Unproduced Screenplays
by Whitley Strieber
CATMAGIC (SCREENPLAY) - Whether or not this was adapated to screenplay
form is not known, but indications are this was considered at one time:
We have this quote from Strieber during the production of the film version
of Communion: “I will write the screenplay for all my movies
in the future...We may be doing Cat Magic as well.”–Whitley
Strieber interviewed by Stanley Wiater, Twilight Zone magazine, April 1989
It should be noted that when this particular
interview was reprinted a couple years later in slightly different form
in Mr. Wiater's book Dark Dreamers, that line was altered to read
Majestic rather than Cat Magic.
MAJESTIC (SCREENPLAY)
“... the fact that the plane was parked on a runway half-covered with sand
made me assume, in 1954, that I was looking at something on Mars. The plane
was blue and white, and I think now that what I heard being announced was that
it was Air Force One, which had been grounded at Los Angeles Airport because
of a sandstorm. This sand-bound plane became one of the key images in the as-yet
unproduced film script of Majestic, my novel on the Roswell Incident, the alleged
crash of a UFO near Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947.” –Whitley Strieber,
from his book The Secret School
An earlier announcement of this plan came
in December 1989, when the Los Angeles Times reported that “in November,
Mora will reteam with Communion author Whitley Strieber for the screen
adaptation of Strieber's best-seller Majestic, concerning an alleged
UFO landing in New Mexico in 1947.” Mora told FEAR Magazine in March 1990 that Majestic would require a budget three times that of Communion, but that “Majestic won't be as tough [as Communion] because it's fiction and there's so much more latitude. One isn't faced with recreating characters [such as Whitley] who are actually living and staring at you.” This effort did not come to pass.
Whitley reported in August 2001: “The film
rights to Majestic are owned by me. The book has had an interesting film
and television history. There have been half a dozen attempts to make it. All
were torpedoed for various reasons, to the point that I think that there was
intervention from somewhere within the intelligence community. One huge producer
even told me to my face that he'd heard that people who tried to do business
with me got 'leaned on' by the FBI!
“I doubt very much that the FBI was involved
officially, but a couple of people impersonating FBI agents, or even agents
taking matters into their own hands, might easily have been out there doing
what they could to hurt me. So many crazy folks, with so many different loopy
agendas, have Whitley Strieber in their sights that I wouldn't be a bit surprised.
“Anyway, the film rights to all of the books
except Communion are available.” –Whitley Strieber, 2 August
2001
TRANSFORMATION (SCREENPLAY) This was tucked into an innocuous book synopsis
on Strieber’s official web site in 1998. “Transformation: According
to bestselling author Whitley Strieber, his contact with strange aliens did
not end with the release of his controversial book, Communion. Instead,
the “visitors” kept coming. In Transformation, Strieber challenges
his own fear for a triumphant breakthrough in understanding. Soon to be a movie.”
The hinted-at movie was ultimately not theatrical:
The Sci-Fi Channel announced in 1999 that they would produce a sequel to Communion
as a made-for-television movie, titled BEYOND COMMUNION (though as of this writing
they have not developed it).
UNHOLY FIRE (SCREENPLAY) “[Whitley Strieber] has recently finished
the screen play for last year's Unholy Fire, which will be directed by
George Romero.” –Sean Casteel, MUFON Journal, 1993. This film, the
story of a New York City priest implicated in the brutal murder of a parish
member, was to have been produced by Peter Grunwald.
WOLFEN (SCREENPLAY) “I wrote a treatment and script, but it was
primarily to prove to the people in California that this property ... could
actually be made into a movie. Once that was proven, my role was really finished.
The director came in, scriptwriters came in, and I sort of bowed out and began
to work on The Hunger. ... I feel very strongly now that the script I
wrote for Wolfen was a better script than the one they shot [written by Michael
Wadleigh and David Eyre]. Lawrence Cohen’s script was better than mine,
by the way. It was excellent, but Wadleigh couldn’t stand it.” –Whitley
R. Gagne, Whispers, No.19-20.
ATTACK FROM ANOTHER DIMENSION (SCREENPLAY)
In an interview conducted by Michael McCarty for the SciFi Channel's website
(apparently in late '02 or early '03, after the release of Lilith's Dream),
Whitley states, “I always have works in progress. I am working on a script
called Attack of Another Dimension.” Hopefully that's just the working
title.20
THE NYE INCIDENTS (TELEVISION SCREENPLAY)
Not much known. Reportedly planned to be produced by Mark Wolper's The Wolper Organization (producers of tv movies including remakes of Salem's Lot and Sybil). Wolper had previously produced the television special Confirmation, based on Whitley Strieber's research book of the same name. Whitley Strieber's screenplay or treatment for The Nye Incidents was later developed (in 2007) into a comic book written by Craig Spector. Click here for information on The Nye Incidents comic book.
Unproduced Screenplays
Adapted by other writers
from novels by Whitley Strieber
WARDAY - WarDay nearly became a major motion picture by Constantin
Costa-Gavras, director of Missing, an Academy Award nominee for best
picture in 1982. An 800+ word article detailing the plans for the film was published
in the New York Times 14 November 1983. No screenwriter was mentioned
in the article and it is unclear if the plans were canceled before one attempted
the adaption. Although the reasons why the film was not made are unknown, it
appears that the producer, Edward Lewis (who also produced Missing) may have retired.
