Andrew Kevin Walker
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Andrew Kevin Walker
Biography
Even if you don't know who Andrew Kevin Walker is, you may know what he looks like. Walker appeared as the first dead body in Seven (1995) and played the sleeping neighbor who Jodie Foster and Kristen Stewart signal for help in Panic Room (2002). You may also have seen his name. He lent it to the three detectives -- Andrew, Kevin, and Walker -- who try to castrate Edward Norton in Fight Club (1999). Walker's true claim to fame is as one of Hollywood's leading screenwriters and script doctors. He specializes in big-budget thrillers that are just as gutsy as their artsy counterparts; he has also gotten the first crack at the industry's most anticipated screenplays, as well as put the final touches on today's most popular films.Raised in Mechanicsburg, PA, Walker attended Penn State University where he earned a bachelor's degree in Film Production. After graduating, he moved to New York City and toiled on several low-budget films. In 1991, while working at Tower Records, Walker slipped into a deep depression. He channeled his black mood into Seven (1994), a dark screenplay in which a serial killer murders people based on the seven deadly sins. New Line Cinema bought the crime thriller and Walker relocated to Los Angeles soon afterward.
It took several years for Seven to go into production, during which time Walker contributed to HBO's Tales From the Crypt and wrote the thrillers Brainscan (1994) and Hideaway (1995). At the request of New Line, he also reluctantly toned down Seven's gruesome ending -- which included the female lead's severed head turning up inside a box -- to make it more palatable. However, when director David Fincher agreed to helm the project, he had done so based on Walker's first draft. Fincher and the film's stars, Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman, rallied behind Walker's shocking finale, eventually convincing executive producer Arnold Kopelson to keep the gore in the film (Pitt's contract even stipulated that the studio could not alter Seven's final segment). The film became one of 1995's biggest hits, both critically and commercially, and established Walker as an A-list screenwriter.
The next few years saw Walker penning uncredited rewrites on films such as Fincher's The Game (1997) and Fight Club (1999), Paul Anderson's Event Horizon (1997), and David Koepp's Stir of Echoes (1999), and writing an early draft of Bryan Singer's X-Men (2000). He also sold his original screenplay 8MM (1999) -- about a private eye who is hired to investigate the authenticity of a snuff movie -- to Columbia Pictures for a reported 1.25 million dollars. But the studio grew wary of the film's sordid subject matter, and began pressuring Walker into making major changes to the script. Walker thought he was saved when Joel Schumacher agreed to direct the film and supported him against the studio heads. But Schumacher simply made changes of his own, rearranging the script and doctoring scenes to lighten up the film. In a publicized debate, Walker walked off the set and later refused to watch the film, which opened to scathing reviews and disappointing box-office returns.
Walker went on to adapt Washington Irving's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow into Tim Burton's eerie homage to Britain's Hammer films, Sleepy Hollow (1999), starring Johnny Depp and Christina Ricci. Though Burton admired Walker and co-writer Kevin Yagher's work on the film, he still hired Shakespeare in Love (1998) scribe Tom Stoppard to cut down its violence. Walker then wrote two installments of the BMW promotional short-film series The Hire (2001), starring Croupier's Clive Owen as a hired driver. In the first, John Frankenheimer's Ambush (2001), Owen must protect his passenger from mysterious masked gunmen who accuse the man of smuggling diamonds. In the second, Wong Kar-Wai's The Follow (2001), Owen is hired by Mickey Rourke to spy on his wife, who he thinks is an adulteress. Both films premiered on the BMW film site and helped fans whet their appetites for Walker's next projects, an adaptation of Marvel Comics' Silver Surfer for FOX and a screenplay that pairs DC Comic heroes Superman and Batman for director Wolfgang Petersen. ~ Aubry Anne D'Arminio, Rovi
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Andrew Kevin Walker
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Andrew Kevin Walker
| Andrew Kevin Walker | |
|---|---|
| Born | August 14, 1964  Altoona, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Occupation | Screenwriter |
| Years active | 1993–present |
Andrew Kevin Walker (born August 14, 1964) is an American BAFTA-nominated screenwriter. He is known for having written Seven (1995), for which he earned a nomination for the BAFTA Award for Best Original Screenplay, as well as several other films, including 8mm (1999), Sleepy Hollow (1999) and many uncredited script rewrites.
