enerable SF author Ray Bradbury, who is now 81, said that he's never had so many film projects in the works as he has now. They include film versions of his short story "A Sound of Thunder" and his classic SF novel Fahrenheit 451, a new version of his Martian Chronicles and an original miniseries for the SCI FI Channel based on The Illustrated Man.
Nor has Bradbury neglected his first love, books. In the works are two new books of his collected poetry, another book of poetry from Ireland and a book of essays. And last year, he released a new novel, From the Dust Returned. Bradbury, who lives in Southern California, took a moment recently to speak with Science Fiction Weekly about his various projects.
Tell us about your new novel.
Bradbury: I have a new novel published ... [that] came out on Halloween. It's a novel called From the Dust Returned. I began work on it 55 years ago, and about two years ago, my editor at Morrow Avon ... said, "It's about time you finished this book." So, by God, I finished it.
And it's a story of a very peculiar family that lives in the north of Illinois. They could be vampires. They could be ghosts. They could be phantoms. They could be shape-shifters. They're all kinds of strange people from a period of 2,000 years. And I've done a huge book from the viewpoint of a little 10-year-old boy, who's the normal person within the family, and the book's doing very well. It's getting excellent reviews. So I'm very happy I finished it.
Why did it take you so long to finish?
Bradbury: I had other things to do. I got the job of writing Moby Dick for the screen, for [director] John Huston, and a lot of other things intervened. I wrote a lot of books. And 600 short stories. So that was a good intervention, wasn't it? It felt like it should finish itself. I'm not in control. My books write themselves, when they feel like it.
My book on Ireland, 10 years ago, decided to write itself. But I'd been home from Ireland more than 30 years. I should have written about it sooner. But Katharine Hepburn's book on her experiences in Africa with John Huston was so spindly, so thin, so twiggy, that it drove me into finally writing about John Huston. So you have all these various things happening at various times.
You have a new short story collection?
Bradbury: The short stories in a collection called One More for the Road will be out this spring. ... It's a collection of 20 stories, and I think I should talk about it in great detail next May, when it comes out.
And a chapbook and other collections?
Bradbury: The chapbook came out recently, yes. It's called A Chapbook for Burnt-Out Priests, Rabbis and Ministers. It's a collection of essays, poems and stories and a bit of a screenplay that was given to me as a gift by various priests, rabbis and ministers who wrote me during the last 20 years saying, "Last weekend, I'd had it with the Sermon on the Mount. I didn't want to talk about the Burning Bush anymore. And I found this poem of yours," or "I found this story, and I did the story or the poem from the pulpit last weekend, and I thought you should know what a great help you've been to me." So I thought, over the years, "My God, if they found my stuff worth repeating in the churches or synagogues, why don't I make up a book of these things, which have influenced all these rabbis and priests?" So that's what the book is.
And two new books of poetry will be published [soon]. Huge collections, all the collected poems of mine. ... And then another book of poetry from Ireland, which is kind of wonderful. And I'm also putting together another book of essays, because my last book of essays, Yestermorrow, came out eight or nine years ago. So it's time to collect all of my various ideas that have been published in magazines and put them out.
Tell us about your various Hollywood projects. Have you ever had this many at once?
Bradbury: It's quite amazing. ... It's an incredible year when you consider I'm 81 years old. If you wait around long enough, maybe something will happen.
First up is A Sound of Thunder?
Bradbury: The Crusader people, the production people, will start shooting the film in the spring in the Yucatan. Pierce Brosnan is still the star. They've got a number of scripts, which is standard for studios, isn't it? They've got to have eight or nine scripts before they can decide which one to do. But there's a huge budget. I'm very pleased with my relationship with them, and I'm sure they're going to go ahead. And Pierce Brosnan has indicated he's still with us.
Renny Harlin is no longer going to direct?
Bradbury: No. He's been on the project for more than a year. And he's a fine director. I think his Die Hard film was very good. And they tell me that his film with [Sylvester] Stallone about mountain climbing [Cliffhanger] was excellent. But then, about four weeks ago, quite suddenly, [he said,] "Why don't we take the butterfly out of Sound of Thunder?" Can you believe that? When I heard it, I whooped with laughter. I said, "Oh my God ... if you wanted to be accurate about being stupid, this was it." So they fired him, and we've got a new director now, [Peter Hyams].
So ha ha! I think that's hilarious, don't you? It's the center of the story. It's been published in 80 anthologies. It's in every school in the country. And if you took the butterfly, you wouldn't have a film. So in the middle of all this, the Crusader producers sent me a huge bouquet of inflated butterflies, six feet tall, beautiful butterflies. And I'm having a recording made by Frank Sinatra of the song "Poor Butterfly" right now.
Frank Darabont will be adapting The Martian Chronicles?
Bradbury: We're doing The Martian Chronicles over. It was done as a series 20 years ago by NBC. It wasn't bad. But it was boring. Really boring. And they had a lot of good people, but it was a disappointment. So now, Frank Darabont is going to write and direct a new version. And he's a very fine writer and director, [of] Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile. And also, his second project is Fahrenheit 451, which he's taking over from Mel Gibson.
Mel Gibson was supposed to direct it five years ago, but he's let five years go by, and written 10 screenplays on Fahrenheit. Can you imagine that? If you know the novel, you need to have 10 screenplays? How about one? Why not shoot the novel? Twenty years ago, when Sam Peckinpah was a friend of mine, he planned to do a film. And I said, "Sam, how you going to do it?" And he said, "It's very simple. You tear the pages out of your novel and stuff them in the camera." And I said, "That's right." I'm a screenwriter.
And the SCI FI Channel is adapting The Illustrated Man?
Bradbury: I've done the script. But now the producers, Columbia TriStar, as usual, are making noises that I don't know my own material. OK? How does that sound? ... There should be more on that [soon]. They say they want to go ahead, but they're dragging their feet. So we'll know more.
You didn't like the 1968 Rod Steiger version of the book.
Bradbury: Oh boy, and how. The film was just dreadful. The whole film. They didn't bother to read my stories.
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