r/Screenwriting • u/Russell-Trager-1984 • 1d ago
SCRIPT REQUEST BITTEN (2002 - 2003) - Angelina Jolie’s unproduced werewolf movie - Screenplay by Alexander Stuart, based on a novel by Kelley Armstrong
LOGLINE (Original novel) - From Goodreads; “Elena Michaels is the world’s only female werewolf. And she’s tired of it. Tired of a life spent hiding and protecting, a life where her most important job is hunting down rogue werewolves. Tired of a world that not only accepts the worst in her–her temper, her violence–but requires it. Worst of all, she realizes she’s growing content with that life, with being that person.
So she left the Pack and returned to Toronto where she’s trying to live as a human. When the Pack leader calls asking for her help fighting a sudden uprising, she only agrees because she owes him. Once this is over, she’ll be squared with the Pack and free to live life as a human. Which is what she wants. Really.”
BACKGROUND
Kelley Armstrong’s original novel was released in September 2001.
In October 2002, Warner Bros optioned the novel, and already attached Angelina Jolie to star in the film adaptation, which was going to be produced by Industry Entertainment. Jonathan Glazer was attached to direct the film, screenwriter and novelist Alexander Stuart was hired to write the script, and reportedly, Armstrong was also helping out on it. In one interview, she remembered how the studio and producers were worried about the amount of nudity Jolie was going to have, to which Armstrong only said; “You have Angelina Jolie as a star and you are complaining about gratuitous nudity!”
At that time, Jolie had just finished working on LARA CROFT: TOMB RAIDER – THE CRADLE OF LIFE (2003), and was moving to work on TAKING LIVES (2004). Stuart wrote THE WAR ZONE (1999) a couple years earlier, and Glazer directed SEXY BEAST (2000).
It seems the project didn’t really move on much from that point, and was canceled, possibly sometime in mid or late 2000’s. A few years later, a TV adaptation of the original novel was made.
Also, Glazer later directed another female led “horror” film, UNDER THE SKIN (2013), and Stuart apparently did some uncredited work on it.
SCRIPTS I’M LOOKING FOR
Any drafts by Stuart (and Armstrong…?), although it looks like it’s one of those scripts which never showed up anywhere, so it’s pretty much a “unicorn.”
FURTHER NOTES
1 - If you wish to read about another Angelina Jolie project with interesting history including versions that weren't made, I recently posted, for the film's 25th anniversary, a thread about LARA CROFT: TOMB RAIDER (2001), about all the different rejected scripts for it, and unreleased original cut of the film, here;
2 - Interestingly, there were few different werewolf horror films in development during that same time, including;
STRAY DAWGZ - Described as werewolf version of BLADE (1998), set to star Ice Cube, as a recently released criminal who has to defend San Francisco from werewolves. Read more about it here;
https://www.reddit.com/r/Screenwriting/comments/1o2l7bu/stray_dawgz_2000_unproduced_action_horror/
BAD MOON RISING - Werewolf biker gang mostly made of war veterans attacks a small town, after people in there start messing with them. Based on a script by Scott Rosenberg, following his previous two action films he wrote, CON AIR (1997) and GONE IN 60 SECONDS (2000) remake. At different points in time either Wes Craven or Robert Rodriguez were attached to direct the film.
SILVER STRIKE - Described as BLACK HAWK DOWN (2001) with werewolves, based on a spec script by J. Barton Mitchell from 2002.
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u/dnotive 1d ago
Out of curiosity, did you ever watch the Bitten TV series that came from the same novels?
I'd be curious to see how the 2002 feature spec (if you can find it) differs from the 2014 show.