A few years ago I was going through one of the most difficult experiences of my life when I kept having the thought that I should adapt Orson Scott Card's novel Lost Boys into a screenplay. It took a few years to do that. After I was done with my adaptation, I realized that it was way too long to be a single movie and would work better as a miniseries. (I saw the miniseries format used very effectively in The Dropout and I quickly caught a vision for how Lost Boys could make a great miniseries.) The story takes place over several months and has different sections to it, which is one of the things that makes a miniseries such a great format for it. I first read Lost Boys when I was in college and my life went on to have some parallels to some of the events. Perhaps that's one of the reasons it felt like a book to take refuge into. Sometimes, books understand how you're feeling better than people do.
I loved so many things about writing this adaptation. There's so much texture that you can add to a screenplay, especially one that takes place in a different decade. I loved adding in little touches to make it feel more grounded in the setting, like a news snippet about the developing famine in Ethiopia at the time and top 40 hits from 1983. Bruce Springsteen's album The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle is a recurring theme in the book, so I did a little research to find out more about the songs that Card references and how to incorporate them in.
LOST BOYS
EXT. HIGHWAY NORTH CAROLINA NIGHT— March 1983
A lone car with Indiana plates drives down the highway.
INT. CAR
STEP FLETCHER, wearing a ratty BYU sweatshirt is driving while his pregnant wife DEANNE sleeps with her head on a pillow in the passenger seat. He’s boxed in by various bags and toys and clothes and blankets and empty food containers as if everything is attempting to squeeze him out of the driver seat— while he still needs to keep driving. Their children STEVIE,7, ROBBIE,4, and BETSY, 2 are in the back. Robbie and Betsy sleep, but Stevie watches the world going by while his face looks back at him in the window as a ghostly reflection. A ROAD SIGN shows that Steuben, North Carolina is still 118 miles away. Step checks his watch and seeing the late hour, CLICKS A TAPE into the 8 TRACK TAPE PLAYER and Bruce Springsteen’s “E STREET SHUFFLE” plays while he drives.
ROLL CREDITS
Credits continue as Step drives and a few cars pass him.
END CREDITS
Betsy wakes and starts fussing.
STEVIE
Dad? Betsy just threw up.
STEP
How much Doorman? A little or a lot.
STEVIE
Just a little.
Betsy heaves loudly and starts crying.
STEVIE
Maybe a lot.
Step heaves a great sigh, CLICKS pause on the tape and pulls over. Deanne quickly snaps to attention as the kids start to stir.
STEP
(muttering) Damn it.
DEANNE
What happened? And don’t swear. The kids can hear you.
STEP
Deanne, they’re so little they won’t remember I swore.
DEANNE
Stevie will. He’s almost 8.
Step looks back at Stevie, who has fixed him with his large, searching eyes. Then Step turns forward and looks down the dark, lonely highway for just a moment. Betsy cries louder.
STEP
It’s ok. I’ll take care of her. You go back to sleep.
Deanne gladly obliges and Step gets out and heads to the back seat. In the backseat, Betsy fusses and Stevie watches Step clean her off. Step finds some PAPER TOWELS saved just for occasions like this on the long trip.
STEVIE
How close are we Dad?
STEP
About two hours away.
STEVIE
Dad?
STEP
Yeah?
STEVIE
I want to go back to Indiana. I don’t want to move here.
STEP
I know Doorman. I wish we didn’t have to move either. But my new job is here.
A car WHOOSHES by at high speed, not at a dangerous distance, but too close comfort. Step glances back over his shoulder nervously and then back at Stevie who continues to watch him.
Betsy fusses a little more.
STEP
Shhhh… shhhh…It’s ok Betsy Wetsy.
Betsy heaves up yet more vomit.
STEP
OK, maybe Betsy Pukesy is more like it. Fish Lady, your youngest child is not feeling well right now.
DEANNE
If she’s throwing up, she’s your youngest child, Junk Man.
But Deanne has gotten up and is surveying the situation in the back seat nonetheless. Step gives a little chuckle at her quip and continues cleaning off Betsy.
DEANNE
We’d better change her clothes. Here let me find a spare set and a clean diaper. You bring her around.
Deanne kicks into action and starts rummaging around in the front seat. Step picks up Betsy and cradles her against the cold and dark and another ZOOMING car as he brings her around to the other side their car.
Swirling blue and red lights pierce the darkness and casting their glow Step and Betsy. An officer gets out and saunters over to them. Betsy buries her head in Step’s shoulder. Step blinks at the light.
OFFICER
What’s the trouble here?
STEP
My two year old daughter just threw up in the back seat. We’re getting her changed.
OFFICER
The shoulder of the road is only for emergencies.
STEP
You don’t think a toddler throwing up is an emergency?
OFFICER
Son, you listen here—
Deanne pops out with the CLEAN SLEEPER, smiling and easygoing.
DEANNE
Well Officer, if you had to drive for even thirty seconds with the smell in the car you might too! Thanks for checking on us.
She pushes out her belly a little more for added sympathy. It works.
OFFICER
Ma’am, I guess you got a point. Just hurry it up. It’s not safe to be stopped here. People come down this road too fast and sometimes take that curve too wide.
STEP
Thanks for your concern.
The cop glares at Step
OFFICER
Just doing my job.
The cop stalks around to his patrol car and sits and waits with the lights on while Step and Deanne do a quick change with Betsy.
STEP
What did I say? All I said to him was ‘Thanks for your concern,’ and he acted like I told him his mother had never been married.
Deanne shimmies Betsy’s pants down while Step holds Betsy.
