Lealos Delivers DOLLAR DEAL

Think you know every dusty corner of the Stephen King universe?  You don't.  And I'll bet I know at least one dark corner you know very little about -- the Dollar Baby.

I'm really enjoying Shawn S. Lealos' book, Dollar Deal: The Stephen King Dollar Baby Filmmakers.  This is a project I've been following for some time, so the finished product is a real treat for me.  I interviewed Shawn a couple years ago, and I'm really happy to say that the finished book is a slam dunk.  I love it!

What's a Dollar Baby?  It's a Stephen King film that is made for purposes other than profit.  That's right -- they are made not to make money.  They are sheer art.  A story is given away (sold for one dollar) and the artist is allowed to work with the story all they want to make it the best movie they can.  But the movie will not appear on DVD or digital download, as the filmmakers agreed from the get-go not to make it a money making enterprise.

Those of us that have seen Dollar Babies know they are a special brand of film.  They are actually an uneven lot.  Some are great.  Some aren't.

In July 2012, Shawn told me,

The book will be formatted to allow each chapter to focus on a specific filmmaker. While I cannot see their movies (unless I already saw them at a film festival), I am interviewing each filmmaker about making their movies and will tell their stories, including what the dollar baby led to in their careers. 

I’ll also be talking to Bernd Lautenslager, who runs stephenkingshortmovies.com and maybe one or two other people outside of the regular filmmakers. This is not a book so much about the movies as it is about the fans who made them. I hope to give regular fans who never got a chance to see a dollar baby a chance to see inside the making of them. While I cannot ask to see the movies, Mr. King’s attorneys have let me know they don’t mind the book written in this format.  (talkstephenking: interview-shawn-s-lealos) 

Lealos writes in Dollar Deal, "This book includes stories of people who used their Stephen King Dollar Baby films to launch successful careers as a sci-fi film director, a television showrunner, a published true crime author, a stage show performer, an actor, and much, much more."

Here's an insight I never picked up on until Peter Sullivan (Night Surf) pointed it out in chapter 9:

Stephen King’s writing style sort of started to evolve after The Stand ,and a lot of his books afterwards became less and less about one or two characters and more about this big huge cast of characters, much the way The Stand was.

Table of contents:
Chapter 1: Frank Darabont, “The Woman in the Room”
Chapter 2: Jeff Schiro, “The Boogeyman”
Chapter 3: Jim Gonis, “The Lawnmower Man”
Chapter 4: James Cole, “The Last Rung on the Ladder”
Chapter 5: The Good and Bad of Film Adaptation by James Cole
Chapter 6: Jay Holben, “Paranoid”
Chapter 7: Shawn S. Lealos, “I Know What You Need”
Chapter 8: Doveed Linder, “Strawberry Spring”
Chapter 9: Peter Sullivan, “Night Surf”
Chapter 10: Robert Cochrane, “Lucky Quarter”
Chapter 11: Nick Wauters, “Rainy Season”
Chapter 12: James Renner, “All That You Love Will be Carried Away”
Chapter 13: James Cox, “Grey Matter”
Chapter 14: Mikhail Tank, “My Pretty Pony” and “Willa”
Chapter 15: Rodney Altman, “Umney’s Last Case”
Chapter 16: Juan Pablo Reinoso, “Flowers for Norma”
Chapter 17: Warren Ray, “Maxwell Edison”
Chapter 18: J.P. Scott, “Everything’s Eventual”
Chapter 19: Derek Simon, “A Very Tight Place”
Chapter 20: Damon Vinyard, “In the Deathroom”

Lealos describes his journey:

Not only am I a Dollar Baby filmmaker, as well as a huge fan of Stephen King and movies, but I have become a big fan of the men and women who have made Dollar Babies. These filmmakers know they may never have a chance to screen their movies for a large audience, but they made their films because they love King’s works, and wanted to create something of their own based on the worlds that he created before them.

What's fun is the behind the scenes glimpse at movie making.  It's a fast read, with each chapter offering an introduction and then interviews with the films directors.

By the way, I'm so enthusiastic about this book -- I should tell you up front: No one pays me anything to run the blog.  I did not get the book for free, I purchased it.  No one pays me to say nice stuff about their book -- I could write nasty stuff if I hated the book.  So this is the truth: Dollar Deal belongs in your Stephen King collection. It's about a part of the Stephen King universe most of us know very little about.

amazon.com/Dollar-Deal