Everything you need to know about The Hunted movie

It’s official. The film adaptation of The Hunted is about to head into production. So how did we get here?

It’s been a long time since that first big announcement in 2019 that my book would become a movie. Five years ago, I was a bit more naïve than I am now. I certainly wasn’t betting any farms on it going ahead, but with big names bandied around and a lot of enthusiasm, it seemed fair to be a little bit excited.

And then… well, a lot happened but the film didn’t. Covid tripped the project up right as it was getting traction. Then there were all sorts of other behind the scenes issues. The film changed hands several times. There were lots of false starts.

So when I received an email out of the blue from John Michael McDonagh, you’ll forgive me for the vague suspicion I was being catfished. Anyone who knows me knows how much Of a fan I am. In 2014 I briefly and nervously met him at a screening of his film Calvary in Melbourne, where I stammered through asking him to sign my blu-ray of The Guard. Basically if you wanted to play a very cruel prank on my at exactly the moment where my confidence towards the film was at an all time low, John was exactly the name you’d pick to do it.

It wasn’t a prank. I met John and his wife Lizzie in New York. We got on brilliantly. And I had to accept that this was, somehow real. A director I’d hero worshipped for years wanted to make my book into a film.

Still, I held off on the celebrations. I’d heard the big promises before and when, early in John’s development of his script, the Writer’s Strike started, I figured it clearly wasn’t to be. Maybe it was best to put the dream of the film out of my head and just focus on my books.

But the strikes ended and pre-production picked back up. I still was careful not to get too hopeful. Names of cast members started coming in, but Frank, the co-lead and best chance to secure a game-changing big name, seemed impossible to cast. And without a major star on board, the film’s chances of going ahead were slim.

Then, one night while hanging out with friends, an email came through from John. Ben Mendelsohn was attached to play Frank.

I don’t know if I’ve ever been so speechless in my life. Obviously Ben is an Australian legend, but beyond that I have never forgotten the experience of seeing Animal Kingdom at the movies in 2010 and for the first time in my life being genuinely terrified by a performance. The fact that he’s playing Frank is something I’m still struggling to get my head around.

But then, that’s true of everything about the film. I don’t think the full reality sunk in until I saw the Deadline announcement and look, even with all the elements so lined up I’m reticent to get too excited. The film industry is in a tumultuous time where even a movie having wrapped is no guarantee of it being released. Things can change quickly and brutally and in the end no film exists until it’s on screens.

But if you’d told me ten years ago that a story I came up with would be in the works as a movie with one of my favourite directors and actors, it would have seemed too absurd to even laugh. Now? Well, I still don’t entirely believe it. But every now and then the reality hits home and I break into exhilarated giggles.

Now if you’ve read the articles you probably have a few questions about how the film will work, likely to do with the changed title and the fact that this is intended as the first in a trilogy.

I’m not sure how much I can say on this, but based on what’s in the press I think I can shed some light. If you know your Australian horror well then you’ll likely know Fear is the Rider is the title of a book by Kenneth Cook (Wake in Fright) that was published posthumously in 2016. That was initially supposed to be filmed first by the same team but the plan changed, with that story now envisioned as a sequel to this one, then a third to follow which I know nothing about. The trilogy, then, takes its umbrella name from Cook’s novel with the second film to be called Fear is the Rider: Australia Day.

So no, this is not a trilogy based in totality on my novels, but it is a trilogy that will feature Maggie as the throughline. There won’t be an adaptation of The Inheritance at this stage and while The Hitchhiker is looking likely to film soon as well, it’s with a different company and will be reworked to not involve Maggie.

Does this bother me? Not really. If anything, there’s something exciting about my character getting her own life beyond my books, alternative adventures that can coexist with my own ongoing direction for her.

And besides, the script for The Hunted/Fear is the Rider is very faithful to my book. There are a few changes, as always, but what you’re going to get is The Hunted realised pretty directly on screen. My bet is, if you love the book you’ll love the film.

