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Frank Beddor is the New York Times bestselling author of The Looking Glass Wars, Seeing Redd, and ArchEnemy, an adaptation or rather "true telling" of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Frank Beddor is also a former world champion freestyle skier; he did the ski stunts for John Cusack’s character in the movie Better Off Dead. He later produced the highest grossing comedy of all time: There’s Something About Mary.
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This episode originally aired on 12/10/2009 with the following authors:
Note: The following interview has been transcribed from The Author Hour radio show. Please excuse any typos, spelling and gramatical errors.
Interview with Frank Beddor | | |
Bonus Question(s) that Didn't Air on the Live Radio Show
Note that you can also listen to this while you read it.
Matthew Peterson:
Let me ask you a bonus question now. I know you have a card game. So tell us a little bit about the card game that you’ve created for the series.
Frank Beddor:
What I was hoping to do was create a little respite for the readers between books. And so it started off with a role playing game called the Card Soldier Wars. It’s an online game. And then within that game I’ve created the Looking Glass Wars card game that’s based on the Japanese game of Go.
Matthew Peterson:
Okay.
Frank Beddor:
And so it’s a virtual game that allows you to choose a side. You deal your deck, your cards, onto a battlefield, and then it’s the strategy game that incorporates attack and defensive cards. And then certain cards have glow and certain magical properties that give you added strength to the cards that are on the field. So I supposed it’s not dissimilar to games like Magic and the Gathering and things like that.
Matthew Peterson:
Okay.
Frank Beddor:
But it’s going to be available right now.
Matthew Peterson:
Well, that’s very popular. Those type of games are very popular for middle grade and young adults.
Frank Beddor:
Hopefully.
Matthew Peterson:
And you also have a roller coaster that you’re designing or some . . . you have like a video of a roller coaster on your website and I thought that was interesting. What’s up with that? [laughs]
Frank Beddor:
[laughs] You know what happened is I had a dream about what a really cool roller coaster would look like. This was now five or six years ago when I was still in the middle of book one. And I happened to be working with a concept artist who worked for an amusement . . . his day job was working for an amusement park design firm, and so I told him about the roller coaster and he said, “You know, that would make a great roller coaster. Do you want me to do some sketches?” And so he did these sketches and I always kid everybody it’s going to premier in July one day.
Matthew Peterson:
[laughs]
Frank Beddor:
And if not, if they make the movie, it’ll be at Universal Studios or wherever, Disney, or wherever. So I put it up for fun, you know, just letting people know that I’m thinking ahead.
Matthew Peterson:
Yeah. Well, I thought that was funny. When I . . . very first time I went to Disneyland I think I was like four years old, or five years old. It was a long drive home and my brother and I were designing an amusement park that we were going to build.
Frank Beddor:
See!
Matthew Peterson:
And it was going to be called Magic Bombland. [laughs]
Frank Beddor:
Bombland?!
Matthew Peterson:
Yeah! [laughs] I don’t know if people would actually survive the rides, but . . . [laughs]
Frank Beddor:
Yes, well it doesn’t sound like it. Sounds like a Middle East theme park. [laughs]
Matthew Peterson:
[laughs] You go in, but you never go out.
Frank Beddor:
Well, see, so I wasn’t that crazy. So that makes me feel better.
Matthew Peterson:
Yeah.
Frank Beddor:
It was worth the interview just to learn that.
Matthew Peterson:
Yeah.
Extra Material That was Cut from the Show Because of Time Constraints
Note that you can also listen to this while you read it (you'll need to fast forward past the bonus questions).
Matthew Peterson:
And your Alice is unlike the one that we’re familiar with. In the Disney movie, she’s kind of like this little girl who doesn’t know what she’s doing, but yours is definitely more assertive and . . .
Frank Beddor:
Mine’s more of the reluctant hero story. You know, she was destined and then she was thrown into this role. If she hadn’t been exiled, she would have been the heir apparent.
Matthew Peterson:
Uh huh.
Frank Beddor:
And so she ends up catching up for lost time and then finding herself on the throne and not really prepared for the deep responsibility to the people and to the Queendom. And because she grew up in England, she longs for that part of her life as well. So she’s conflicted whether she should be living this idyllic life in Oxford, if no one had kidnaped her and brought her back, or if she should be here fighting the likes of King Arch to save a people and to save a world.
* * * * * * * * * *
Frank Beddor:
And by the way, if you look at Gregory Maguire’s book, Wicked, going the musical route is not a bad thing either and that’s an option. I’ve been approached by producers to turn my books into a musical first and then to see what happens with the movies. So, you know, there’s lots of opportunities. I’m just happy that my books are standing on their own two feet and they’re almost complete with the exception of the last graphic novel and then we’ll see what happens.
Matthew Peterson:
Yeah. Well, I know in the past--my wife and I were just talking about this--you know, there were two volcano movies that came out at the same time, and two asteroid movies about to hit the planet . . .
Frank Beddor:
Yeah. Right.
Matthew Peterson:
It’s kind of like... You know, I ended up watching all of them and there’s lots of other movies that were the same thing.
Frank Beddor:
Yep.
Matthew Peterson:
It’s kind of like the gas stations. You know, why is there always a gas station on the other side of the [street]? There’s two gas stations across from each other.
Frank Beddor:
Right.
Matthew Peterson:
You know, it’s interesting how that works. That’s why I was asking.
Frank Beddor:
And you know, mine, even if we started today, would take 2 or 3 years. If we started today, it would be 2012 at the earliest, if not 2013, because of the pre-production, the production, the post-production, and putting it on the schedule. So there’ll be a lot of room between Tim’s movie and my movie. But for right now, this short window of time between now and March 5th when it comes out, there’s more uncertainty.
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