The Questions: Garfield Reeves-Stevens and Judith Reeves-Stevens

1. Introduce yourselves and tell us how you got started in writing? Have you always written as a team?

We’ve been a married scriptwriting team for almost ten years. Before that, we wrote a few novels together, among them the crossover fantasy/science-fiction trilogy: The Chronicles of Galen Sword. Before that, we wrote independently. Our first co-writing venture was a series of science-and-technology textbooks for children in grades one, two, and three!

2. How were you both hired to write Van Helsing: The London Assignment?

Several years ago, we had done some animated development work for Universal, and they remembered us and gave us a call about writing a direct-to-DVD animated adventure for Van Helsing. They sent us the movie script, which was still in production, and asked us to come in to pitch a story that took place sometime between Van Helsing’s arrival in the Abbey, and the events of the movie. We pitched three stories, one of which was about Van Helsing’s first run-in with Mr. Hyde in London.

3. Your writing careers include work for Deep Space Nine and The Batman Animated Series among others…what would you both say was your favorite project?

For Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, our work is strictly limited to books. In nonfiction, we wrote The Making of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and then helped kick-off the new line of novels with a trilogy called Millennium. For Batman: The Animated Series, we wrote scripts for three episodes. But comparing the fun – and the challenge – of writing books to writing scripts, truly is comparing apples and oranges. Writing Batman was exciting because the character is such an icon. But Deep Space Nine is our favorite of the spin-off Star Trek series, and it was an outstanding opportunity to be able to spend such an extended period of time with those characters.

4. The Batman Animated series has always been one of my favorites. Which episodes did you both write for? Any favorite memories of working with Paul Dini?

We wrote scripts for three episodes. 1. “Dreams in Darkness,” aka the “Batman in a straightjacket” episode, which was very loosely based on Gar’s short story, “Masks,” from The Further Adventures of the Joker. 2. “The Strange Secret of Bruce Wayne,” for which the story was written by David Wise. 3. “Fire from Olympus,” featuring Maxie Zeus, story by Paul Dini. This collaboration was the extent of our direct work with Paul, who truly is a brilliant writer responsible for many of the very best episodes of that series, and many other series as well.

5. Are you both fans of the Universal Classic Monsters?

Absolutely! Which is why Steven Sommers “had” us in the first half page of his Van Helsing script, when he opened with the black-and-white shot of the peasants with pitchforks and torches.

6. How much influence did Steven Sommers have on the writing for Van Helsing: The London Assignment?

Without question, his script was our creative starting point. We used his characters and his world, and worked hard to capture the spirit of his movie. Fortunately, everyone associated with the production looked to Steven Sommers and Bob Ducsay for guidance, and the notes we received from the production team helped us stay true to Steven’s vision.

7. In writing the character of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and most interestingly, his motivation for killing, it seemed as if you combined the acts of Jack the Ripper and a little bit of the 1973 television movie Kolchak: The Night Strangler. (Youth from a serum made from murdered women). Were you influenced by either one of those in writing Dr. Jekyll?

Not The Night Strangler (at least, not consciously), but definitely Jack the Ripper. The Ripper connection came about because of the appearance in the movie script of the “half-built” Eiffel Tower. We checked to see what year that would have been (no year was mentioned in the script, though it appears in the titles of the movie), and saw that it was the same year that the Ripper murders occurred in London. Because the movie states that Van Helsing encountered Hyde in London, the date instantly suggested to us the connection between Hyde and the Ripper. Since one theory of the Ripper’s identity identifies him as a royal physician, that gave us a role for Dr. Jekyll, too.

8. Van Helsing and Carl are lifted directly from the film and maintain the same characters. Was Universal (and Sommers) very strict on the way Van Helsing and Carl were depicted?

“Strict” isn’t quite the word we’d use. Steven Sommers’s script clearly establishes their characters and we were able to see rushes from the film showing us how Hugh Jackman and David Wenham played them, and how they interacted. So we had tremendous source material to work with, which made capturing those characters a lot easier than if we had been writing in the dark. The notes we got for these characters were really more along the lines of refinements, not strict rules.

9. Robby Coltrane really brought Mr. Hyde to life vocally. There is an obvious simean quality to Hyde that was no doubt inspired by Fredrick March. Where you given a great deal of freedom in creating Hyde.

Again, Hyde’s character was definitely set in the script, and his physical appearance as described by Steven was established by the film’s design team. So, like Van Helsing, Carl, and Cardinal Jinette, Hyde was a well-defined existing character. However, we were given a great deal of freedom in establishing Dr. Jekyll, and the production team for The London Assignment was a tremendous help in shaping him and making his motivation clear and creepy.

10. What kind of creature was Dr. Jekyll’s servant? (The one Van Helsing kills before he leaps on the balloon) Was she a vampire?

We saw her as one of the “Demonic Familiars” we had Van Helsing mention in the Abbey scene, and one who would be susceptible to many of the same weapons used against vampires. We were very pleased when we saw the initial designs that tied her to the look of the vampires in the movie.

11. In watching the live action movie, Van Helsing, and seeing the story and characters that you both wrote, being concluded on screen in the opening, did you have any regrets? Would you have finished the Van Helsing / Mr. Hyde story any differently?

There’s one continuity issue which we prefer to think of as an “intriguing discrepancy,” and that’s the line Carl has in the movie when he says he’s never been out of the Abbey, even though in The London Assignment, he’s in the thick of the London action. In our original pitch for London, Carl remained behind in the Abbey and Van Helsing hunted Hyde alone. However, one of the first notes we received was a request to bring Carl to London, which really did help to open up the story, and gave us a great opportunity to have the two characters interact. Everyone was aware that having Carl in London might contradict the line in the script about his never having left the Abbey, if the line remained in the final cut of the movie. We did write some alternate dialogue for Carl’s “dress” scene when he mentions that Jinette doesn’t know he’s left and Van Helsing promises to keep his secret. However, since the line did remain, now we prefer to think that Van Helsing isn’t the only one with memory issues, and we hope that in future Van Helsing adventures, each time Carl has to leave the Abbey, he once again says, “But I’ve never left the Abbey!”

12. When I saw the animated film, I was delighted. The animation is great and the story was very entertaining. Would you both be interested in writing for future adventures of Van Helsing? Any chance that we’ll see more of the animated Van Helsing? What’s next for you both?

We’d love a chance to revisit the world of Van Helsing, though for now we know of no future plans for animated adventures. As for us, we have a new, direct-to-DVD animated feature coming out in September from Paramount Home Entertainment – G.I. JOE: Valor vs. Venom. In November, we have a nonfiction book coming from Simon & Schuster titled Going to Mars: The Untold Story of NASA’s Missions to Mars, Past, Present, and Future, which we’ve co-written with Brian Muirhead of the Jet Propulsion Lab. Then in January, our ninth Star Trek novel with William Shatner will come out – Star Trek: Captain’s Glory. And all of that will be followed in March, 2005, by the publication of our newest thriller, Freefall, which features the heroes of our novel Icefire in an all-new adventure about the next race to the moon.

Thank you both so much for taking the time to answer some questions about Van Helsing: the London Assignment ! It’s been a real pleasure!

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