Dumbing Down A Screenplay by Jeffrey Reddick

Watch the video interview on Youtube here

Film Courage: If you were to get [script] notes and maybe they wouldn’t put it in these terms, but to “dumb down” a script?

Jeffrey Reddick:  Oh, yeah. I’ve had that happen.

Film Courage: Oh, you have? And in those exact words? Okay, so what is dumbing down and what would that be? What would [the opposite of bringing it up] “raising the vibration,” if you want to use a New Age term?

Jeffrey Reddick: I wrote a script (RETURN TO THE CABIN BY THE LAKE), actually a TV movie. It was a sequel and Judd Nelson was in the first one. So they got him back and the director back based on my script and literally one of the creative executives called the producer probably about a month before they started shooting and was like “You know, we think the script is just too smart for our audience. So we’re going to bring somebody in to dumb it down.” And so all that meant was they just went for the very generic characters, just the base generic stuff.

So the first movie was based on a killer who needed inspiration so he started murdering people and he lived in a cabin by the lake and would (Watch the video interview on Youtube here).

Watch the video interview on Youtube here


Bio (via IMDB):

Jeffrey Reddick is best known for creating the Final Destination (2000) film franchise. He also co-wrote the story for, and executive produced, Final Destination 2 (2003). Jeffrey lives in Los Angeles. He grew up in Eastern Kentucky and attended Berea College. Jeffrey made his first connection to the film industry at age 14, when he wrote a prequel to A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) and mailed it Bob Shaye, the President of New Line Cinema. Bob returned the material for being unsolicited. But the young man wrote Bob an aggressive reply, which won him over. Bob read the treatment and got back to Jeffrey. Bob, and his assistant, Joy Mann, stayed in contact with Jeffrey for over five years. When he went to The American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York at age 19, Bob offered him an internship at New Line Cinema. This internship turned into an 11-year stint at the studio.

Aside from Final Destination (2000), which spawned four successful sequels, Jeffrey’s other credits include Lions Gate’s thriller, Tamara (2005) and the remake of George Romero’s classic, Day of the Dead (2008).

Jeffrey has several feature and TV projects in development and he directed his first short, Good Samaritan (2014) in 2014.






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