Long time readers of this blog will know that I’ve been looking back at my diaries from ten years ago, during the filming of Robot Overlords. Some of the diary entries you’ll see are the ones featured in the back of the film’s novelisation (and if you want a signed and dedicated copy of the paperback, then please step this way and click here).
Such a pivotal day for the film, and looking back it’s strange that we didn’t do better with it in the end. I guess the lesson to learn is to be wary of excitement and hype, but my memories of that day were that we bloody loved it and it was going to be a smash…
Thursday 26th September – Molinare, London – Financiers’ screening
Today saw the financiers’ screening of Our Robot Overlords. Jon warned me that these can be brutal affairs, where the money people wonder why they bothered to invest in the first place, and who the hell hired these clowns and I don’t understand the ending, so let’s go straight to DVD and cut our losses.
I didn’t need to be there, but it was being shown on the big screen in (post-production facility) Molinare’s in Soho and I wanted to take notes for the book.
Jon and Matt were both outwardly calm, but nervous. Piers arrived with an infectious energy about him, which definitely helped the mood. The financiers started arriving soon after. People from NI Film, Pinewood, Steve Milne from Molinare, Natascha Wharton and Jamie Wolpert from the BFI, and our sales team and producers Tim Haslam and Hugo Grumbar.
What I saw was a much slicker cut of the film with a few VFX and pre-viz sequences. It’s far from finished or perfect, but it’s really feeling like a movie. There were cheers at SBK’s death scene and effusive applause at the end, and I blubbed a bit.
The lights came up and Tim gave Jon a bearhug and congratulated him on a job well done.
There were one or two notes, but nothing unfixable and that we hadn’t considered ourselves already. It could not have gone better and we were all buzzing afterwards. Already people were talking about sequels, TV shows, games and even theme park rides! If all goes to plan I could end up writing nothing but robots for the next ten years, but I don’t think I have a problem with that… yet.
As an added bonus the new issue of Total Film arrived. SBK was interviewed and mentioned Robots as one of a number of ‘wonderful scripts’ he’s worked on. I am currently floating on air.
Oh, and I spotted dad and Lou McGhie in the film. Claire, Emily and I are still in it. No sign of George*.
*He’s in it, behind Tamer Hassan when he’s just fired the shotgun. We just weren’t looking hard enough.
Just a few days before I was chatting to Tom Fickling about doing a comic strip adaptation with The Phoenix comic (which is a terrific comic if you’ve not encountered it before) and the talk of theme park rides wasn’t just a flippant remark. Our financiers knew people who could make these things happen. A few weeks after this my agent said one of the financiers was ready to pay for a sequel script (that money never arrived) and everyone thought that Sky would be interested in a TV series. All we needed was for the film to get wide distribution backed with proper marketing and it would be a smash! Hmm…
One big note that we did get from this screening that plagued us over the coming months was to add an expository voiceover from The Mediator character at the beginning. Looking back, I regret caving to this request. It has the poor viewer doing sums in their head as they try and figure out how long the robots have been here and how long it is before they go etc… None of it’s important and the mystery would have made them all the more enigmatic. Hey ho, you live and learn! But despite all that’s happened since, this was an amazing day and I really was floating on air and anything seemed possible. I guess another lesson is to enjoy those moments when they come along, because there haven’t been that many since!
Mark Stay Writes 