Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan - writers of Saw IV, Saw V and Saw VI – discuss working in the horror genre, plus teaming up with Pacific Rim director Guillermo del Toro to collaborate on the blockbuster film just a month before shooting began.
“This is trial by fire. It was literally, get on a plane tomorrow – here’s the script – get on the plane, read it on the plane,” Melton said about his last-minute script doctoring mission. He was told he’d be having dinner the next day with Pacific Rim producer Mary Parent, and the day after would have a direct meeting with del Toro about the script.
“We understood we were there for four days, but we could get axed in five minutes, if that’s what it took,” Dunstan said.
“When you meet these iconic people like Guillermo, you’ve seen them a million times in interviews, and you just see, you know your face, and now their face is talking to you,” Melton recalled. “I had to hide the anxiety and sort of thrill of talking with him – especially because he was maybe uncertain about us.”
“He said, ‘What’s wrong with the script?’ We had some ideas up front – a scene we wanted to put up front.”
So after explaining this to del Toro, the director had Melton immediately go outside the office and write the scene at his assistant’s desk. “When I was done with it, I printed it out and I gave it to him, and just sat there and waited. And he read it, and walked down and said, ‘Okay, you can stay.’ And that was it. Marcus came up the next day.”
What started out intending to last four days ended up going a little more than a month, with the writing duo staying on through the cast readings and first days of production.
In the full episode, Melton and Dunstan reflect on their beginnings with film contest Project Greenlight and discuss their new sci-fi robot film Rise - the story of a robot uprising, from the robot’s point of view.
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