First Draft Episode #184: Alfred Gough and Miles Millar

Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, the TV and screenwriting duo behind Smallville and Into the Badlands, join Sarah to talk about their debut thriller, Double Exposure. The guys talk about how, even after writing and/or producing more than 300 hours of television and movies, they are still engaged in learning and improving their craft; getting on the superhero train WAY before the MCU; and delivering a satisfying ending in books.

Links and Topics Mentioned In This Episode

• Bugs, a BBC One TV show created by UK-based Carnival Films (Agatha Christie’s Poirot; Downton Abbey; many others)  for which Al and Miles wrote two episodes
• The Hardy Boys series of children’s mysteries created by Edward Stratemeyer (who also created Nancy Drew)  and written by ghostwriters under the pen name Franklin W. Dixon
• The Peter Stark Producer program at USC, where Alfred and Miles met and learned all aspects of the film industry
• Laura Ziskin, producer of No Way Out, and Pretty Woman, who was an influential teacher at the USC film production program to Al and Miles
• William Goldman, an author (Adventures in the Screen Trade, The Princess Bride, many, many others) and screenwriter (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid; All the President’s Men, among many others) renowned for writing scripts that entertained the reader -- a trend followed by screenwriters Shane Black (Lethal Weapon; The Last Boy Scout) and Joe Eszterhas (Flashdance; Basic Instinct)
• John August, Al and Miles’ classmate at USC and screenwriter of Big Fish, Frankenweenie, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, as well as author of the Arlo Finch middle grade series (listen to his First Draft interview here)
• Mango, the spec script that Al and Miles sold right out of film school
• Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, the movie that made Al and Miles’ spec script a hot commodity out of film school
• Scriptnotes, the podcast co-hosted by John August and fellow screenwriter Craig Mazin, which is a worthy companion podcast to any writers who enjoy First Draft!

• Bugs, a BBC One TV show created by UK-based Carnival Films (Agatha Christie’s Poirot; Downton Abbey; many others)  for which Al and Miles wrote two episodes

• Homicide: Life on the Street, a police drama based on the work of David Simon (The Wire; Treme; The Deuce)

• 3rd Rock From the Sun, a sitcom in the 90s starring John Lithgow and Joseph Gordon-Levitt

• Lethal Weapon IV and Shanghai Noon, the two buddy comedy scripts that Al and Miles wrote before Smallville
• The WB, Smallville’s network (RIP)
• Lois and Clark, the TV show about Superman that predated Smallville

• X-Men, the 2000 movie that helped bring about the superhero resurgence on film and TV
• Christopher Nolan, the writer and director who rebranded Batman in the well-regarded Dark Knight trilogy of films

• Thor: Ragnarok and Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse, two recent superhero movies with tons of comedy

• Spider-Man II, Al and Miles’ take on Spider-Man, which was a little more serious than the Spider-Man we know today
• Jenette Kahn, executive, publisher, editor-in-chief of DC Comics when Al and Miles created their spin on the Superman universe with Smallville

• Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Dawson’s Creek, some of the teen stories that dominated TV when Smallville debuted

• I Am Number Four by Pittacus Lore (the pen name of James Frey, Jobie Hughes, and Greg Boose), and the film of the same name written by Al and Miles, and their first collaboration with James Frey (author of A Million Little Pieces and book entrepreneur with Full Fathom Five)

• Hannah Montana: The Movie, which Al and Miles produced, thanks to Al’s oldest daughter, who was obsessed with that TV show
• Jet Li, Jackie Chan, Donnie Yen, and Michelle Yeoh are among the internationally respected martial artists and actors Al and Miles have worked with

• Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and House of Flying Daggers are some of the epic movies that inspired Al and Miles for the world of Into the Badlands

• The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

• The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown as a model for the franchise character with a little-known job that leads to globe-trotting adventures--the kind of story Al and Miles were interested in telling with Double Exposure
• The famous transcript of Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and Lawrence Kasdan talking about Raiders of the Lost Ark

• The Alfred Hitchcock film North by Northwest, The ODESSA File by Frederick Forsyth, and the works of John le Carre are among the films and authors cited throughout Double Exposure
• Last Remaining Seats, a program that shows old movies in downtown Los Angeles
• The Zapruder Film (YouTube link) (warning: depicts a presidential assassination), which might factor into the Double Exposure follow-up novels…
• Mimi Leder, director of Deep Impact, gave the guys some great advice when they were feeling overwhelmed
• “Just cut the last two lines of every scene.” Advice from Quentin Tarantino that Al and Miles swear by
• The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins and Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, two thrillers that they admire
• Hilary Mantel, author of Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies
• James Patterson
• Waterstones bookstore in London

• The Shannara Chronicles by Terry Brooks, which Al and Miles adapted for television

• Al and Michaels loved taking Masterclass online classes from: David Mamet; Aaron Sorkin; Shonda Rhimes; and James Patterson

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Every Tuesday, I speak to storytellers like Veronica Roth, author of Divergent; Michael Dante  DiMartino, co-creator of Avatar: The Last Airbender; John August, screenwriter of Big Fish, Charlie’s Angels, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory; or Rhett Miller, musician and frontman for The Old 97s. Together, we take deep dives on their careers and creative works.

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