30 Days of Night 2: Dark Days Begins Shooting Today (Interview with Author Steve Niles)

Katrina Hill interviews Steve Niles.

The 2007 horror film 30 Days of Night, produced by Sam Raimi and directed by David Slade on a budget of $30 million, grossed $75 million worldwide and continues to rent and sell well on DVD. Its story centers on Barrow, Alaska, where the sun doesn’t shine for a full month. Vampires seize the opportunity to roll into town and chow down.

Steve Niles – who wrote the source material, the 2002 graphic novel of the same name, which Ben Templesmith illustrated – told me this past weekend that the motion picture’s sequel starts filming today.

“30 Days of Night 2: Dark Days begins shooting October 20th,” Steve said. “I co-wrote the screenplay based on the comic.” The 2003 sequel comic book Dark Days focused on a survivor who draws the attention of more vampires while she seeks to resurrect a casualty from the previous tale. Steve confirmed that his co-scripter Ben Ketai will direct the film based on that comic. I asked about website and cast information because I wanted to share all of that with you, but Steve said, “No website yet and believe it or not, we’re still casting.” I’ll keep you posted as that information gets finalized.

An excerpt from my August interview with Niles aired on G4TV’s series Attack of the Show! Here is the full interview. The audio isn’t perfect, but it’s clear enough that I didn’t see the need to sync it up with my back-up audio. G4 used the sound from my digital audio recorder because it didn’t have all the background noise that the HD camera picked up. In this, Steve describes advantages that a smaller convention like Dallas Comic-Con has over the massive sprawl of San Diego Comic-Con International, and then tells us about current projects like the Criminal Macabre motion picture and a comic book project with Bernie Wrightson.

Steve gave me an update on that last part: “I also have The Ghoul with Bernie Wrightson coming out next month.” The Ghoul is a comic book about a Hollywood police detective who must seek help from a monstrous investigator with a reputation for solving the world’s weirdest crimes. Wrightson, well known for illustrating horror and co-creating the DC Comics characters Swamp Thing and Destiny, has also done art and production designs for the films Creepshow, Heavy Metal, and (a personal favorite here) Serenity.

Additional works by Steve Niles include Hellspawn, Gotham County Line, The Creeper, Simon Dark, Batman: Gotham After Midnight, The Lost Ones.

Some related posts:

* Action Flick Chick Pics: Saddle Up for Dallas Comic-Con
* This Week on Attack of the Show! Action Flick Chick Covers Dallas Comic-Con (Video)

Related interview:

*Rocket Llama’s Nick Langley interviews 30 Days of Night artist Ben Templesmith.