Film Courage: How many screenplays did you write before FINAL DESTINATION?
Jeffrey Reddick: I think about seven.
Film Courage: And these were features?
Jeffrey Reddick: Yes.
Seven Features of varying degrees starting with really awful to okay to good [Laughs].
Because I wrote my first one when I was in middle school (no high school) and I sent
it to New Line Cinema and they were like “Oh, it got great coverage but it’s not right
for us.”
And when I started at New Line like five years later, I dug the coverage up and they were
like “This is awful!
It was obviously written by a middle schooler.”
And I was like “I was in high school!”
So it’s interesting because I always tell people you can’t take rejection when you
get it because if I were to take that coverage in high school, I probably would have just
been like “Oh I don’t have any talent” and I would have just given up.
But you also have to be open to growing because I also meet a lot of young people and God
Bless them but they also think that they are already there.
They are like “You know this is the best script that Hollywood is ever going to make.”
And I’m like “You’re 15.
With all do respect, I’m sure it’s not the best thing that Hollywood is ever going
to read.”
So you kind of need to let your ego go and you have to grow.
So I wrote a lot and just learning…it was a learning process.
But when I was young it was a lot of fun to write.
And then you start learning structure.
And then when you start working at a studio you start learning there’s a hard craft
that you need to kind of learn, too.
So it’s mixing the business with the creative.
Film Courage: And this was a script based loosely on NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET?
Jeffrey Reddick: That was a treatment I wrote when I was 14 which got into…hello cat [stops
to pet cat]…see the little visitor here…that I wrote for NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET and that’s
what got me in touch with New Line Cinema when I was 14.
And I stayed in touch with them until I was 19 and I started interning there when I was
19 and they made and so they made FINAL DESTINATION when I was age 30 (just to date myself).
But FINAL DESTINATION originally started out as a spec script to get an agent for an X
FILES episode because they wanted you to write something of your own and they also want you
to write something of your own so you can show you can write in different character’s
voices.
So I wrote an X FILES episode and I didn’t submit it to the show because when my friends
at New Line said this would make a great feature and then when I worked on it (ironically)
with two guys who worked on the X FILES, James Wong and Glenn Morgan so I think it was kind
of a karmic thing that was meant to be with the X FILES connection there.
Film Courage: I’m curious though…what is keeping in touch?
That’s fascinating to me as a 14 year-old “Yeah, I’m just going to be keeping in
touch with New Line.”
[Laughs].
Jeffrey Reddick: Yeah well at first Bob Shay he didn’t read my treatment because it was
unsolicited and then I wrote him kind of a snarky…well not snarky but “Hey, I’ve
seen three of your movies and I’ve spent money on you, I think you can take 5 minutes
to read my story.”
and so…
Film Courage: That’s great.
I love it.
Jeffrey Reddick: Yeah so he did and got back to me and said…well his assistant (her name
was Joy Mann) she was just an amazing woman.
She passed years ago unfortunately.
And she was an amazing woman and she would send me movie posters and little merchandising
things from movies and scripts to read and I would stay in touch with them.
They were always very gracious even to spend time with me.
And then one day, I don’t know if they even knew if I was going to get to New York or
not but they …I was pretty crafty…I should be craftier.
I’d make a good super villain if I ever use my craftiness for evil but when I was
in college I had them start a special program where I could go to New York to study acting
at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and then get credit for it.
So the school paid for my whole trip to New York my whole summer there.
But then I got an internship at New Line when I was there.
I was like “Oh scr*w school” and decided to stay in New York and stay at New Line.
Film Courage: So they new you were age 16 or however old you were when you sent the
script in?
Jeffrey Riddick: Well I think Joy…I don’t know if I ever told Joy how old I was.
I think she asked me once.
Because I would call her, too.
I got the phone number from information and she would talk to me.
Film Courage: That’s great.
Jeffrey Riddick: Yeah…and this was back when New Line was…I mean NIGHTMARE ON ELM
STREET had come out so they were definitely growing but they hadn’t turned into like
the powerhouse that they became.
But definitely that wouldn’t happen today.
It was a real blessing.
I always give credit to Bob and Joy for…if they hadn’t have stayed in touch with me
and inspired me and then brought me on as an intern when I first started, when I went
to New York, I mean I’m sure I still would have been in the business, it just was my
path I think but they were really crucial.
Warner Brothers absorbed New Line so it’s not probably the same place anymore, but it
probably was one of the best studios to be built because it was so artist friendly and
they really cared.
Bob Shay was a huge film lover.
Like he started distribution John Waters films out of his apartment to college campuses and
doing these tours.
So he’s a huge film lover so he created this company that is a huge company filled
with film lovers.
And now you have a lot of great companies but a lot of them are run by business people
who don’t love film.
So they understand the equations of so if I put this formula together it will make money
but they don’t understand the creative side of it.
And New Line was just a wonderful fostering environment to work.
So yeah…I got really lucky with that one.
Film Courage: You first year there [at New Line] you were age 19?
Jeffrey Riddick: Yes.
Film Couarge: Do you remember what that was like because it must have been surreal to
work with this group of people where first they turned you down but then they keep in
touch with you and send you things and now you are there [working]?
Jeffrey Riddick: It was surreal in a way but it’s a weird thing just because I always
knew I was going to be working in the movie business some how.
It didn’t hit me super…but it did hit me sometimes when I found that coverage for
the first thing I wrote.
I was like “Wow, if I would have read this, if they had told me the truth I might not
be here.”
But because it was all happening and again when you’re younger you’re still at that
“I can do anything in the world and nothing can stop me stage.”
So I have always been so appreciative of the opportunity but I wasn’t like ever surprised
but it was really cool because I got to meet all the people from NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET.
Meeting all these people that I had grown up idolizing was like cool and I remember
we were at the SEVEN premiere, the amazing movie with Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman and
all of the sudden I am talking to Morgan Freeman for like an hour and so they teach you when
you work there don’t act weird when the celebrities come in because they would come
in there all the time for meetings.
You learn how to shut out that geeky part of your brain.
But then I had lunch with Jane Badler who was in V the miniseries that came out in the
80’s who played Diana the evil, lizard, alien queen but I had lunched with her.
And that was the first time I had actually been star struck where I couldn’t talk because
I didn’t know what star struck meant until I had lunch with her and I was like I can’t
talk right now and this is really embarrassing and I’m a grown man and why am I like this?
Again it was a wonderful thing and it was a wonderful convergence of the right people
like Bob and Joy taking time.
Because Bob could have just written in that one thing and written me off and Joy could
have been like “Oh, that’s cute.”
But she would stay in touch with me and I probably just bugged the hell out of her.
I was always like “Can you read this?”
And she was just very patient and it was a wonderful experience, it really was.