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Features
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Paperback Rider
Unlike the Beatles song, it takes British author Anthony Horowitz only seven months to write each Alex Rider novel, the first of which has now been adapted for the big screen.
Thursday, November 2, 2006 at 7:15 PM
By Brent Simon
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Stephen Lovekin/WireImage.com
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Horowitz at this year's Toronto Film Festival
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The James Bond franchise has soldiered profitably on, through multiple actors and a veritable assembly line of workmanlike directors, in no small part due to the fantasy it represents. Especially for aging boomers, who either came of age with an iteration of the secret agent or saw a father or older sibling do the same.
Its continued relative success — no matter the sociopolitical climes — is a testament to something innate in particularly little boys, as much a part of them as “snakes and snails and puppy dog tails.” (And, to be fair and balanced, a debonair chap in a tux has obviously drawn in a lady or two as well.)
But if a part of all guys secretly yearns to play secret agent, why adhere to the stolid formula impressed upon the Bond pictures in iron-on fashion by late producer Albert “Cubby” Broccoli, and now his family? Or, for that matter, wait until said secret agent is grown up at all? (To that end, Sony’s XXX franchise would try to reinvent the concept of the modern secret agent for a multiethnic, extreme sports-loving crowd, but got things wrong in a whole new way.)
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Stephen Lovekin/WireImage.com
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Pettyfer, spotted by Horowitz in a recent British TV remake of Tom Brown's Schooldays
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British author Anthony Horowitz’s series of Alex Rider novels - six streamlined books and counting - have collectively sold more than five million copies in the United States, and more than 10 million worldwide, garnering all sorts of honors, accolades and decorations along the way, including the 2006 British Book Award prize for Children’s Book of the Year. In somewhat similar fashion to Frankie Muniz’s Agent Cody Banks flicks, though with a discernibly more hand-to-hand if not outright harder edge, Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker aimed to kick off a potential film and DVD franchise when it opened early last month. Its box office take provided perhaps an early indication that the big screen treatment was more eagerly anticipated overseas, as 97% of its $17.35 million take came from outside the U.S.
This opening movie salvo consistently pushes onward in its doggedly energetic style, detailing the back story of young Alex Rider (Alex Pettyfer), 14-year-old nephew of Ian Rider (Ewan McGregor). Alex thinks his guardian is just a banker, but Ian actually works for the secret British security force MI6, and when he’s killed in the line of duty, his handlers (Bill Nighy and Sophie Okonedo) recruit young Alex to follow up on what his uncle was working on. That means investigating the nefarious plans of maverick computer tycoon Darrius Sayle (colorfully embodied by Mickey Rourke), who for reasons heretofore undetermined is on the brink of donating a free “Stormbreaker” computer to every school in the United Kingdom.
Horowitz started his career at a very young age (he says he knew he wanted to be a writer at eight years old), and was published by the time he was 22. Spy stories were a big part of his childhood - he fondly recalls being the first in his class to see the 007 flick Dr. No - and so Horowitz for a while toiled trying to come up with variations on the theme that would make the genre fresh and interesting for him as he pursued a career.
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Stephen Lovekin/WireImage.com
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Uncle Ian Rider (Ewan McGregor)
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“Suddenly, one day, it just occurred to me,” the author explains during a recent interview with FilmStew. “I thought that one way to do it would be to make him 14.”
Put it this way; a kid on a skateboard is much more appealing than his dad on a skateboard,” he continues. “But at the same time, I knew I had to make Alex Rider completely original. I didn’t want to mimic the traditional, completely self-assured secret agent. In fact, I had to go as far away from him as possible.”
“The crucial thing about these adventures is that Alex would have to be drawn into them reluctantly,” Horowitz adds. “It wouldn’t be goofy and spry - one of those series where it’s really fun to be a spy. The heroes of children’s books usually look forward to their adventures. Alex would much rather be at school with his friends, or out kicking a football around. It would be a real boy, in real danger, in a real, adult world. And then we’d see what would happen.”
“What would happen” in the year 2000, with the publication of Stormbreaker, was international acclaim. Naturally, the idea of transferring the character to the big screen was soon bandied about, chiefly by fraternal producers Marc and Peter Samuelson.
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Stephen Lovekin/WireImage.com
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The always intriguing Mickey Rourke
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“The books have a big following, and since they’re chiefly for kids, there’s a rather strong attachment on their part to what’s in them,” says Horowitz, who claims it always takes exactly seven months for him to complete each Alex Rider novel, no matter how hard he works. “I thought if we could distill what’s in them, it would be best.”
One thing that wasn’t negotiable was keeping the character’s English roots intact. “I think that matters, because Alex Rider matters to me more than anything I’ve ever written,” Horowitz admits. “I could have just sat back and taken the money and seen a film made that wasn’t true to the spirit of the books. In fact, we had a huge studio [offer] come in, with a lot of money, but they wanted Alex to be 18. And then it was, ‘And he has to have a girlfriend. And where’s the cool car…?’”
Horowitz, in fact, was retained to adapt his own work for the screen, something that he confesses gave him pause and made him nervous. “They had to sort of convince me to do it,” he says. “I at first asked them if it wouldn’t be better to get a fresh pair of eyes to look at things.” He eventually came around to the idea, though, persuaded by the Samuelsons and the notion that he would best know how to pare down various character arcs, with an eye toward possible sequels.
To that end, Horowitz made some changes from the books (the character of Alex’s classmate Sabina Pleasure, for instance, first appears in Skeleton Key, the third tome in the Alex Rider series), something he realizes could upset faithful readers. “That’s part of the chance you take,” he offers. “If there’s a secret to the success of these books, it’s simply that Alex is a normal boy, and he positively dislikes the adult world in which he’s trapped, but is bound by a sense of duty to his uncle. If we convey that, we’ll be fine.”
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