duced script hit screens last year with Or-
phan, a new and daring take on the classic
evil-child genre. For his followup, Red Riding
Hood, Johnson tackled one of the most fa-
mous stories in the world, a fairy tale origi-
nally passed on through oral tradition that
dates back more than 700 years. Of course,
his version comes to theaters courtesy of
Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke and a
sexy young cast led by Amanda Seyfried in
the title role, so one can expect some
changes. There's a love triangle involving
Seyfried's Valerie and her childhood friend
Peter (Shiloh Fernandez) and the man she's
promised to marry, Henri Lazar (Max Irons).
The fresh take also re-creates the invalid
grandmother into a sly Bohemian, played by
Julie Christie, and adds other mysteries and
dark family secrets.
ing Hood gig as a result of his work on
Orphan with Appian Way, Leonardo Di-
Caprio's production company. "Appian
Way and I had a great experience working
we started to put our brains together to fig-
ure out something else we could work on,"
Johnson recalls. He says it was Appian who
had the idea of revisiting the classic fairy
tale. "It was sort of nebulous at the begin-
ning; there were lots of different ways of
tackling it," he recalls. "What interested us
both was going back and revisiting the ac-
tual fairy tale, not a modernization."
the world, many of them graphically gory.
"There's an early version called `The Grand-
mother's Tale,' which winds up with the
wolf pulling the grandmother's intestines
through her mouth," Johnson notes. "And a
version in China where the grandmother is
a tiger." Originally, Johnson was intrigued
with the idea of making it a dark horror film,
but things changed when Hardwicke came
on board, around the time of the second
draft. "We worked very closely together, tak-
ing the story into more of her wheelhouse,"
he admits. "I was always interested in doing
a love triangle and telling a coming-of-age
story about a young girl. Catherine is so
great voice for these characters."
the characters up a bit for practical reasons,
although Johnson had originally envisioned
them as a younger, Stand By Me age. He also
removed some early backstory about Valerie
and her grandmother. "It was sort of taking
too long and we wanted to get to things
much quicker," he notes. But perhaps the
biggest change was the grandmother herself.
"I had written her as this mentor, Obi-Wan
Kenobi character and she came across very
matronly," he says. "It was Catherine who
said, `I want her to be this hip, cool grand-
mother out there in the woods.'"
on Clash of the Titans 2 with Dan Mazeau,
but he was present for a table read and says
he made small tweaks based on that. "Once
the actors began playing the parts, the
things that really came out of the read were
places where the exposition was bogging
us down," he says. "Or there were little
things that weren't made clear in the script
that came to light."
a child. "I've had to move to doing more
of a 9-to-5 day to revolve around his
schedule," he says. He also says he used to
be big on outlining, but that has also
changed. "I've been writing so much
faster; I'll be on the outline and realize
how far behind I'm getting by doing this
detailed outline and just have to jump in,"
he notes. "I'm realizing I don't need as
much as I used to think I did." He also
says he can't go back and read a script
while he's writing it. "I have to go ahead
or I'll get bogged down," he admits. "It
can be to my disadvantage because I can
forget something I've written in before
and end up rewriting similar scenes, but
it's better for me to just write straight
through and get it over with and then go
back and see where I screwed up."
only recently come to realize how important
it is to write every day. "It's like anything
else: It's a muscle you exercise and the more
you exercise, the stronger it gets," he says.
"It's a skill you have to learn and you have to
sit down and practice every day."