- Craig J. Nevius
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Craig J. Nevius is a Chicago-born playwright turned Hollywood producer. He is the owner of Windmill Entertainment LLC, a television development and production company that specializes in both scripted and unscripted projects with pop culture appeal.
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Playwrighting career
Nevius began his professional writing career at 17 while attending William Fremd High School in Palatine, Illinois. It was there that he wrote a play called "Class Dismissed" about an idealistic but exasperated English teacher who holds his five toughest students hostage in the classroom to teach them a special lesson about life. The play was published by Samuel French Inc. making Nevius the youngest published playwright in history.[1]
Nevius is also the author of two other plays: The Men's Room and Where the Heart Is; both of which were originally produced by Chicago's Group Theater and directed by Nevius.[2]
Screenwriting career
After studying playwrighting and directing at Carnegie-Mellon University, Nevius moved to Hollywood to pursue film and television. He wrote about his college and theater experience in his first screenplay entitled "Happy Together." The script won the Columbia Pictures FOCUS Award and was produced by Apollo Pictures. The romantic-comedy, which can best be described as a co-ed "Odd Couple" or a teenage "Breakfast at Tiffany's," is about an introverted playwright (Patrick Dempsey) who is mistakenly assigned to the same dorm room as an extroverted actress (Helen Slater).[3]
"Happy Together" is also notable for featuring Brad Pitt (pre-"Selma & Louise") in a supporting role. Pitt was cast by Nevius when the producer and director could not decide between Pitt and another unknown actor for the part.[4]
After "Happy Together," Nevius continued working steadily as a screenwriter, often for cult director Roger Corman—who is also known as "the King of the B's" because of his legendary low budget approach to filmmaking. It was while working for Corman as a screenwriter that Nevius began a second career as a producer.[5]
Working for Corman allowed Nevius to write and produce in a variety of genres from suspense thriller ("Ladykiller" starring Ben Gazzara and "Death's Door" starring David Carradine) to family comedy ("Stepmonster" starring Alan Thicke and "A Very Unlucky Leprechaun" starring Warwick Davis) to gothic horror ("The Marquis De Sade" starring Nick Mancuso and "Hellfire" starring Ben Cross).
The Fantastic Four & Black Scorpion
Perhaps the most famous (or infamous) of the Corman/Nevius collaborations was the original version of Marvel Comics' "The Fantastic Four." Being a fan of superheroes since childhood, Nevius jumped at the chance to bring Stan Lee's comic book creation to life. However what Nevius and the rest of the production team did not know was that the film was only being made in order for it to be remade (more than a decade later). Constantine Film was about to lose its option on the rights to the Marvel Comics property and the only way the company could retain them was to make a movie—even if it would never be released.
However the Corman/Nevius version of "The Fantastic Four" did eventually find an audience. The film has been bootlegged and sold on the internet and at comic book conventions around the world. Most reviewers, while critical of the 1.5 million dollar budget, have found it as good or better than the big budget 2005 studio "remake."[6]
According to an interview Nevius did with The Sequential Tart, the officially unreleased version of "The Fantastic Four" was important in that his work on the project paved the way for him to create his own superhero: "Black Scorpion." Best described as a female Batman, the original Showtime movie and its sequel ("Black Scorpion 2: AfterShock") starred Joan Severance in the title role. Both installments garnered impressive ratings and reviews with David Bianculli, the Television Critic of The New York Daily News, calling it "an imaginative mini-franchise."[7]
The mini-franchise made the move from Showtime to the Sci Fi Channel with 22 one hour episodes of "Black Scorpion." Joan Severance was replaced by an unknown actress and former Miss Kansas named Michelle Lintel whom Nevius began dating during production.[8]
Nevius, who co-created and produced the television series with Corman, also cast Adam West (TV's "Batman") as the Breathtaker—Black Scorpion's asthmatic arch enemy. Nevius also wrote the part of Clockwise, another supervillain, for Frank Gorshin (TV's "Riddler") to play. Additionally, several dozen Playboy Playmates and Magazine Models were cast as "Bad Girls" including Shae Marks, Lisa Boyle, Victoria Silvstedt, Carrie Stevens, Patricia Ford, Julie McCullough, and Jeannie Millar. The series won the Golden Apple Award for Excellence in the Filmed Depiction of Science Fiction & Fantasy.[9]
Windmill Entertainment LLC.
In 2004, Nevius started Windmill Entertainment which would focus on scripted and unscripted television projects with pop culture appeal.[10]
Among the company's first productions was the critically acclaimed reality series "Chasing Farrah" (starring Farrah Fawcett and Ryan O'Neal) which set record ratings for TV Land. David Bianculli, the Television Critic of The New York Daily News, gave it three stars and said "In the genre called reality, it's a rarity."[11]
To follow "Farrah," Nevius and his company turned to another television icon: William Shatner. The result of the collaboration was "Shatner in Concert" -- a hybrid of music and reality which intercut biographical songs written and performed by the Emmy Award and Golden Globe winning actor with scenes from his every day life. The show included appearances by Leonard Nimoy, Candice Bergen and Patrick Stewart as well as musical performances by Ben Folds, Brad Paisley and Joe Jackson.[12][13]
Windmill Entertainment continues to work with both Shatner and Fawcett. Other projects with Shatner include the recently announced Christmas movie "Las Vegas Santa" with Shatner in the title role of a disgruntled St. Nicholas who relocates from the North Pole to Sin City. On a more serious note, Nevius and his company are producing "A Wing and A Prayer" -- a documentary chronicling Farrah Fawcett's cancer battle both in the USA and in Germany as well as her efforts to protect her privacy from the tabloids and paparazzi.[14][15]
Among the high profile projects in development at Windmill Entertainment are "Action Heroes Inc." The action-comedy is about three aging television heroes who are too old to play the parts that made them famous so they open a detective agency where they use their Hollywood knowledge of crimefighting on the real streets of Los Angeles with unexpected results. The project was developed with and for William Shatner, Lee Majors and Robert Wagner to star.[16]
Also in development is the VH1 announced mini-series "The Brat Pack" which Nevius has described as "a pop culture period piece." The 1980s drama depicts the rise and fall of teen actors Molly Ringwald, Emilio Estevez, Anthony Michael Hall, Demi Moore, Judd Nelson, and Rob Lowe among others.[17][18]
References
Categories:- Living people
- American writers
- People from Chicago, Illinois
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