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While the other kids were playing with Lego, Matthew Reilly was in his bedroom building movie sets for his action figures. Now 7.5 million novels sold later it's movie for real time.

Source : PortMac.News | Street :

Source : PortMac.News | Street | News Story:

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Author Matthew Reilly goes from books to big screen debut
While the other kids were playing with Lego, Matthew Reilly was in his bedroom building movie sets for his action figures. Now 7.5 million novels sold later it's movie for real time.

News Story Summary:

Author Matthew Reilly goes from books to big screen in Interceptor directing debut "I wanted to be a film director. I wanted to make big action movies," Reilly says.

"I loved movies like Die Hard, Predator, Aliens, Raiders of the Lost Ark. Movies which were escapist, which took people away from the real world."

It was only in his teens that he realised no-one was going to give an enthusiastic amateur a big budget to make the films he wanted to direct.

It was far more practical to put his grand visions on paper than the screen and so he began to write.

"I realised I could have all the special effects and all the big blockbuster action I could dream of, and it didn't cost me a cent," Reilly tells Australian Story.

This week, the 47-year-old author releases his 19th novel and the last in the popular Jack West Jr series.

Reilly wrote his first novel, Contest, at 19 while studying law at university. How he came to be represented by Pan MacMillan after putting out that novel himself is now the stuff of publishing legend.

After being rejected by every publisher he approached, he decided to self-publish Contest, taking out a loan to do so. He put enormous thought into the cover design so that it would sit comfortably alongside other contemporary action thrillers and convinced a bookstore in central Sydney to stock it.

It was there that it caught the eye of Cate Patterson, then a commissioning editor at Pan Macmillan Australia, which had previously rejected the novel.

Impressed by Reilly's chutzpah — and the draft of his next novel, Ice Station — she signed him to a two-book contract and the rest is history.

Reilly is now published in more than 20 languages and has sold more than 7.5 million copies of his novels.

Even as his book sales grew, Reilly didn't let go of his filmmaking dreams. At university he'd made short films with friends and in 2005 he shot a 12-minute movie pilot for Contest, even playing one of the roles himself.

Despite impressively high production values, the pilot is no Citizen Kane. "It's terrible," Reilly says with a grimace. "I really wish nobody would ever see it but a buddy of mine put it up on friggin' YouTube."

But the fact he went to such lengths to present it professionally, just as he had with the cover of the novel, speaks to an unshakeable self-belief and determination.

In fact, self-belief and perseverance are themes that underlie everything Reilly writes and lives by.

Asked where his confidence comes from, Reilly is briefly and uncharacteristically lost for words. After some thought, he attributes it to some seminal childhood moments.

As a very young child, he would join his parents in amateur musical productions.

"On stage in front of 400 people every night for two weeks, I had people depending on me. Being in those shows taught me adult responsibility and gave me confidence."

Then later, in high school, he was given a difficult time by other students for studying so hard. "I developed something in high school which follows me to this day where I just don't care what other people think of me," Reilly says.

"Why hold yourself back to make somebody else feel good?"

There have been many false starts in Reilly's efforts to forge a film career. His novels Ice Station, Scarecrow, The Great Zoo of China and Hover Car Racer were all optioned by Hollywood but stalled in various stages of development.

The one that hurts the most, though, was Literary Superstars, a script for a TV pilot set in the publishing industry that was picked up by Sex and the City producer Darren Star in 2007.

Actor Jenna Elfman was attached to the project and other casting was well under way when the American Writers Guild went on strike.

"The strike lasted for five months, and my show died. We had ABC and NBC in America both bid for that show. Literary Superstars got that close to the top of the mountain and fell to nothing. That one hurt. All the others, they're the slings and arrows of Hollywood."

Such setbacks, however, paled in comparison to the personal tragedy that struck in late 2011.

While Reilly was on a book tour, his wife Natalie took her own life after battling anorexia and depression. Reilly was shattered.

He became lost in his grief and was unable to write.

Gradually, however, he began to pick up the pieces.

He started writing again and in 2013 he met his current partner, Kate Freeman.

As the relationship developed, Reilly found it increasingly difficult to remain in Sydney. "I had been with Natalie in Sydney for 18 years, so there were just memories in every corner of the city."

The couple needed to create new memories and Reilly was impatient to pursue his lifelong dream of directing movies.

So at the start of 2015, Reilly and Freeman moved to Los Angeles.

"I landed in Los Angeles and sort of found my tribe in terms of people who like my kind of movie," he says.

"The Australian film industry, because of its size, makes a certain kind of movie. In Los Angeles, if you've got a good idea for an action movie, there's somebody who might be ready to make it."

The Interceptor inception:

Reilly was not short of ideas.

And given the success of his books and their cinematic nature, adapting one of them for the screen would have seemed the obvious path to directing.

But there was a problem.

Reilly's books were too cinematic, too action-packed.

"Nobody would ever let me direct an adaptation of one of my books because the books are designed to be bigger than the biggest Hollywood blockbusters. That would cost $100 million and they don't let a first-time director have that sort of budget."

So in 2017 Reilly sat down to write a screenplay that he could direct. Something that could be made for less than $15 million.

He came up with Interceptor, about a female army captain on a US missile interceptor facility who has to stop 16 nuclear missiles aimed at 16 American cities.

It would be action-packed but that action would largely take place on one set.

Reilly showed his script to LA-based Australian screenwriter Stuart Beattie (Pirates of the Caribbean, Collateral), who he became friends with not long after arriving in LA.

"I started reading it and by page two I was like, 'Oh my God, this is fantastic'," Beattie recalls. "So I called him up and I said, 'I absolutely love it. Can I re-write it?' He was like, 'Yeah, sure, go for it'."

"He took it for about four days, and it came back 20% better," Reilly says.

Beattie also offered to show the script to some producers that he knew. Reilly was keen but insisted that he direct the movie, despite his lack of experience.

"At at least three points in the journey, the powers-that-be said we'd have more chance of making this if you didn't direct it. And I said, 'No, I'm directing it'."

"He never gave up on that, which is pretty awesome," Freeman says. "I asked him once, 'Are you sure you have to direct it?' And he was not happy that I asked that question."

"They said, 'Will he be good?'" Beattie recalls of his discussions with the producers. "And I was like, 'Yes, he'll be good. He's a lovely guy, no ego. And he will listen'. Because that's really what you want — someone to listen. If they think they know everything, then you're in real trouble."

A childhood dream realised:

When Netflix eventually picked up the project, everything finally fell into place, Spanish actor Elsa Pataky signed on as the lead, with Australian Luke Bracey playing the villain.

Pataky's husband, Australian actor Chris Hemsworth, is one of the movie's executive producers. Filming took place in Sydney earlier this year, with the movie set for release in early 2022.

Reilly plans to go back to books:

With Reilly finally realising his childhood dream of directing movies, and with his Jack West Jr series of novels wrapping up with The One Impossible Labyrinth, fans of his books might be concerned his writing days are over. But Reilly insists that's not the case. 

"I think my publisher is worried I'll keep directing movies and not write any more books, but I enjoy the creativity of writing a book. And you have a special relationship with your audience when it's just you and your reader. I'd love to make a movie, write a book, make a movie, write a book. That'd be pretty good."

Reilly is already developing a sequel to Interceptor with Beattie, as well as an adaptation of his debut novel Contest, which would represent a remarkable full-circle moment for the writer.

Story By | Greg Hassall


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