DEANNE
Step, when you say ‘Thank you for your concern’ it always sounds like you’re just accidently leaving off the word “butthead”.
He hands off Betsy to Deanne who lays her on the front passenger seat for a diaper change. Step, still irritated with the whole situation, looks over at the cop car with its lights. He and the officer give each other terse nods.
STEP
I wasn’t being sarcastic. Everybody always thinks I’m being sarcastic when I’m not.
Deanne hands him a CLEAN SLEEPER to put Betsy back into when the diaper change is finished. Deanne is still hunched over the front seat of the car, attending to Betsy.
DEANNE
I wouldn’t know I’ve never been there when you weren’t being sarcastic.
Deanne pops back up with Betsy in her newly changed diaper. She smiles at Step. Step smiles back and holds up the sleeper. Deanne starts shimmying Betsy into it.
STEP
You think you know too much, Fish Lady.
Deanne zips Betsy into her sleeper. And leans into him affectionately.
DEANNE
And you don’t know enough, Junk Man.
He kisses her.
STEP
I’ll put our Betsy Wetsy doll back in her place.
Deanne gives him a slightly annoyed look as she gets back in the car.
DEANNE
Her name is Elizabeth.
Step grins and kisses Betsy on the head.
STEP
Betsy Wetsy.
INT. CAR— AS BEFORE
Step places Betsy in the back seat and wipes off the last of the vomit.
STEVIE
I didn’t even hear that cop come up.
Robbie stirs awake and then looks around.
ROBBIE
Cop?
STEP
Go back to sleep, Road Bug.
Step grabs a PLASTIC BAG AND PILES THE DIRTY WIPES AND PAPER TOWELS into it.
ROBBIE
Did we get a ticket this time, Daddy?
STEP
No. He just wanted to make sure we were all right.
Step cleans his hands off with a wipe and piles that one in the bag with the others.
STEVIE
He wanted us to move our butts out of here.
DEANNE
Step!
STEP
It was Stevie who said it, not me!
Step ties the bag, stows it under the seat and then gets into the front seat.
INT. CAR— AS BEFORE
DEANNE
He wouldn’t talk that way if he didn’t learn it from you
STEP
Is the cop still back there?
Stevie glances back.
STEVIE
Yep.
STEP
I didn’t hear him come up either. I just turned around and there he was.
Step pulls on his seatbelt and eases out onto the road again. The cop follows but quickly passes them and heads off into the night.
STEVIE
What if it wasn’t a cop and you just turned around and it was a bad guy?
DEANNE
He gets his morbid imagination from you
STEP
Nobody would do anything to us out on the open highway like this where anybody passing by could see.
STEVIE
It’s dark and people drive by so fast.
DEANNE
Well, nothing happened. I don’t like talking about things like that.
ROBBIE
If it was a bad guy Daddy would’ve popped him one in the nose! Daddy wouldn’t let anything bad happen.
DEANNE
That’s right and neither would Mommy.
Step turns on the radio and the last part of U2’s “NEW YEAR’S DAY” PLAYS. After the song finishes an AD PLAYS and Step switches to the next station where a news report comes on.
NEWS BROADCAST
In Ethiopia, the prices of grain are rising in the Tigray and Amhara regions of Ethiopia where conflict between dictator Megitsu Haile Mariam and the Tigray Liberation Front has been ongoing. With the recent years of drought, food shortages have already caused widespread hunger. With Mariam’s price hikes, reports of deaths from hunger are increasing. If the trend continues, a famine is possible with—
Step turns the dial again.
LOCAL NEWS BROADCAST
Another child has disappeared from the Steuben area. 8 year old David Purdom was last seen on March 3. If anyone has any information, the police ask that you notify them—
Step turns the dial again and gets CYNDI LAUPER’S “GIRLS JUST WANNA HAVE FUN”, then STATIC and MORE STATIC and then A VERY OLD COUNTRY STATION. He finally turns the radio off and silence settles in.
STEVIE
Dad, would you pop him in the nose?
STEP
That would depend.
STEVIE
On what?
STEP
On whether I thought that popping him would make things better or worse.if he’s a foot taller than me and weighs three hundred pounds and has a tire iron and wants my wallet— I think it would be better to just give him my wallet.
STEVIE
What if he wanted to murder us all?
DEANNE
Stevie, your dad and I won’t let anyone hurt you.
STEVIE
What if he killed you and dad first and then came after me and Robbie and Betsy?
DEANNE
Stevie, Heavenly Father won’t let anything like that happen to you.
Step grips the steering wheel tighter.
STEP
God doesn’t work that way. He doesn’t always stop evil people from committing their crimes.
A stinging silence ensues. Deanne sits up tentatively and turns towards Step.
DEANNE
He’s asking if he’s safe.
Step stares out into the dark night ahead trying to figure out what to say.
STEP
Yes, Stevie, you’re safe, as safe as anybody ever is who’s alive in this world. But you were asking about what if somebody really terrible wanted to do something vicious to our whole family, and the truth is that if somebody is truly, deeply evil, then sometimes good people can’t stop him until he’s done a lot of bad things. That’s just the way it happens sometimes
STEVIE
But God would get him for it, right?
STEP
In the long run, yes. And I’ll tell you this—the only way anybody will ever get to you or the other kids or to your mother, for that matter, is if I’m already dead. I promise you that.
STEVIE
Okay.
STEP
There aren’t that many really evil people in the world. I don’t think you need to worry about this.
Stevie gazes out his window as the dark world around him rushes by.
STEVIE
Okay
Step CLICKS the cassette player and the “E STREET SHUFFLE” starts playing again.
