The Full Moon (w/ Jeff Davis)

Writer/Creator Jeff Davis and Holland are coming to you from the set of Teen Wolf: The Movie with revelations you’ve never heard before! How it all came to be, the talks about seasons 7, 8, 9 and even 10! Details from the series, the movie and…regrets. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
This is Hell are back now with me Holland Rowden
and I Hunt Radio podcast. Hey everyone, we recorded this
episode right before we started shooting the Team Off movies,
so technically my first guest was Jeff Davis. We wanted
to go ahead and air this right before the movie's
premiering in a couple of weeks. I wanted to get

(00:22):
his thoughts before we jump back into this world, so
we have none other than the creator himself of Teen Wolf,
Jeff Davis. That was perfect. You're so good at that.
H That was my first podcast intro ever. Thank you
for coming my pleasure. Nice crazy, I haven't seen you
in two years? Has it been two years? No? I

(00:44):
saw you with Colton, remember when I came to his
house with adults? Right? Yes, Well, thank you for letting
us do a team of podcasts under Cornder your eye,
and thank you for coming on. Should we tell people
where we're recording this, I think we should. We are
actually in the stages where we shot Teen Wolf. It's
pretty amazing. I were sitting in a bunch of vacant cubicles.

(01:04):
It looks like World War Z. There's like random couches
everywhere and stuff on the floor. And it's it's it's
a really glamorous setting in the warehouse world of Chatsworth.
But through those doors are all of the team will set. Really,
this is why I still standing this podcast on a
video podcast. It's been four years since the show wrapped up. Wow,

(01:29):
that's a long time. Do you have any thoughts about that? Well?
For me, I've been locked in development on pilots and
new shows. So it got it hasn't It doesn't seem
like that long, right, But I guess it is a while.
It doesn't seem like that long if it probably feels
maybe about two years for me. Not for Yeah, I've
been pretty busy. There was this pandemic where's that That

(01:49):
sort of took our attention away for a while. Um.
But but yeah, when when when Paramount Plus and MTV
Entertainment Studios first said I think we might be able
to do a Team Wolf movie. Would you be interested?
I said, oh my god, we're doing it now. I
thought this was gonna be ten years from now. But
if they're going to do it now, all right, I
guess some decisions need to be made. I I agree.

(02:12):
I thought that I first, I didn't honestly, I didn't
think there would ever be anything Round two. I didn't
think there'd be another show. I didn't think there would
be a pickup of the original show, and I didn't
know if there'd be a movie. And so when it
did come up, I was I was really shocked that
it was happening this soon. I was too, mostly because
the big issue with it was whether or not MTV

(02:35):
Entertainment Studios and MGM could make a deal. UM. I've
had a lot of people asking me is there going
to be a season seven? And what they don't know
is that MGM actually wanted many more seasons of the show.
There was a point where we were talking about season seven, eight, nine, ten.
I was in the meeting and my face melted off
my skull as they said that we'll get into that

(02:55):
of why that could be UM, but yeah, they had
lands because MGM was doing really well. UM. MTV Entertainment
Studios like every other streamer out there, UM, every other
studio and streamer, I should say, they want to own
their material. And so that's the big issue with doing
a deal with MGM. Um who gets the rights to

(03:18):
what territory, Who gets the rights to air it? For
this amount? Of time. So it was a monster of
a deal that was pushed forward mostly entirely, I would say,
because of the fans, because they kept screaming at Viacom CBS,
at people like Chris McCarthy. They wanted teen Wolf and
they let them know. So you really do think this

(03:40):
is a fan driven uh come back? Yes. Actually, to
be honest, um, Chris McCarthy and I sat down for
dinner a while back, and I did say to him,
Chris McCarthy is the the head of MTV Entertainment Studios.
He's one of the top people at Viacom CBS right now. Um.
We actually sat down to dinner in the York, Um,

(04:01):
and I said to him, why don't you guys just
try to get teen Wolf again? And he said, well,
we really need to as a company owned the i P.
And to be honest, MGM is pretty tough to negotiate with.
But we all we both talked about how we both
get direct messages on Instagram and on any other social media,

(04:21):
and how constantly at MTV it doesn't matter what what
MTV does right, it could be the VM as it
could be Uh an episode of ridiculousness. Every single post
or every single mention of an MTV show, there's someone
on there saying, where's teen Wolf? Where's season seven of
teen Wolf? They're they're astounded by it. Uh So the

(04:44):
desire for it is out there, which is great. It's
nice to know. Like we were never ratings hit. We
were never a smash success. We have a little engine
that cud. We were never a Game of Thrones. But
our our fans were passionate and people did watch. They
watched in their own way, on their own time. Um,
which did not help with our commercial ratings. But we're

(05:04):
happy that you found the show. And I guess the
fans that kept it going. Yeah. And and I I'll
say from my side that, uh, you know, I'll go
to conventions and press events where they want to talk
to the actor because that's the face they see of
this this brand. I get recognized. I was, that's that's
on my list, Jeffrey. We're getting all the questions. I mean,
you know, it's yeah, I'm not shocked that you don't.

