Mark Verheiden is known in the world of comics as the most excellent writer of the American, Aliens, the Phantom and more. But to the rest of the world his writing on various TV and movies has made him a well known talent.
Currently Smallville is a hit and there is another hit on the horizon, Dark Shadows.
AN: Could you please let my readers know what training or background in creativewriting you have?
MV:Basically, I've been writing all my life... I can remember sitting at my father's ancient typewriter when I was six and laboriously hunt and pecking out (very) short stories. For some reason I knew I wanted to be a “writer”, whatever that meant, from a very early age. Professionally, I took a couple "creative writing" classes in college, but the best training, per se, was just reading, watching movies and constantly writing. I probably self-published three or four thousand pages of material between junior high and early college, mostly fanzine type stuff, but also some short stories.
AN:How did you move from comics (the American, Aliens and more) to screenplays,particularly now, SMALLVILLE?
MV:That's a big question... I originally moved to L.A. to write movies, so my early comics work was actually something of a detour. But ultimately it was the comics stuff (like THE AMERICAN and PREDATOR series) were what brought me to the attention of producers like Joel Silver and Larry Gordon. It also helped that my long time pal Mike Richardson started a very successful production company with Dark Horse Entertainment.
In terms of the road to SMALLVILLE, I started doing television in 1997 when I created the TIMECOP series for ABC. That came at a time when I’d written 19 feature scripts and had four produced in one form or another… which is actually a fairly good track record. But your TV work actually gets produced and shown, a prospect I really enjoyed. So I’ve more or less turned my attention toward television for the time being.
AN:To what extent did SMALLVILLE develop independent of DC Comics canon? That is did DC come to you or the creators and give a list of requirements or did they say we want a hot property, do it?
MV:That actually better asked of Al Gough and Miles Millar, the creators of the show, but I think we've been mindful of the DC canon while not feeling enslaved by it.
AN:What episode from Season one would you say was the best and which did not hit the mark as you'd have liked?
MV:I kind of shiver at questions like this, because having been involved (in some capacity) with virtually every episode, and I can say definitively that nobody ever sets out to make a bad episode. But some obviously work better than others. Out of season one, my favorite was ROGUE, the first episode without a kryptonite villain. I think I will diplomatically refrain from picking a worst...
AN:Which episode that you wrote was your fave? Why?
MV: My personal all-time favorite SMALLVILLE was the third season episode “Perry”, introducing the Perry White character to the SMALLVILLE universe. It was a chance to do something a little lighter, and it just came together in that rare, magical way where everyone loved the script right off the bat.
AN: DARK SHADOWS has been greenlighted for a pilot and potential series and youare greatly involved there. What network is this seen as being developed for? Cast ideas yet?
MV: I wrote the pilot and will be an executive producer on the show, along with John Wells (ER, WEST WING, THIRD WATCH) and Dan Curtis (the original DARK SHADOWS, WINDS OF WAR), so “greatly involved” is definitely the right choices of words. As I write this we’re prepping to shoot the pilot, casting to be announced. This is for Warner Brother studio and the WB network…
AN: For those who have not seen Barnabas Collins's world tell my readers the setup of the show.
MV: DARK SHADOWS is a gothic drama, set in coastal Maine, about the Collins family and the mysteries that surround them. To go much further might spoil some surprises… but I can safely say there isn’t another show like it on network TV.
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