Book of eli director interview blind

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Though the film itself is a completely original story, "The Book of Eli" is the post-apocalyptic brainchild of a self professedly geeky imagination raised on comic books, video games and sci-fi television. Screenwriter Gary Whitta spoke Friday at WonderCon about the genesis of the project and what the film will mean for his own genre work in the future. As a longtime writer for magazines PC Gamer and ACE, Whitta knew from a very young age that he was going to transform his creative loves into gainful employment, saying, "It was very satisfying when I got my first job writing about video games and could go to my mother and say, 'See, I told you! It was a mixed blessing, then, when Whitta lost his job and finally made the decision to push his dreams one step further, aiming to become a writer in the style of a personal hero, "Dark Knight" and "Blade" screenwriter David Goyer, bringing a cinematic weight to genre pieces. That's how long I thought I'd give myself.

Book of eli director interview blind

Published in Jan. Night Shyamalan. Gary has written for video games and comics and he also worked on the upcoming feature film Star Wars: Rogue One , which unfortunately he is strictly forbidden from discussing. He recently used the Ink Shares crowdfunding platform to publish his first novel, Abomination. This interview first appeared on Wired. Visit geeksguideshow. Okay, so you started your career as a game reviewer, so just tell us a bit about how you got involved with that. I started, jeez—I started way back in the 8-bit days of computer gaming. I was reading the Commodore 64 games magazines and playing kind of Sinclair Spectrum and C64 games. But I grew up loving those 8-bit games and transitioned in to the bit era right as I was leaving school and desperately wanted to do something like this for a living. I was tremendously inspired by the game magazines that I would read voraciously when I was growing up. I would type out these little mock reviews. No, that was Commodore User , so this was like , and it was roughly around the time the 8-bit generation was giving way to bit.

Even though the movie tries to take a very neutral view of this.

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Godforsaken, many would call this dystopian earth. But God is not gone, nor forgotten. For Eli carries, along with his gloves and guns and cruel, broad blade, something special. Something sacred. In the age gone by, Bibles were burned by the bushel. They caused the War that tore a hole through the sky, the people said. It must be destroyed—wiped from the face of the earth. He carries it west, always west, where the sun comes down from heaven and seems to set upon the ground.

Book of eli director interview blind

The decision to recast Eli with Boyega replacing Washington is hardly a surprise given the real-world factors of the project's development and the show taking place 30 years before the movie. The opportunity for Denzel Washington to return to The Book of Eli world was passed up many years ago. Since Eli died in The Book of Eli 's ending , a prequel was the only logical way for the film to become a franchise. However, a prequel movie starring Denzel was never discussed or put into development. This left the actor with only one appearance as the blind warrior. With John Boyega taking over the franchise's lead role now, there is seemingly no role left for Washington. Yet, one potential option for him to remain involved would break a decades-spanning trend. Now that it has been announced that a prequel show to The Book of Eli is happening, there is a chance that Denzel Washington could return for a cameo. There have been no reports indicating Denzel will return for The Book of Eli 's prequel show or that he is involved in any capacity. However, the prequel series has most of the key creative team involved otherwise.

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I think it is definitive that he was blind based on an interview with Denzel Washington and the fact that he did echo location at least once in the movie. It was really a great mix of, like I said, the creative freedom that I would associate with self-publishing, but a lot of the benefits that a traditional publisher has as well. I totally agree with you about critics being hard on the film. And the same is true with a script. What you want to do when you write something is have people see and enjoy it and get that satisfaction. That it has this cinematic vibe to it. Thats the part that intrigued me the most. And around , I guess, the PC games market had gotten to the point where it was considered viable for them to have their own magazines, and PC Gamer was launched. But even back then, I went in there thinking the audience is not necessarily going to be on the side of my argument. Eli , by that standard, was actually relatively fast. Outside of the world of Eli, Whitta has been hard at work contributing to a draft of "Warcraft," a job that he desperately strove for but had been turned down until days after the script to "Eli" had sold. With Hollywood, the reach often overextends the grasp, which is to say when Warner Brothers first saw the movie, they were really attracted to doing this thing. Carnegie was really kind of meant to symbolize that idea. Whether or not it motivates people to do good in the world or bad in the world is the conversation that I wanted the movie to have.

The world is barely inhabitable with some regions covered in ash and others nothing but a barren wasteland of its former self. However, the titular Eli traverses this world on a mission alone.

I still hear from people that really enjoy it. She is kind of strong in those typical masculine ways, but I thought what was much more interesting about her, and what makes her a much strong characters, is I really tried to load her down with as many emotional flaws, and problems, and setbacks as possible. I was really good at Quake. After that, Whitta consciously avoided the set until the final film was ready and says he couldn't be more proud of the result. Thank you. And you can find online lists and resources of companies out there that will actually accept unsolicited material from writers. Gary, thank you so much for joining us. I liked that though. Thats the part that intrigued me the most. Gary, do you have any other projects you want to mention? I love Will.