (it was a place) where there was reliably going to be snow on the ground the whole time we were there. We shot the rest of the picture in Vancouver and it never snowed in Vancouver. There was a little bit of snow to shoot for a day or two, but that's in some sort of Pacific warmth belt. If you get away from the coast and go up into British Columbia you have pretty reliable snow. And that was really the big draw that (attracted) us, not the tax breaks."

The film's story had great appeal to Kasdan. "It's really about four friends and their fifth friend who they save when they're kids and 20 years later when they're adults it all comes back and sort of makes sense when they're faced with this alien invasion," he said. "It sort of backs into that. Once a year they go away for a week to go hunting in the woods and it just happens, which is sort of like 'The Big Chill,' you know, except in this story instead of discussing their problems and going home they run into a bunch of aliens and have to save the world. It's sort of like one of my movies plus a Stephen King movie -- quite a combination.

"When I read the book, there was a character who Stephen King had explicitly named Kurtz after the mad military man in 'Apocalypse Now,' who's really based on Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness.' I didn't think we should do that (in the film) and Stephen agreed. We changed his name to Curtis, but he has that same whiff of madness. His problem is he's been chasing and fighting these aliens secretly for the government so as not to alarm the world for 25 years. He's very familiar with them, but he's gone around the bend like anyone who's a little too obsessed and too much in control of his own world. He's a bit of a madman. I thought, 'Well, who would be really interesting to play this sort of obsessed quasi-evil military guy who we haven't (already) seen play that part?' Morgan to me is one of the greatest actors who ever lived and I've always wanted to work with him. The first thought I had was Morgan. I went to see him to talk about it and he immediately said 'yes,' and I was just delighted. It turned out to be (great like) everything you've ever heard about Morgan. He's a god to me. He's really the ultimate professional. He loves to act. He brings enormous good spirit and gentleman-like behavior (to his films). I'd do anything with him. He was everything I'd hoped he be."

How did Freeman feel about working in British Columbia in minus-27 degree weather? "He has a particular aversion to cold and he told me that on our first meeting," Kasdan pointed out. "We tried to arrange it to minimize it, but the truth is he ran into a lot of the coldest weather during the time he was in Prince George. As with everything else, not one word of complaining. He's very funny about not liking the cold, but he was out there all night with me in the freezing, freezing cold and never a grimace about it. He's just the most pleasurable guy you could ever work with."

With so many books that are adapted to the screen, their authors don't become part of the filmmaking process. That wasn't, however, the case with "Dreamcatcher." "You know, Stephen has this unusual relationship with Castle Rock," Kasdan said. "They've had so much success together -- from 'Stand by Me' and 'Misery' and 'Green Mile' and 'Shawshank Redemption.' I mean, they've been the place for the good Stephen King stuff. He has a very intimate relationship with Martin (Shafer, chairman and CEO of Castle Rock) and (president) Liz Glotzer. They just trust each other. He was very pleased, I'm glad to say, when I came on. We talked constantly through this (with) about six conversations stretched through this year and a half process. He saw Bill's script. He saw my script. He saw one of my (early) cuts. He saw a more elaborate cut. He was very involved. He is very easy to get along with. He's a charming guy.

"You know, this book was written after his accident (when King was nearly killed by a car that hit him). He was in so much pain that he couldn't even sit at his computer. He wrote it in long-hand. It's a 600-page book. He wrote it in long-hand in six months. I don't know about you, but for me I couldn't even copy the book in long-hand in six months. He's clearly not of this earth. He's sure to be an alien, himself, otherwise how could he be so prolific? He's so charming and self-deprecating. I looked him up on the IMDb and there have been like 80 filmed versions of his work. A lot of his stuff's been done two and three times. I've been a screenwriter my whole life and it's hard to come up with these stories - -but clearly not for him."

