I worked on the movie SEVERANCE for the better part of a year (or was it two) until a fall day 2016, when the movie collapsed before shooting because of a tax-structure reform in the UK that had a direct impact on my producers and financiers.
A good lesson to everybody, that the movie business is a miracle of possibles, where finance, timing, and luck has to dance in absolute synchronicity, before you even get to the craft and the storytelling itself.
The movie might get back into life one day - I sure hope so, as I put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into it - bit probably it will be set in another country and will have to go through a rewrite for that, and everything will start again from scratch.-. The long run up towards production was also my longest non-credited writing process ever, which as an added bonus gave me a serious appetite for writing.
The lead character was for a long time supposed to be played by Michael Keaton whom I love. I travelled to LA to talk him into it and he accepted. What a great guy, really. Just all around good and intelligent company. Unfortunately for me, and great for him, about a month after he said he would join our show, he was nominated to an Academy Award for Birdman. His first major showing after years away. Anyway, this left open some massive opportunities for him, and so, off he went.
I won’t tell you who the next guy to take the part was, but it was a true honor to work with him for a beat until the sad end to our time in Berlin.
Maybe later.
The life of the crew.
command central
