Stories by @nathanbates

The Curse of the Wolf Man

Lawrence Talbot, a washed up and embittered actor, returns to his ancestral home in Wales following news of his father’s passing. Their relationship had always been a strained one. The elder Talbot was a hard drinker who strongly opposed his son’s theatrical ambitions. Decades later, having himself turned to drinking, Lawrence seeks to scrape whatever inner peace he may from the funeral proceedings. But these hopes are instantly dashed upon arrival. It seems his father’s body has disappeared(!), and on top of that, the entire town surrounding his family’s estate has sunken into fear and hostility as a string of grisly murders terrorizes the inhabitants. All eyes turn to a caravan of Romani that’s settled on the outskirts of town. Lawrence, with the aid of Inspector Francis Aberline, will try to locate the remains of his estranged father and in the process come face to face with the very monster of his familial history.

Devil in a Blue Dress

An African-American man is hired to find a woman, and gets mixed up in a murderous political scandal.

Martin Scorsese’s Super Mario Bros. (1988)

Two Italian American brothers, both plumbers in their native Brooklyn, New York, find themselves transported to the magical mushroom kingdom where they are tasked with rescuing of a princess from an evil turtle-like beast and his minions.

The Addams Family Reboot

An Addams Family reboot cast that definitely does NOT include Johnny Depp because it’s definitely NOT directed by Tim Burton.

After Hours

An ordinary word processor has the worst night of his life after he agrees to visit a girl in Soho who he met that evening at a coffee shop.

David Lynch’s Superman: For Truth and Justice (1991) / Brave New World (1993)

In the wake of the runaway success of Tim Burton’s Batman, Warner Bros., staying true to form, read all the wrong signs and woo with an unprecedented amount of creative control cult darling filmmaker David Lynch to try and revitalize the Superman franchise. The result is a duology of increasingly surreal films, polarizing to mainstream audiences but that nevertheless showed a deep understanding of the character’s core themes, which were then deftly deconstructed.

Guillermo Del Toro’s Frankenstein

What could have been a perfect marriage of artist and subject matter, ala Jackson and LotR or Spielberg and Abraham Lincoln.

The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (2001-03): Alternative Casting

I thought this would suffice as a challenge. TLotR has about as perfectly cast an ensamble as one can get but what if you had to recast each roles within the same late 90s/early 00s time frame as the actual movies?

Sidney Lumet’s The Last Temptation of Christ (1976)

What if Sidney Lumet had adapted the controversial novel nearly a decade before Martin Scorsese?

The Big Goodbye

The non-fiction book tells the behind-the-scenes story of the 1974 film noir classic starring Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway. From Roman Polanski’s directing and Robert Towne’s Oscar-winning script to the twist ending that shook filmgoers to their core, Chinatown joined the long list of films to make their mark during the 1970s. Looming over the story of the classic movie is the imminent eclipse of the ’70s filmmaker-friendly studios as they gave way to the corporate Hollywood we know today.

Batman ‘76

It is 1976 in Gotham and the color has faded somewhat. Lost in an age of newer, younger, tougher vigilantes, the caped crusader worries his decade of crime fighting will have been worth very little in the end. Having been since abandoned by his ward, Dick Grayson, Bruce takes in the thoroughly modern Jason Todd and brandishes him the new Robin. The increasingly deluded hero is then led astray by his new companion and begins to suspect The United Underworld (it’s former members now mostly reformed) is up to their latest, most heinous of plots.

The Batman (1982)

What if it had been released 40 years earlier? (Don’t judge me, some of you are already recasting this for 2032.)

The Shinning

Shh! You want to get sued?

The Blood of Dracula

1490. Nearly 3 decades after the vanquishing Count Dracula, a strange presence begins haunting the widow Harker. Soon thereafter, her son, Quincey, returns to her side but is left baffled and terrified as his mother seemingly spirals into madness by the day. With no one left to turn to but the elderly Dr. Van Helsing, Quincey will learn that Dracula’s legacy very much lives on and is more malevolent and seductive than ever before.

You Are Here

The Hollywood fable takes an unexpected and nightmarish turn through the eyes of one Thomas Wiseau, plagued by delusions of grandeur and the ghosts of acting past.

Strange Days (2020)

A former cop turned street-hustler accidentally uncovers a conspiracy in Los Angeles in 1999.

The Nolan-verse

A hypothetical continuation of Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy.

Birds of Prey (1985)

What if the DCEU movie had been made 35 years earlier?

BioShock

After surviving a plane crash in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, a lone man discovers the ruins of the underwater city of Rapture, a once-thriving objectivist utopia brought down by socio-political strife and whose inhabitants have since turned into crazed monsters called “Splicers.” While seeking a way out of the city, the man, Jack, delves deeper into the city’s many mysteries, chief among them being the city’s founder, Andrew Ryan.