Was King involved to the extent of giving Kasdan advice on what he felt worked or didn't work? "He never said 'no,' " Kasdan replied. "He did say 'yes' a lot. He would express things that interested him about where we were diverging (from the book). There's a lot of things in the book that absolutely couldn't be translated into a movie and there are things in the book that didn't satisfy in a cinematic way. What he does is he lays out this huge buffet of ideas. The book was written in a kind of fever pitch, I think, and there's a lot of the accident (that almost killed King) in the book. One of the characters is hit by a car at the beginning of the movie. You can't use all his ideas and he doesn't even wrap up some ideas that you want wrapped up. So in making a movie out of it you have to be sort of very open to fixing it. He gives you more than you can use in one way and less than you need in another way."

Needless to say, a 600-page book would be a challenge to anyone trying to turn it into a screenplay for a two-hour movie. "I had adapted one other book, 'The Accidental Tourist,' which is a wonderful Anne Tyler book," he said. "It's a much smaller, simpler book, but very delicate and nuanced. But even in that case I felt like I had to reduce (the material used). I took out so much stuff I loved from that book just to get it down (to the right movie length). You know, cinema is so economical compared to a novel."

Asked about the criteria for cutting or saving material in a book, Kasdan observed, "For me, the challenge is whatever it is that you respond to, what is the essence of the novel that gets you excited about turning it into a movie in the first place, and if you can boil that down to simply what is it about the story that makes you think it's a movie. And then it's like they say about sculpture. They say, 'How do you sculpt a horse?' Well, you just cut away everything that doesn't look like a horse. And that's what you have to do with a movie out of a book. You have to say, 'Well, what's the core idea and what is the minimum I can get away with to express that?' In some ways, you know, movies are much more evocative than novels. People always talk about the imagination filling in on a novel and that's true. But the truth is (that) our feelings about visual images are so powerful and every way a camera moves and a scene is cut has so many connotations to it that film is in some ways more powerful than prose."

For Kasdan, "Dreamcatcher" was a very different kind of project to make because it is so heavy with special effects, an area he hadn't really worked in as a director. "I had written some effects movie -- 'Raiders' and 'Empire' and 'Jedi,' you know -- but I never had made one," he said, pointing to some of the now classic films whose screenplays he did. "Since that time (in the early '80s things have changed a lot). When we were doing 'Raiders' everything was done on film and there was roto-scoping and motion control and (that was also the case with) all the 'Star Wars' movies. Since that time, there's been a complete digital revolution in visual effects. There's really almost nothing you can't do (today). I was very excited to come into the world of visual effects, which I'd always wanted to (work in), at a time when the tools are so interesting. It's been an education for me. I loved it, actually.

"It's like you're making two movies. You shoot the movie and you plan where the effects are. And then where you normally would go off to a cutting room and just cut the movie, in postproduction you start the second movie, which is the creation of the visual effects. I think I had not realized that you're doubling your work. I'm making creative decisions about the way images will look this week -- and we come out in four weeks! So it's a surprise for me. I've never done that. Usually, you have your material and you do with it what you can in the editing room. And you can do a lot. But when you're doing an effects movie, you're actually still making that movie right up to the release."

Is he liking working that way? "I am," Kasdan said. "We hired Industrial Light & Magic, where I had been around for all those Lucas movies, but had never worked there. The guys are wonderful. I cut the movie in Colorado, where I have a home, and we had satellite transmission. Every week we would spend hours talking. They could see me. I could see them. And the shot would be between us and we would hammer through all the shots. There were like 415 effect shots in the movie. It's been fun. It's been an education for me. People say, 'Would you do it again?' I'd do it again in a second. I just find it so entertaining."

Focusing on the making of the noneffects parts of "Dreamcatcher," he told me, "In a way it was the same as all my movies, which is that I love actors. We had a rehearsal period, which a lot of them have never even experienced because rehearsal's become so rare in the movies. But we had a great rehearsal period with Morgan (being) a wonderful example to them because Morgan comes out of the theater. He has a love of the rehearsal process. A lot of these younger guys love it too, but they've never been exposed to it much. In movies, people just are thrown into (making) these movies. So we had a wonderful rehearsal period and a great working atmosphere because I always surround myself with nice people. You know, there are so many skilled people that you can easily choose nice people.

