Lost Productions - The Devil In Disguise

I rarely start a project without finishing.  However there have been a few movies over the years that were planned, even started, but they were never completed for various reasons.  I'll occationally post about these movies and TV Shows just to share the productions that might have been.

The Devil in Disguise - 1999

The Devil in Disguise was written in the early Spring of 1999 and set to be filmed during to summer.  It's by far the closest to being filmed of any other "lost production".  Most of the productions never got past the partial script and casting phase, but TDID is one of only a few that really were almost made. 

It was a Faustian sort of movie that featured a talented dreamer - John Richards - who has terrible luck in0 love and a bad case of writer's block.  Unknown to him, his soul is actually quite precious because he's destined for greatness and his books will change people's lives in the future.  The angels want him to lead people to goodness and God and the Devil wants him to lead people to darkness and Hell.  

When he seems at his most vulnerable, The Devil sends in a woman - Selena Winters - to romance him, seduce him, then drop him so hard he will never be able to recover and will use his talents to spew hate instead of love.  But the angels aren't going to give up on John's soul without a fight.  Arch-angel Gabrielle (the lesser known twin sister of Arch-angel Gabriel) sends a young angel - Tammy Wilks - who's bored of heaven and wants to be reincarnated to help John see through Selena and get him to stay good. 

Of course Selena ends up falling in love with John and can't bring herself to break his heart.  She and Tammy conspire together to get her out of her contract with Satan, keep John from going bad, and getting Tammy a better afterlife.   At the beginning it seems a lot like Damn Yankees, then gets sort of Heaven Can Wait-y, and ends like the Devil & Daniel Webster, so you know...it's a good hash mesh of the cast Heaven and Hell plots.

The movie was written for Ryan Segovich, to give him a chance to be the lead - for it to be his movie.  I loved working with him in previous productions (and would love to work with him again hint hint hint), but it wasn't until Vigil that he truly had a lead role instead of a supporting character or glorified extra.  He was so wonderful that I want to make a movie for him to star in.  Unfortunately the movie was never made, and he never got his starring role (but if you ever want to star in a movie, Ryan, just let me know!  I'll so write another script for you!)

The cast was the usual mix of Sine Fine Film actors at that time, but I was trying to cast people in bigger or different parts than they had played before.  I wanted to see Margaret in a lead role as well, since she, like Ryan, had never played a true lead before so I cast her as the sexy-yet-strangely-sweet Selena. Since Chris Hutchens had never played a villain before so I cast him as Lucifer, and I regret not filming it if only to see how he would have played that part.  I wanted to bring in a fresh new face for Arch-angel Gabrielle so I cast the lovely and talented Jennifer Heaton (who was never actually able to be in another production sadly).  For the country-western-singing-bored-with-heaven-wants-to-party angel I fell back on an old favorite for such goofy and slightly crazy seeming characters - Rachel Anderson.  

Some of the smaller roles were given to familiar names in the SFF gang like Annamarie MacLeod as John's disappointed agent Ruth, Jill Hutchison as his ex-girlfriend Julie, Danny Skirvin as Arch-angel Gabriel, Jen Weber (or new comer Kali Smith) as Miria - one of the record keepers in Purgatory, and Tanino Minneci as the Devil Judge in the courtroom scenes.

The script was all written, the major characters were cast and set, I'd done scene breakdowns, and I had even finished pulling costumes and started working on shooting schedules.  The movie was a go.  So why was it never filmed? 

Because it was supposed to be filmed in the summer of 1999 and that summer I also planned to film a four episode TV show style production called Pandora's Box.  Pandora would all be filmed in June and Devil in Disguise would be filmed in July and August.  

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaand that was the problem.  Pandora's Box morphed into a huge production, growing from four episodes being filmed in one month to eventually becoming 24 episodes that would take almost two years to complete.  Devil in Disguise kept being pushed back and pushed back until I realized that it was never going to happen.  

At least all the actors, except Jennifer Heaton, appeared in Pandora's Box.  Margaret had a starring role and Chris played a villain who turned out to be a much more complex character than Lucifer would have been.  


Unfortunately Ryan Segovich did not get a starring role, but he did play the very important part of Philemon Orion in Episodes 16-18 and reappeared in the last episode as General Gamon.  He also played the evil henchman in Episodes 8-10 and was fantastic in all of his roles. 

I'd say it's sad, but the script isn't the best - fun, but not uber fantastic or anything.  I've thought about going back to it and maybe trying to film it someday, but I've decided I'm not going to film any movie that long again (it's about 100 pages), and I'd have to completely recast it, rework it, and probably rewrite it.  Also, some of the locations I wanted to film in - such as on an Amtrak train and in Chicago's Union Station - I have since realized I would not be able to get without a lot of money and a permit.  Oh well.