When Bell and Peterman's edge-of-your-seat screenplay fell into the hands of McG things really began to take off. Impressed with the strength of their vision, McG strongly supported the idea of William Brent Bell taking the helm of the movie. "We believed in these guys" explains co-producer David Manpearl, who works with McG at Wonderland. "They have such young, fresh voices, they're completely tapped into youth culture and they look at things differently, which is what we are all about at Wonderland. We also thought the idea of mixing videogames and horror, two of the most popular entertainment forms today, was a great one."
McG in turn brought in Peter Schlessel, former head of Columbia Pictures, who also joined the project as a producer. .When McG showed me the screenplay, it just screamed out to me that it was a great idea,. says Schlessel. "I liked the voices of the characters and how timely a subject it was. Anytime you can tell a horror story that involves what's going on right now in youth culture, that's a compelling thing. STAY ALIVE takes something that most kids do every single day, that's a major part of their lives, and turns it into something terrifying. I thought it would be great, fun entertainment inspired by something very true-to-life."
Schlessel did not balk at the idea of neophyte Bell directing the destined-to-be-complex production. "With William and Matthew you clearly had the voices of two writers who really knew what they wanted to accomplish on the screen," he notes. "We also had a huge safety net in McG, who's one of the greatest guys in the business, and who personally committed himself to supporting these guys. I knew McG was the perfect mentor to guide them through the rough spots of making the film and that gave me a lot of confidence. Then, you have two leaders in filmed entertainment ' Spyglass and Endgame' coming on board, so there was a lot of strength behind it from the start."
As deals fell into place and development began in earnest, Bell and Peterman were awestruck by all the support they received. "This was our very first feature film, so were really excited to have so many great people and companies involved. McG, Wonderland, Spyglass, Endgame -- they really believed in us, which was awesome," says Bell.
As a director, Bell looked for further inspiration in the classics of the horror genre, the films that took fear to the next edge for previous generations including "The Shining," "The Omen" and "Rosemary's Baby". "What I loved about those movies is the pacing," Bell comments. "My idea for STAY ALIVE was to do something that would merge that classic quality with the more comedy-filled MTV-style horror movie of today. So in STAY ALIVE, we build the pace slowly with shots of long halls and cracked open doors and that type of psychological fear but there's also a lot of pay off with fast moving, graphic, bloody scenes that will shock you."
When it came to designing the look and feel of the game .Stay Alive,. Bell and Peterman knew they'd be behind the curve even if they used today's most sophisticated and cutting-edge games as a template. Instead, with CliffyB and others as their guides, they chose to look ahead to what the next generation of video games is likely to look and feel like. "In designing the game, we basically took what games are able to do right now and multiplied that by three," says Peterman. "What you see in this movie is probably what games will really be like in just a few years. We went to the edge of what people in the gaming industry expect will be possible."
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