by Jessie Mignone Sunday 7th April 2013

From Script, To Comic, To Screen: ‘The Devil Is Due In Dreary’

“Many fantastic scripts are never made into movies because they don’t have “legs.” Movies are a package deal: which famous actor is attached? Is this a remake with a cult following?” explains film producer Daryl Freimark, co-producer of the movie musical Hairspray starring John Travolta, Queen Latifah and Zac Efron. Film Producer Michel Shamberg agreed in his recent interview in TheWrap. “Years ago, you would just go in with a good idea. Now you effectively have to have a business plan.”

After eight years at New Line Cinema, Freimark was strongly positioned on a coveted path to successful producer with the Hobbit-harvesting empire. Some may say it was a surprise when he chose to leave New Line in favor of overseeing his own projects. But Freimark, who only takes the most well thought out risks, knew what he was doing as, since that time, he has produced three feature films, five shorts, a music video, premiered at Robert De Niro’s Tribeca Film Festival, produced a Stanley Tucci movie and recently launched a four-part comic book series based off a screenplay.

“I’ve read…thousands of scripts,” Freimark reflected. “When I read the screenplay for The Devil Is Due In Dreary, as a reader for the IFP Emerging Narratives for IFP Film Week in 2008, I could unquestionably see the movie and instantly became passionate about producing it.”

The Devil is Due in Dreary is a Rockabilly take on Western thrillers about the small town of Dreary. The townspeople live in fear of a prophecy that one day, when two outlaws pass through town, the devil will follow. When two strangers’ car breaks down in this distressed community, the townsfolk believe the dreaded day has arrived, and we quickly learn, not everyone is who they seem.

“I spent a lot of time in the American Southwest,” screenwriter David Parkin shares as his inspiration for the script. “I heard tales of the devil and other folklore around many campfires. This, The Devil, is my chilling tale to share.”

Freimark and Parkin set to the nearly impossible task of giving the script its “legs.” They did not have a fancy director, famous starlet, or spare million dollars. How could they create a fan base? How could they get the page to pop?

Instead of going with the traditional Script – to Short film – to hopefully-full-length-film approach of planting a movie seed, the duo came up with the unique idea of making the screenplay into a comic first. This method produced numerous advantages that making a short film could not. “Comics are automatic, vibrant, storyboarding, for studios and investors to see what Dreary will look like. It also gives us a chance to discover what parts of the screenplay need re-writing. And, it creates a fan base.”

Issue #1 layout page — Issue #1 layout sketch

The only downside? “I knew nothing about comics,” admits Freimark who ventured into the challenging world of caped crusaders and word bubbles. “You can’t just have one guy draw everything and you’re done. You have to find the perfect penciller, (Allan Jefferson of War Machine and Predator vs Alien), Inker (Jonas Trindade), Colorist, (Diego Tapie and Rainer Petter) and Letterer (Richard Emms and Frank Barbiere).” All had to fit Freimark and Parkin’s minds-eye and mesh together seamlessly to create a unified product. Not to mention, Parkin was writing his first comic script ever!

Freimark hired the team, who began putting the comic on paper. From there he turned to a producer’s best friend, www.kickstarter.com, to display sample work from Issue 1 in order to raise enough to pay the artists, offering up tempting incentives such as being drawn into the comic as a character.

With their first issue complete, Freimark and publisher Ardden Entertainment set about the challenging step of getting Dreary in comic book window displays. “Comic ordering is still done pretty old school. Once a month, a thick, phone book like, catalog, filled with new issues of comics from Batman to new indies like ours, is sent to all the comic book stores who then place orders. It’s nerve racking. Would anyone take a chance on an unknown comic? We actually got good order numbers for our first issue and a few months later… BOOM we were in stores throughout the US! It’s a comic Cinderella story.” Freimark pauses, reliving the tense journey. “It was a scramble to fund and complete issues two through four, which completes the series. All issues are now available! As for the movie, we hope to be in production next fall.”