Capturing THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT - Part One

By: Chip Meyers
Date: Monday, January 19, 2004

There are certain screenplays that have the power to have Hollywood buzzing about. A fair amount of the business of show business happens simply by people in the industry listening close to what's being said on the grapevine. For literary agents, it's trying to stay one move ahead of what's hot and who wrote it, and that means making calls and finding out what the buzz is on the latest hot new screenplay someone agent read last weekend.

When THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT made the rounds in tinseltown about seven years ago, it turned out to be one of those kind of scripts. The script had excellent word of mouth from agents and those lucky enough to read it. People talked about the innovative take on time travel and the dark spin on the concept of altering one's past and changing the future. This helped create some heat for the script's writers, J. Mackye Gruber and Eric Bress, and launch their careers as screenwriters in Hollywood (for instance, they were picked to write FINAL DESTINATION 2.) Unfortunately, in an industry where too often the creative side can take second stage to commercial concerns, the thought provoking and mature content contained in THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT caused some studio executives to get their own butterflies -- namely, in their stomachs -- and they passed on buying the screenplay.

But after a number of revolutions and time spent in development hell, THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT is emerging from its chrysalis and taking flight shortly. New Line Cinema stood up and decided to take a chance on this trippy science fiction drama and its first-time directors who also happen to be the writers of the screenplay. This week CINESCAPE will be bringing you interviews with the creators and stars of THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT starting today with Gruber and Bress and their thoughts on the production hiccups along the way...


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Q: What took so long to get this project off the ground?

J. MACKYE GRUBER: When we first wrote this, we had something like over 60 meetings in like a month and a half. Everyone loved the script, but was like, "This is a great script, completely original, but it'll never get made. And if it gets made, it'll never be distributed by a studio." And we were like, "Come on." And they were liked, "Well, its not commercial enough." But we believe that something can be different and be commercial. I don't think you have to serve the same old garbage, and all of a sudden that's commercial. I think people are craving something different. But because of the dark controversial nature, everyone was a little freaked out and we had three failed production attempts before. For various reasons, it fell apart. It was sort of this up and down rollercoaster, as well as us directing. People were like, "We're kind of unsure about the material as it is and you guys are new. What are you going to give us?" It was definitely this up hill battle, but eventually thank God they believed in us. And we had written another script for New Line and they really loved working with us.

Q: How long did it take to write this script?

J. MACKYE GRUBER: Well, we wrote this script the first draft in a month, but that was seven years ago. Since then, there's been so many little tweaks and rewrites that I can't even count anymore.

ERIC BRESS: Writing is rewriting, that's what I'm getting out this whole process.

Q: What was your inspiration for the story?

J. MACKYE GRUBER: I think it just comes down to everybody on the face of this planet just has a day in their life that they'd like to live over and if they could, should you.

ERIC BRESS: I have one day from my being 16 years old and I thought from the time I was 16 to the time I was 21, I thought everyday, "Man, if only I could go back and change what happen. I would have had breakfast a little bit longer and missed that traffic light or whatever it was." But then, years pass and its like, "Well, if I had gone back and changed that then this stressful event may not have occurred. If that stressful event hadn't occurred, I wouldn't have gotten Crohn's Disease. If I didn't get Crohn's Disease I wouldn't have stayed close to home when I went to college and I wouldn't have met this guy Scott who introduced me to J. Mackye Gruber 10 years later. So would I dare risk changing that one day now that its 15 years later and my life is on a course that I'm very comfortable with. So I think everyone has at least a couple of days like that, and that's what we wanted. We wanted people to examine their own lives and think, "Well, would I dare go back and actually alter the course of my life. That would mean that my friends and family, kids and wife could be different or just vanish."

Q: Did you have Ashton Kutcher in mind as the lead since the beginning?

J. MACKYE GRUBER: No, we did not. This journey has been going on for seven years for us.

ERIC BRESS: At first, it was Leonardo DiCaprio. That's the guy we need! And then over time, the actors that are appropriate in that age range just drastically shifts in a short period of time.

J. MACKYE GRUBER: And we were trying to figure out when we were going to shoot this and Ashton's name came up. And when we first heard it, we were like, "No. There's no way. We've been fighting this fight for seven years. This is our baby. There's no way he's going to be in this." We just saw him as that Michael Kelso, goofy character. The guy who does DUDE, WHERE'S MY CAR? And it just didn't seem appropriate. But when we went over to his house for a meeting, we didn't find that guy there. We found a very serious guy who had broken down the script and had it plastered all over his walls. He had read it forwards and backwards and his insight into the character was amazing and his questions were smart and intelligent. When we left the house it was this complete 180. And we looked at each other and were like, "That's our guy."

Q: How do you work as a team as both directors?

ERIC BRESS: I don't know how people don't work as a team. I know when we started out, I was going to be the guy that worked with the actors. He was going to be in charge of visuals and camera and all that kind of stuff. We stayed on that path, but he would come up with ideas for actors that were great and occasionally if I had a shot he'd be receptive to it. But we had worked on this thing for seven years, so we knew what color the napkins had to be in the restaurant scene. The little nitpicky things that I think are on the commentary track of the DVD.

Q: What do you think the age group is for this movie?

J. MACKYE GRUBER: I would say the age group for this is 18-35.

ERIC BRESS: It's weird. My mom's going to turn 60 soon and she's going to love it. It's strange. I think THE SIXTH SENSE, which is in a way a similar themed movie or at least the same demographic, I think that tested highest with 14-year-old boys and 60-year-old woman.

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Stay tuned for more about THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT appearing later this week on the site, including what stars Ashton Kutcher and Amy Smart have to say about the movie and their characters and why this isn't your everyday time travel story.

THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT opens in theaters this coming Friday.


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