David Moody's "One of Us Will Be Dead by Morning"

David Moody first self-published Hater in 2006, and without an agent, succeeded in selling the film rights for the novel to Mark Johnson (producer, Breaking Bad) and Guillermo Del Toro (director, The Shape of Water, Pan’s Labyrinth). His seminal zombie novel Autumn was made into an (admittedly terrible) movie starring Dexter Fletcher and David Carradine. Moody has a unhealthy fascination with the end of the world and likes to write books about ordinary folks going through absolute hell.

Here Moody shares some ideas for casting an adaptation of his new novel, One of Us Will Be Dead by Morning:

It’s interesting - this is the first novel I’ve written where I wasn't thinking about a potential movie adaptation as I was writing. I think there are two reasons for this. First, this is an offshoot of my Hater series, and a film adaptation of the original novel should soon be entering production (it’s been on/ off for the last decade, frustratingly), so I’m still focused on a screen adaptation of book one. Second, the cast of characters in this book are people I work with. Or, at least, are inspired by people I work with. For that reason, it’s hard to visualise actors playing their roles. However, a reviewer got in touch yesterday and suggested that One of Us Will Be Dead by Morning would make a great stage play. Now that would be something else! Similar to Hater, it’s a fundamental part of the plot of One of Us… that the lead characters are very ordinary folks, like the people you might work with or your neighbours, or the folks with whom you share your daily commute. I would fight tooth and nail not to have recognisable stars in the main roles. So while I could reel off a load of currently popular British screen actors who might excel - Tom Hiddleston, Tom Hardy, Cillian Murphy, James Nesbitt etc. - I’d rather have people you might not have seen on the big screen before. If the movie was getting a worldwide release, I’d be inclined to hire actors better known for their small screen roles here in the UK. Maybe Matt Smith, Hayley Attwell… folks like that. There’s such a fine line between comedy and horror, though, that if I was given free reign, I’d actually cast comedians in the main roles. Reece Shearsmith, Alice Lowe, Jim Moir, Johnny Vegas, Steve Pemberton. They’d be perfect!

Visit David Moody's website.

The Page 69 Test: Hater.

The Page 69 Test: Dog Blood.

My Book, The Movie: Dog Blood.

The Page 69 Test: Autumn: Disintegration.

--Marshal Zeringue