Neat! Glad I helped you through that road trip.

Another memory: the weekend DAREDEVIL opened, the whole East Coast got hit by a massive blizzard. Drove me crazy because I was dying to see the movie but had to wait until the storm passed and the roads were clear.

Gotta assume the horrible weather hurt the movie’s…

No problem. I’m having fun taking a trip down memory lane.

For what it’s worth, I also got to attend to premiere of STIR OF ECHOES, just because I was Richard Matheson’s editor at the time. That was another fun night. . . .

With Reynolds at least four tries if you count Hannibal King in BLADE 3.

Funny story: The sex scene between Matt and Elektra was added after the novelization had gone to press, so it’s not in the book. Afterwards, I got a fan letter from a Concerned Mom who thanked me for leaving the sex out of the book.

I didn’t have the heart to tell her that it simply wasn’t in the original script, and…

Thanks! I remember I had fun writing it.

At the time I was disappointed that I didn’t get to do ELEKTRA, too, but perhaps it’s just as well.

Ironically, I ended up doing three ALIAS tie-ins instead, so I guess I just couldn’t get away from Jennifer Garner back then. :)

Honestly, I wrote that book fourteen years ago and haven’t seen the movie in about as long. I don’t remember the nuts-and-bolts of specific scenes anymore.

Lot of water under the bridge since then.

Exactly. I’ve written or edited umpteen movie novelizations at this point, and I’ve NEVER seen the actual movie before it opens. I see the movies the same day everyone else does, when it opens at my neighborhood multiplex.

(Okay, the UNDERWORLD people invited me to the red-carpet premiere in Hollywood. That was cool .…

It was the first movie I ever novelized, so it still holds a warm place in my heart . . . .

I know, I know, I keep meaning to get around to it, but, you know, I’m still four episodes behind on THE WALKING DEAD and have the entire run of THE MAGICIANS piling up on my DVR and Comet TV was showing COUNTESS DRACULA the other night and . . . .

I bow my head in shame.

Okay. I’m biased since I wrote the novelization of this movie, but let it be noted that the theatrical cut of the movie cut out great chunks of the story, including entire characters and subplots, added new scenes that were not in the original script, and switched various scenes around. I remember being kinda shocked,…

I’m ashamed to admit I missed this. And I saw SUPERMAN III at least twice in theaters . . ..

I’ve got the perfect title: GILLIGAN’S ARK.

You beat me to the punch.

Mind you, this would have been way back in the seventies, in the pre-Columbine era, so it’s doubtful anyone thought I was going to go postal (which was also not a term then). I suppose they meant well, but it DID get old after a while.

“Yes, I know vampires aren’t real. I’m not crazy. And, no, I don’t want to read the…

Good point that people can be interested in something (like werewolves or UFOs) without believing in it. Don’t get me started about well-meaning teachers or coaches who thought that, just because I was constantly doodling monsters in my notebooks, that I actually believed in zombies or vampires or devils or whatever .…

Ye gods, I haven’t thought of that game in years.

Which gives me yet another excuse to post this photo of Julie Newmar as the Devil . ..

On the other hand, it’s possible to read too much into this. For a lot of us Baby Boomers, it was simply spooky entertainment. Using the Devil as a plot device is at least as old Faust, “The Devil and Daniel Webster,” “Damn Yankees,” and any number of old Twilight Zone episodes.

Speaking for myself, I enjoyed the OMEN…

Sounds interesting, but let it be noted that this hardly began in 1966. Movies were delving into Satanism as far back as Haxam (1922) and The Black Cat (1934) and The Seventh Victim (1943), and let’s not forget the horror-comic craze (and resulting backlash) back in the 1950s, the occult novels of Dennis Wheatley,…