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Early life
Walker was born in Altoona, Pennsylvania, though some time during his childhood, he moved to Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, where he was raised. He attended the Mechanicsburg Area Senior High School until his graduation in 1982. Walker soon enrolled in Penn State University to pursue a career in film production. He graduated from Penn State in 1986, with a Bachelor of Arts in film and video.[1]
Film career
Shortly after completing his education, he moved to New York City and began a career in retail at Tower Records. During that time, he worked on several projects, but Walker was unable to find much success until 1991, when he completed the script for Seven. Walker decided to move to Los Angeles to sell his screenplay. There, he personally contacted screenwriter David Koepp, who showed the script to executives at New Line Cinema, who ended up purchasing the rights to it. The film, however, took nearly three years to begin production. While the project was ongoing, Walker found other work as a screenwriter, including a short stint with HBO's television series Tales From the Crypt, as well as writing two other films, Brainscan (1994) and the novel adaptation Hideaway (1995).[1]
Seven began production between his two other films, headed by David Fincher as the director and starring Morgan Freeman, Brad Pitt and Kevin Spacey. At one point during production, the studio proposed several changes — which would later become a recurring theme throughout Walker's career — deeming it too dark for its target audience; both Fincher and Freeman backed Walker's original script, and it eventually went unchanged.[1] The film was met with critical acclaim and enormous box office success, earning $327,311,859 worldwide.[2][3] It would allow Walker to make a name for himself in the movie industry.
However, Walker would not earn another film credit to his name for another four years, though he penned several uncredited rewrites during this period, including The Game (on which he again worked with David Fincher) and Paul W.S. Anderson's Event Horizon.[4] In 1999, Walker's 8MM finally saw the light of day, having been sold by him for a reported $1.25 million. Once again, the film's production encountered concerns regarding the dark subject matter, and the studio asked Walker to lighten the film's tone. With Joel Schumacher as director, Walker felt a rewrite would no longer be needed. But as it turned out, Schumacher supported the studio and made changes of his own, leading to a much-publicized fallout between the two, with Walker virtually disowning the film and walking away from the set. He refused to even watch the film, which became a critical and box-office failure.[5]
Walker found other success in 1999, as he penned uncredited rewrites to the critical hits Stir of Echoes and Fight Club, now considered a cult classic. Walker's adaptation of Washington Irving's short story "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" also wrapped up production as Sleepy Hollow, directed by Tim Burton. While Burton admired Walker's original script, he hired the playwright and Academy Award-winning screenwriter Tom Stoppard to tone down the violence.[5] The film, starring Johnny Depp, was still a box office and critical success.[6]
Since the mid-1990s, Walker wrote several screenplays that were never greenlit or have yet to go into production, such as a script for a movie starring the superhero Silver Surfer, a version of X-Men (2000; his script was written in 1994),[7] and a film tentatively titled Batman vs. Superman. The latter film was set to go into production, but Warner Bros. opted to revive their franchises separately, and so the script was shelved.[8] After the announcement and subsequent successes of Batman Begins and Superman Returns, the film seemed to be shelved permanently, though Wolfgang Petersen, who was due to direct the feature, has continued to express his interest in the project.[9]
Other projects
Walker also wrote two shorts for the BMW Films series The Hire, starring Clive Owen: Ambush, directed by John Frankenheimer, and The Follow, by Wong Kar-wai.
Most recently, Walker co-wrote (with David Self and Paul Attanasio) the screenplay for The Wolfman, a remake of the Universal Studios classic. The remake, directed by Joe Johnston and starring Benicio del Toro in the title role, received a 2010 release.
Appearances in film
Walker is known for making short cameos in films for which he served as a writer. In Panic Room, he appears as a sleepy neighbor; in Fight Club, three detectives are named, respectively, Andrew, Kevin and Walker; and in Seven, he is the corpse near the very beginning of the movie. In the episode "My Maserati Does 185" of the HBO series Entourage, it is said that Andrew Kevin Walker wrote the script for an Aquaman movie.
References
- ^ a b c Andrew Kevin Walker
- ^ Seven - Movie Reviews, Trailers, Pictures - Rotten Tomatoes
- ^ Seven (1995)
- ^ God of Andrew Kevin Walker writer of Se7en
- ^ a b Andrew Kevin Walker - Biography - MSN Movies
- ^ Sleepy Hollow at Rotten Tomatoes
- ^ "X-Men," by Andrew Kevin Walker
- ^ Darius, Julian (2005). Batman Begins and the Comics. Lulu Press. p. 6. ISBN 1-4116-4543-X.
- ^ Wolfgang Peterson Will Do Batman Vs. Superman! at IESB.net
External links
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Mentioned in
Ambush
(2001 Action Film)
The Follow
(2001 Drama Film)
Sleepy Hollow
(1999 Horror Film)
Panic Room
(2002 Thriller Film)
The Wolfman
(2009 Horror Film)
» More