The Invisible Man
The place where movie ideas come from will always be mysterious to me. Whatever swampy subconscious region of my mind from which an idea bubbles forth remains frustratingly elusive and temperamental. I wish I had more direct access to this region. If every movie idea I’m ever going to have is already living in there, I would love to be able to walk into it like a video store and peruse the shelves. Alas, I cannot. And so I play the writers game of pacing around and living my life and waiting for the day that suddenly - while showering or driving or lying in bed - an idea will suddenly eject from my subconscious and enter my mind. That’s how it usually goes, anyway. There are, however, rare instances when an idea you are not reaching for surprises you out of nowhere. The Invisible Man was one of those.
Now, I’m obviously well aware that the character of The Invisible Man is not my creation. He’s an iconic character that many people have tried their hand at. The birth of my particular version of this character was the surprise. I was called into a general meeting by Peter Cramer of Universal Studios. Usually I dislike general meetings. In Hollywood, you can be called into a meeting to talk about a specific project or you can be called into a “general” - which means you talk about the weather for an hour and then at the end, the person says “let’s find something to work on”. I’d rather be at home putting work into a screenplay than talking about the weather. Also, in Los Angeles, one task can take up your entire day. It’s perfectly reasonable to ask someone “what are you doing on Tuesday?” and have them respond “going to the post office”. No need for further questions - that’s the whole day. Given the geography, size and traffic of LA, that trip to the post office will kidnap your entire day. And a general meeting will do the same. Peter Cramer of Universal is someone I enjoy talking to though and I had just finished making Upgrade, so I was hoping that maybe he would give me my yearly supply of praise that a screenwriter needs to survive in LA like a squirrel hoarding nuts for the winter.
It was at this meeting that Peter mentioned the character of The Invisible Man. It’s a character I know well but I had no desire to make a film about him. Without any desperation to win a job, I was able to improvise something when he casually asked me “How would you approach this character if you were doing it?” What I said was this: “I would probably write a film about his victim. It’s a woman in an abusive relationship with a scientist, and she escapes from him in the middle of the night. The problem is - he has the power to make himself invisible. And so when this woman tries to build a new life in hiding, she doesn’t know that he’s watching her...and he’s going to make her life hell. Yeah, I’d do something like that.” From that one blurted out flurry of words, a whole movie was born.
It wasn’t long before I was sitting at my desk, writing the film and then shooting it in Sydney. Of all the scripts I’ve written, I think this one was the most fun to write. I love the process of formulating a story but the actual writing part can be very difficult at times. I overanalyze each line and struggle to get to a specific place. An example of the place I’m trying to get to is the scene in Raiders Of The Lost Ark when Indiana Jones has returned from an adventure in South America and is now teaching an archeology class at the university where he works. This scene could have been an afterthought - a rushed exchange of dialogue where Jones drew a few things on the blackboard and then the bell for the end of class went off. It could have been that - but it wasn’t. Instead, Lawrence Kasdan wrote a scene where a smitten young woman in the front row of the class kept blinking slowly and revealing that she had scrawled I LOVE YOU on her eyelids.
This scene haunts me. Every time I sit down to write even the most simple scene, that aforementioned moment acts as the high bar I want to reach. Therefore, writing for me is really not writing and merely staring at the wall trying to make each moment live up to Raiders. The Invisible Man was a rare example of a script that wasn’t written that way. The film seemed to flow out of my fingers as of some extra terrestrial force was guiding my hand. That “flow state” is one that is highly prized by writers and I remember being in it for this one. I hope you enjoy the result.
