{"id":104808,"date":"2018-09-10T17:35:29","date_gmt":"2018-09-10T16:35:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/?p=104808"},"modified":"2019-06-28T14:16:23","modified_gmt":"2019-06-28T13:16:23","slug":"ghost-stories-andy-nyman-talks-finding-a-studio-to-bring-the-film-to-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/interviews\/ghost-stories-andy-nyman-talks-finding-a-studio-to-bring-the-film-to-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Ghost Stories’ Andy Nyman talks finding a studio to bring the film to life"},"content":{"rendered":"

After premiering to terrified audiences at the Liverpool Playhouse, Andy Nyman and Jeremy Dyson’s horror stage play\u00a0Ghost Stories<\/strong><\/em> was quickly ushered to the Lyric Hammersmith in London in the summer of 2010. With its popularity rapidly spreading to international theatres, it’s unsurprising that\u00a0Nyman and Dyson started to receive calls from several American studios wanting to turn Ghost Stories <\/i><\/b>into a film. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe went down that route a little bit, spoke to them, and had some negotiations and bits and bobs,\u201d Nynam tells us. \u201cAfter we dug into it to see what we really wanted, what Jeremy and I learnt very quickly that if we went with that route, we relinquished control of what the film was.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The American studio route came with some good point: the film would likely get a much bigger release, and it would potentially be a lot more commercially viable. \u201cWhat it also meant though was it wouldn\u2019t be our thing,\u201d says Nyman. “Of course, the other thing you\u2019re dealing with for the most part is you\u2019ll get more money if you do it that way. Very often with those companies, the potential to make more money is a lot greater because you\u2019re dealing with big American studios or a very strong American independent studio that has got much deeper pockets than small British film companies.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Naturally, the money aspect was a good draw at first. \u201cWe spoke about that a lot,\u201d says Nyman. \u201cJeremy and I have been best friends for almost 40 years now \u2014 which is terrifying! \u2014 and we also both have successful careers in our own right. It\u2019s not like we\u2019re 21 with stars in our eyes, thinking wow, this could really make a difference. The conclusion of one of the ways we both try to live is it\u2019s only about the work. It\u2019s only about the doing it. The doing of it is all that matters, because once it\u2019s out there it\u2019s out there and it\u2019s in the hands of the gods. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe really did have an incredible time doing the play,\u201d he continues. \u201cIt was a very pure experience creatively, and we decided that\u2019s what we wanted to do. We wanted to write it and we wanted to direct it and we wanted me to play Goodman.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

That meant that there was no way they could go the American route. \u201cThe other key thing was that we wanted it to be British. The DNA of the play, the thing that it was built on, was everything that had influenced us as teenagers, you know, every horror film we\u2019d ever seen. But so much of that was the British influences from Dead Of Night<\/i><\/b>, The Haunting<\/i><\/b>, Hammer House Of Horror<\/i><\/b>, Saturday Night Thrillers, the MR James Christmas Ghost Stories\u2026 There\u2019s something in that technical makeup that isn\u2019t American, that\u2019s quite specifically [British]. It\u2019s raining all the time on a little island. It\u2019s got a completely different feel to what the American ethos is.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Once they knew that was what they wanted to do, they began to really look at their options. Luckily, Nyman had worked on Dead Set<\/i><\/b>, the very first Charlie Brooker drama, in 2008, where he met director Yann Demange, who went on to make \u201971<\/i><\/b> with British production company Warp Films. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019d already looked at Warp, and they\u2019re brilliant,\u201d Nyman continues. \u201cTheir cannon of work just felt so creative and so British and so supportive of the artist. I spoke to Yann to ask about his experience of working with them, and he just said, \u2018oh my god, they are brilliant. They are such advocates of your vision. That\u2019s all they really care about. We went them the script, which they loves, and then we set about working with them, and that\u2019s how it came about. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAfter about a year and a half, we were getting ready to really and truly start filming it and financing it, and then Lionsgate came onboard, which was incredible. We were very blessed\u00a0 <\/span>\u2014 you hear a lot about the interference of producers, what an unhappy partnership it is. Well, this was the opposite. I mean, it was an absolute joy. Every one of our producing partners was unbelievably supportive and creative, and their notes were enabling and helpful, and it just all helped make it what it became, which was exactly what we wanted it to be. It was quite a strange thing.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Ghost Stories<\/strong><\/em> is out now on DVD, Blu-ray and digital download. Get all the latest horror news with every issue of SciFiNow.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ghost Stories’ star and co-director Andy Nyman talks taking the tale from stage to screen<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":104810,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"MSN_Categories":"Uncategorized","MSN_Publish_Option":false,"MSN_Is_Local_News":false,"MSN_Is_AIAC_Included":"Empty","MSN_Location":"[]","MSN_Add_Feature_Img_On_Top_Of_Post":false,"MSN_Has_Custom_Author":false,"MSN_Custom_Author":"","MSN_Has_Custom_Canonical_Url":false,"MSN_Custom_Canonical_Url":""},"categories":[2617,1718,7],"tags":[5881],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/Ghost-Stories-AndyNymanJeremyDyson-2.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104808"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104808\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}