An Interview with C. Courtney Joyner – Part One
Over the past year I have had the opportunity to interview a variety of personalities for the site. From established names in the action entertainment genre, to those still looking to make a name for themselves. I have interviewed the action stars we see in front of the camera and those who work behind the scenes. But no interview that I have conducted to date has been as in depth as my conversation with C. Courtney Joyner.
For those of you unfamiliar with Mr. Joyner, Courtney is a screenwriter and novelist. Courtney has even directed a few films. But most importantly, C. Courtney Joyner is a man who absolutely loves what he does for a living.
In the first half of my two part interview with Courtney, we discuss his new novel Nemo Rising and go back in time and learn about his first collaboration with Mark L. Lester, the man most famous for directing the Arnold Schwarzenegger classic, Commando…
CTB: What inspired you to write a sequel to Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea? Was it intimidating doing a follow up to a true classic?
CCJ: The movies. Movies always brought me to the books; that was my place to start, as a monster kid, watching everything I could. ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD has always been a favorite, and I jumped at the chance to read the old dusty copy of the Howard Pyle book on a forgotten shelf at my school, already seeing Flynn and Rathbone in my mind. I was probably about nine at the time, and that’s the way it was with Jules Verne; to see those book covers in ads in the back of FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND, and to relate them to the astonishing Disney version of 20,000 LEAGUES – which I had just seen on 16mm at my local library, and it knocked me out. Or, to pour over the Dell comics adaptation of MYSTERIOUS ISLAND before seeing the Harryhausen classic, with Herbert Lom’s great Nemo, at a kiddie matinee.
But that’s the way it was for me, to see movies, watching something goggle-eyed at two in the morning – hoping my folks wouldn’t hear the TV – and then finding the book. Stevenson’s TREASURE ISLAND took my head off when I read it after seeing the MGM film and Byron Haskin’s movie. Stevenson’s writing was so incredible, and so modern in its pace, and violence, so the field of interest kept expanding. I was a kid, so my universe was all Marvel Comics, and Warren horror magazines and Hammer Films. But it was the 60’s and the time of the paperback explosion, and those editions are what I grabbed. I fell in love with adventure writers in this way, wanting the books to be like the movies, and finding something new instead. And what was better than a bunch of Tarzan and Conan paperback with Neal Adams and Frank Frazetta covers? Who wouldn’t want to explore those pages?
And at the core of all of this, was 20,000 LEAGUES, really the model for all adventure writing to follow. I have to confess, that when I was able to get a copy of Verne’s MYSTERIOUS ISLAND, I was very disappointed that there wasn’t a giant crab, although he was on the cover of the movie tie-in.
Intimidating? Somehow that’s not the word; I was somewhere between blue panic and excitement, as I wrote this originally as a TV pilot script, and then as a novel. I love the original so much, and didn’t want to tread on Verne as much as write a big, sea-adventure with fantasy over-tones; really, trying to capture that wild spirit of the Charles Schneer/Harryhausen movies, but on paper, if I could. The classic will always remain the classic, and I wanted NEMO RISING to be a fun addition to the Verne catalog.
CTB: Nemo Rising is being released on December 26, 2017 and for those interested it is available for pre-order on Amazon. Why is this a must read book for action fans?
CCJ: It’s a big, broad adventure, that brings in lots of fantasy elements, so I think it’s a fast, and very fun, read. I didn’t want to do anything that was either precious or pretentious, but just blast-forward action, that would include these classic characters, I hope, in a way that they haven’t really been seen before. If there’s “must read” criteria, I would say that the tone is also Alistair MacLean and Edgar Rice Burroughs’ inspired, so I think action adventure readers will have a good time with these pages.
My thinking was – “This should be the WHERE EAGLES DARE of Captain Nemo stories!”
I have to add that I’m especially excited, because this is my first hardback release, and is going out to the big retailers and book chains in-store, as well as Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Books-A-Million, and all the other on-line sites where it can be ordered; we’ve really gotten amazing support from Tor for this wide release, and I’m really pleased about that, and the book itself is beautiful. And, there’s an audio edition, another first for me.
CTB: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea was eventually adapted into a movie. Would you like to see a Nemo Rising movie in the future? And if so who would you cast in the iconic Captain Nemo role?
CCJ: Have you ever seen the version Universal made, around 1916? Their first feature-length film, and it’s fascinating, because of the way the Nautilus is shown. There have been so many incarnations of Nemo – Herbert Lom, Jose Ferrer, Omar Sharif, Michael Caine – and on and on – but we always go back to Richard Fleischer’s masterpiece with James Mason, don’t we? To have anything that approached that movie – or even MYSTERIOUS ISLAND – would be a true dream-come-true since this project started almost 20 years ago as a script for a TV pilot that I wrote on spec. Lots of “almost” in getting it made, and working with an amazing producer who wouldn’t give up, but I used the script as my novel outline after an editor at Tor read it. In fact, they thought it might be a movie tie-in, but when the current deal for a film fell through, I had to tell them, and they decided that I should write the novel anyway. Thank God – because now there’s brand new interest in making it, for TV as I originally envisioned. So, it all comes full circle, as projects often do, and it would be beyond great if NEMO finally saw camera.
My Nemo? Sean Bean.
There’s a special chapter to the book that details the history of its writing, and even includes some pages from script – an idea of the editor’s, to give folks an idea as to how projects can go through so many changes, and versions, before arriving at something that everyone gets to see.
CTB: Class of 1999 is a personal favorite. It is a great story that combines elements from the action, horror and sci-fi genres and the cast that was assembled was unbelievable. How did your collaboration with Mark Lester on the film come about? What did you think of the finished product?
CCJ: Mark had seen PRISON, and liked it very much, and Irwin Yablans recommended me to him to write the script. Mark’s partner at the time was Stanley Mann, so I worked with both of them, and there were a lot of drafts over a long period, but when we were finally in Seattle, about to shoot, it was me and Mark, working through the final stages, and we were a good fit; worked well together through the long process, which isn’t always the case, so that was a really fine thing. To get in creative synch with a director isn’t so easy – getting your scenes on the page the way they want to shoot it – that balance – and I reached it with Mark, like (hopefully) I did with Renny Harlin.
The casting of CLASS just knocked me out – when I went to location, the only person I knew we had was Malcolm MacDowell – which was so cool – then, Stacy, and John P. Ryan – a personal hero because of RUNAWAY TRAIN – just a great guy, great acting presence – and then, Pam Grier! Wow.
And, I really like the movie. It’s a high-octane drive-in flick, which was Mark’s and my intention from the start, so I’m very pleased that we reached that goal; we wanted to make a popcorn-muncher, and we did. Plus, CLASS led to a whole slew of collaborations with Mark afterward.
CTB: Be sure to check out the second part of my interview with C. Courtney Joyner by clicking here! We talk Courtney’s directorial debut with Trancers III, plus Tim Thomerson, Charles Bronson and more!