"I had John Seale, who'd I'd been wanting to work with for 10 years. He's an amazing cinematographer, an Australian. Typically Australian, the more difficult the conditions, the happier he was. He's a very rough and tumble wonderful guy. I had said to John Seale, 'It's an effects picture, but given the freedom that digital effects gives you, we don't have to shoot it any differently than we would. I want this to be so real. We'll put the effects in later. We'll know where they're going, but it's not going to affect the way we shoot it.' We shot with two and usually three cameras all the time. It gives you enormous choices when you go to edit and then you can put these digital effects in there. So what I did need to do is storyboard the whole movie and know what I needed."

Kasdan shot for 96 days. "It was a difficult shoot," he said. "Even when we went back to Vancouver, we had one gigantic set that was supposed to be outdoors. The only thing I did indoors for outdoors was a piece of the forest. It was incredibly complicated -- snowing at the end and having the snow continue while we shot. It was treacherously slick. It was almost more dangerous to walk around that set than to be out in the woods."

Obviously, films as effects heavy as "Dreamcatcher" are not inexpensive to make. "We started out around $81 million and we wound up being around $85 million," Kasdan noted, citing numbers that really don't represent a huge escalation in costs. "I have a history of that. I'm pretty proud of my history. They have never really gone much over," he added. "I worked with a wonderful producer named Charlie Okun. We've been together for 20 years. It's a point of pride for us to stay right on the money."

In fact, he pointed out, "the movie won't cost $85 million because of these rebates and credits that they were giving back then (in Canada) and have been decreased. There's no question that the appeal of Canada was heightened by their full rebate package and that lowers the real cost of this movie quite a bit for Warner Bros. and Castle Rock. With that gone, it's less attractive -- not unattractive, but less attractive -- to runaway to Canada. My preference is always to shoot in this country, but it was very difficult to make an argument for it."

Earlier this week, however, the rebates Kasdan had referred to as being decreased since he shot "Dreamcatcher" got a new boost. The Canadian government announced plans Tuesday to increase production tax credits from 11% to 16% for foreign productions filming there. The change was made as part of the new annual budget announced by finance minister John Manley. Having a refundable tax credit in Canada of 16% on eligible labor costs is likely to send more runaway Hollywood production there than ever before, posing new challenges for Hollywood's guilds.

As "Dreamcatcher" approaches release, Kasdan is getting busy on a new project which will have him working again with Castle Rock to do an English language remake of the critically acclaimed German movie "Mostly Martha." "It's sort of a comedy and sort of a love story," he explained. "It's not a romantic comedy. It has none of those things that I think are connoted by that. It's a love story with real humor in it. She's a wonderful character. One of the best women's roles I've ever seen. I've never wanted to do a remake before, but I think this one is perfect for a remake in America. She's a wonderful chef, whose life is very controlled. It's not so different from 'Accidental Tourist' in a way. She's trying to control her universe. She's very obsessed. And then she unexpectedly has to take control of her niece when her daughter dies.

"When she can't seem to handle both being a chef and running the (niece's) life, her boss brings in another chef and he's the opposite of her sensibility, but very life-affirming. It's wonderfully funny stuff in which food becomes a metaphor for a lot of things. I'm fascinated by how these really haute cuisine restaurants work. How is this stuff made? What are the people like working there? And, also, there's a lot of wonderful byplay among the kitchen staff. I think it needs to be set in New York or Chicago or some big foodie American town. Terri Minsky's ('Lizzie Maguire') going to write it. I had seen a script she wrote called 'Anchor Women.' I didn't realize that it was wonderful (but) Imagine has. I had almost done that at one point. She's a very successful TV writer. She's created a couple series. She lives in New York with her husband, who's a journalist, and she's going to do the adaptation."

Martin Grove is seen Mondays at 9 a.m., 5 and 8 p.m., PT on CNNfn's "The Biz" and is heard weekdays at 1:55 p.m. on KNX 1070 AM in Los Angeles.