Port Shorts

In other film news, The Retirement Plan has started to get some real traction at film festivals and kicked off its run a couple of weeks back at Port Shorts in Port Douglas.

This felt significant for a couple of reasons. Port Douglas was somewhere I went on holiday quite a bit as a kid, and so I always had very fond memories of it even if I hadn’t visited in about twenty years. So much so that I used it as the setting for the first act of The Inheritance. The festival, then, seemed a pretty great excuse to visit again.

I flew up on the Friday before the screenings with director John Erasmus and star Ayesha Gibson. The flight was not the best thanks to two groups of rowdy drunk footballers not taking kindly to being cut off, but we landed alive if somewhat annoyed. We were hoping to make the opening night party but some unclear instructions about checking in to our AirBnB, which was situated across the road from the pub the party was happening in, had us stuck doing circles of the town in what felt like a particularly frustrating comedy of errors.

But! We got there in the end and immediately felt beyond welcomed as we met some of the judges and organisers. Everybody was so friendly and enthusiastic, and any stresses melted away fast as we laughed and chatted and raised pints to Tiny Dancer singalongs.

The next day John and Ayesha went snorkelling off the reef. I’d planned on doing the same, but with limited time in town I decided instead to just relax, to wander around and reacquaint myself with this place I loved so much as a kid. It proved exactly the right choice. With perfect weather I did laps of the town, had coffee in an old train, had an ice cream by a beach with warning signs about crocodiles, and discovered a fantastic bookstore where an old labrador accompanies your browsing and the owner offers everyone cups of tea.

I settled so easily into that afternoon. I even started writing a new Maggie short story, set between The Hunted and The Inheritance, that shows more of her tumultuous time in Port Douglas.

But idle exploration wasn’t the reason for the trip, and by early evening we had to reconvene and head across the road for the festival itself. If you’ve never been to Port Shorts, it’s incredible. The films play in a park surrounded by palm trees and the ocean. There was a spectacular sunset over the water, food trucks, and an enormous crowd. At interval a blood red supermoon rose behind the screen.

And of course, our film played. I was nervous about this – it struck me as we arrived that this would be the first time The Retirement Plan had played to an audience who didn’t know us, and so it was hard to gauge how it would be received. But the crowd were caught up, we overheard kids quoting it afterwards, and at the end of the festival we were called up and especially commended despite not winning. So pretty great all around. It really showed that this film has something, and there’s more to come for it.

The rest of the weekend played out a bit more in holiday mode. We had drinks with the Port Shorts team after the festival, and the next day went up to the Mossman Gorge for a refreshing swim in the stunning rainforest surrounds. Then dinner by the water and it was time for bed before an early flight.

Every now and then I have moments where I think to myself how lucky I am that I get to live this life. A lot of my day-to-day is spent solitary and hunched over a laptop. But getting to go out and celebrate a story you’ve told will never, ever be less that gratifying. And standing watching a sunset over the water before your film plays to its biggest crowd yet, in one of your favourite towns in the world, goes beyond gratifying. It’s something closer to magical.

And speaking of The Retirement Plan…

Watch The Retirement Plan online now!

This is not the film’s official public release, but thanks to the Port Shorts crew you can now check out the whole festival online – including The Retirement Plan.

Yes it does cost, but $15 is pretty good to get full access to this fantastic range of inventive and award winning shorts, along with plenty of footage from the night of the festival. I haven’t seen it yet but do keep an eye out for my nervous marauding around the crowd.

You can pick and choose what you watch and when, and all the films will be available until November 20.

Saw 20^th Anniversary Article

I’ve always been a huge fan of the Saw films. The first two are probably the only genuinely good movies in the franchise, but the increasingly wild soap opera plotting is just so much fun to me. So when I was asked to write an article about the franchise for the first film’s 20^th anniversary I needed no encouragement to dive right in. Check it out here.

Published or Not Interview

And finally, I joined Stuart Wilson, author of the just-released The 113^th Assistant Librarian, on the long running Published or Not to discuss our latest books with David and Jan. Check out the full chat here.