

   About the forging of "The Ring"
  




                                                                          
 
                  Copyright 1994 by Daniel Keys Moran.
                            All rights reserved.

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DESCRIPTION: "Bad News," a description of the publication of the movie
             novelization "The Ring."



&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    Part One: The Short Version

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    A Mr. Boffo cartoon:
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    Mr. Boffo and (Ace) Weederman, the Wonder-Dog, are sitting on
a deserted island in the middle of the ocean. Mr. Boffo is
saying:
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    "Someday, Weederman, we'll look back on all this and laugh.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    "It will probably be one of those deep, eerie ones that
slowly build to a blood-curdling maniacal scream...but still it
will be a laugh."


&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    Part Two: The Medium-Sized Version

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    This article was originally written in response to a question
by the SFWA Bulletin; they asked me, "Would you recommend this
form of writing (movie novelizations) to other writers?" After
I stopped laughing hysterically I called George Zebrowski.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    We had odd difficulties communicating.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    "Look, you don't have to go into great detail," he said.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    "But it's kind of complex. I mean, all this stuff happened.
It was just crazy. I could probably get this down in, I don't
know, three thousand words."
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    "You have fifteen hundred."
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    "Two thousand? How about two thousand?"
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    "Fifteen hundred!"
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    "But it's such a long story that --"
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    "Look, write whatever you want," he shouted. "However
long you want. And we'll cut it. We're editors."


&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    Part Three: The Long Version

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    Sometime in August of 1987 my little sister, Doctor Death,
sent me a postcard from Brazil, where she was studying up on
ether-based purification techniques. The postcard said:  Don't
trust anybody.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    Two days later Bantam called about "the next Star Wars."
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    "We want to do this in hardback," Bantam said. "We think
you're just perfect for the job. The movie we're talking about is
based on The Ring, Wagner's opera. It's a science fiction
version of The Ring and we think you'd be just perfect for the
job."
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    I'd just finished my second novel, and was still under
contract for the third. I was offered less money than I needed to
starve on, plenty of glory, and a boost to my career. (They were
serious about that, incidentally, the boost to the career part.
It didn't work, but what the hell.) They wanted the book in four
months.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    I didn't have an agent back then.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    I agreed to do it. Right then. On the phone. Without having
seen the screenplay. Without having seen the work-for-hire
"contract," without really having a clear conception of what work-
for-hire was or that it entailed total loss of ownership and
creative control of my work.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    Okay, that was a mistake.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    Still -- four months of writing; if the book had done one
twentieth as well as the Star Wars novelization it would have
earned many times as much as I'd made for any of the three books
in my first contract.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    The basic idea sounded good. My familiarity with opera was,
then, nonexistent  -- except, weirdly, for The Ring, which I'd
watched on PBS many years prior, and had just loved. Watching it,
all those years ago, I'd thought then what a great SF or fantasy
movie the story could have made.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    Two days later the screenplay and contract arrived Fed-Ex.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    The screenplay was not good. The dialogue was bad enough, but
the plot was essentially incoherent. There were dueling
spaceships out of Star Wars, the Force out of Star Wars
(cleverly renamed "the Light"), bits from Top Gun, and some
stuff which was recognizably lifted from Der Ring des
Nibelungen. The Rhine maidens became the "Nature Women," who
lived on the "Nature World," at the center of the universe. It
juxtaposed a rural, 14th century lifestyle with lasers and
spacecraft. Fantasy with hardware, in other words; not science
fiction by any reasonable stretch of the imagination.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    The "contract" was a two-page letter which essentially said
that everything I was writing belonged to the producer of the
motion picture, William Layton Stewart (who was also, with his
wife Joanne Nelson, the co-writer, and planned to be the director
as well.) In laying out royalties the letter made no mention of
foreign sales, which I missed.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    I more or less wanted out then. But I'd already told Bantam
I'd do it, and it seemed at that point that keeping my word was
more important than my misgivings.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    Okay, that was a mistake.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    I signed the contract and sent it back.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    I've been writing since I was eight or so. I've never, until
faced with turning that screenplay into a book, had anything
approaching writer's block. If anything, there's always far more
to write than time to write it in. But for two months I couldn't
write a word. Finally, with the ms. due in two months, I quit the
job I was being paid a lot of money to perform, locked myself in
my office, and for sixteen hours a day for four months did
nothing but write. I missed my deadline by two months, and only
Bantam's threat to pull the book from the schedule made me send
it to them. (They were trying to get the hardback book out in
time to beat the movie's premier by half a year or so.) Of all my
books The Ring is the only one that was published with problems
(lots of them) that I knew how to fix.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    (When David Gerrold purchased a copy of The Ring for $20, I
asked him not to read it, told him that the book was not a
success, though some parts of it were quite good. "Ah," he said.
"Perhaps you could go through and circle them for me.")
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    The final ms. ran 750 pages. About 220 of those pages were
totally original, concerning the early life of the movie's anti-
hero, Cain. Those pages, the characters in those pages, were
mine.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    A copy of the ms. was sent to Bill Stewart; he read it,
called my editor, and asked to meet with me. He had a few things
he wanted to discuss. My editor called me and asked if she should
give Stewart my phone number. I said yes.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    Okay, that was a mistake.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    William Stewart is an immensely charming and persistent man.
What he is not is a producer or director of motion pictures. He
is a writer only if one unproduced screenplay and a couple of
proposals count.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    We met.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    I received suggestions for revisions from Bill Stewart, from
his wife Joanne, and from his business partner. Before we were
done, in a process that took about eight weeks, they made
suggestions for revisions covering approximately twenty-five
single-spaced pages. I made revisions on the book based on
those suggestions; some helped the book, some didn't matter. A
few hurt. I made all the changes that helped, all those that
didn't matter, and many of those that hurt -- because if I hadn't
made them, Bill Stewart, who owned that novel, had threatened to
do them himself.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    In the middle of all this I asked Bill when the movie would
come out. I was told that they were in pre-production, and that
principle photography would begin in nine months. I was puzzled
by the answer; the numbers didn't add up. Why this immense rush
over a book to a movie that wouldn't be out, under any
circumstances, in less than a year and a half? As it turns out,
Stewart had told Bantam, when they began negotiating something
like half a year prior, that he was then in pre-production, and
that principle photography would begin in nine months.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    In short, there was no movie.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    How did this happen? Didn't anybody check to see if this
"30 million dollar production" was actually in production?
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    Nope. I didn't. Smarter people than me -- i.e, Bantam --
didn't. Pretty much everybody bought into this; the book sold in
Holland, France, and Japan -- in Japan the book sold to NHK for
$80,000.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    I had no right to foreign sales from the book; I made
nothing.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    And there was no movie and to this day there is still no
movie.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    If this movie had been made -- if I'd made a ton off of the
novelization -- I would still today be unwilling to do a
novelization again without 1) complete creative control, 2)
copyright retention, and 3) a ton of money, something along the
lines of what bit actors get. It's often said that movie making
is a collaborative art; Joan Didion wrote that it's more like
armed conflict, where some of the principles have nukes. Before
I'd do a novelization again I'd want my own MX.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    There's nothing wrong with novelizations, if you go in
intending to do a workmanlike job, and are not concerned that
people might mistake the resulting book -- because your name is
on it -- for an attempt at art. Art is hard enough to begin with.
Accepting that an attempt at art will be altered by (in the case
of The Ring) no less than three other people, is, for me,
unnecessary. I'd rather write my own stories.