(05:27):
I'm not shocked that you do. I should say, um,
but but yeah, I mean they think that the actor
has more power than we do. And you know happened
with Vertica Mars and now I'm so happy to say
that it's happening with teen wolfe UM and source of
pride and nostalgia and identity in a lot of ways.
For for myself at least, I grew up on the
show in my twenties and I feel like I had

(05:49):
to leave the nest eventually. Um. When when the show
did end, it was at the beginning of my thirties
and seven years of my life. It was longer than
that though, because we we auditioned in two thousand nine, Yes,
and it went off the air. When did it? Wow? Okay,
it was nine years. There was quite quite a bit
of time between shooting the pilot and getting picked up

(06:11):
two series, and the actually had to do with the rights.
After we shot the pilot, there was a question of
whether we actually did have the rights to use the
name Team wolf Um. There was some sort of legal,
uh disagreement with MGM at that point, and we were
sitting there saying, do we need to come up with
a new title. It does kind of make you wonder

(06:31):
how much the fans really know about this stuff, because
they hit me up and and they'll say on an
Instagram message, why are you too afraid to do season seven?
So this is this is you're hearing it here? And
now is that you know? I'm the actors saying I
only have so much power, guys, And now I have
the creator sitting here saying I only have so much power. Guys.
I don't have any power. You don't feel like you

(06:52):
have any power. They came to me and said, hey,
we're doing a te Wolf movie. Do you want to write?
Do you want to write it or do you want
to oversee it? And for a minute there I thought about, well,
I've got these other two TV shows going, Um, do
I really want to jump back into that world? Do
I have ideas? And I the thought of someone else

(07:12):
sitting down to write the teen Wolf movie? I couldn't
handle it. They were they were cheating with your boyfriend.
You couldn't do it impossible. Yes, of course I'll write it.
I'll write it for free. So um, And once I
did start coming up with ideas, you find yourself after
four years, I was ready to jump back in and say, Okay,

(07:33):
where's Scott, where's Lydia, Where's Malia? Where all these carrots?
I get tingles? It's so exciting? Yeah, what would be interesting,
what would be a great news story to tell? And
we're older, but not that much older, and so I'm
going to be interested to see where you put us
in the story as like young adults essentially, or like
just coming out of college or who went to college?
And um, where are you now? Yeah? Walking off to

(07:57):
that sunset? Where instead of where's the cast now? Where
are the care actors of teen Wolf now? And that
this movie will answer that question? I'm really excited. I
I was honored as he is, you know, Jeff, to
be a part of it. Um, so I want to
take it back to your childhood. Wow, really a little bit.
I might have to invite my therapist to this because I,

(08:18):
as you know, uh, love writers and I wish I
was a writer and I got into acting because I
love storytelling and truth be told, I don't I'm not
really esthetically comfortable, which I'm sure Jeff probably picked up
on just slightly through the season. Um, you know, I
I am just a bit self conscious and I would
have preferred to have been a writer. Um, but I

(08:40):
did not have the brain for it. So I'm fascinated
by writer's brains. I don't know why writers don't have
all the power depends on the medium of which is
being told. You know, sometimes they have they I would
say they have more power and tving than they do
in movies. Um, and so the power you know, if
you want to write, guys, head towards episodic, do not
do not go the feature out if you want to

(09:01):
write and not be rewritten and not have your baby
taken away from you and then not even be invited
to the premier. Got TV? Well, yes, TV is where
writers become showrunners and they hire the director. Uh. In features,
the director comes on and nobody wants to hear from

(09:21):
the writer. Again, it's who is the director's writer that
will rewrite the script so that they can be happy
with what they're putting on screen. That's fascinated me because
you know, it's it's like, that's your entire story. Those
words are everything that gets built upon. Every other department
build on those words. So it just it fascinates me
how writers are handled in the entertainment industry. Um, at

(09:43):
least in the United States. And you were born in Connecticut.
I was, We've done some, We've done some. Get caught
on you. Yeah, it's a Milford Connecticut. What what brought
your family to Connecticut? Um? God, I am not entirely sure.
I think U. Well, my father went to Yale for college,

(10:03):
and yes, he was in New Haven, and I think
they just settled there out of necessity when I and
my brothers were born. But so you were in college town. No,
we were in Milford, which is about five minutes outside
of New Haven, so basically a very ordinary suburb. Milford

(10:23):
is also known for being on the on the coast.
But we never went to the beach. It wasn't really
much of a beach to go to. Um. But yeah,
I grew up in Connecticut. Um. We had family in
New York, so we'd go to Thanksgivings in New York.
You're gonna plays in New York or musicals. It was
your family into the arts, you know. When I would
I would make my stepfather drive me to New York

(10:46):
so I could go to a comic book store. Really
at what age was this? Uh? Probably thirteen or fourteen?
My stepfather came in around thirteen. And where did comic
books hit you in your life? Like? What where was
the inspiration of I want to go to New York
and go to a comic book store very early, and
the comic book store in New York was very specific
to it was a place called Forbidden Planet. There are
actually two of them in New York, and the large

(11:07):
one was really famous and well known among comic book piece. Um,
you know, I don't know. I really hope they survived.
But I hope we did the Team Wolf movie premiere
a Forbiden Planet. That would be How cool would that be? Um?
But yeah, I grew up on comics. I actually thought
I wanted to be a comic book artist for a
long time. I would spend hours and hours a day
drawing in my basement. You've seen some of my drawings

(11:29):
I have. You know, there's there's a little easter at
guys that Uh Jeff drew the net right. Uh. Yes,
the picture that you had of the roots the Root Seller,
I do that. Um. I also eventually designed the beast
for the c G I, guys, I have a drawing
of that. I did a lot of drawings of Tyler

(11:51):
and the Team Wolf were Wolf look early on. But
you started as a like a visual artist and the
words trans at it later. Yeah, And it's the way
it happened was I had been years and years drawing
as a kid, and I when I was a teenager,
I thought to myself, well, if I really want to
get into the comic book industry, um, I have to

(12:12):
put together panels of an actual comic book. And so
I said to myself, well, I have to write a
comic book. How old are you? I think I was
like twelve or thirteen. Young. Yeah, So I started putting
together my own comic book, which was terrible. Um. Oh,
it may be buried somewhere in a box. I don't
I'm one of those people who don't keep anything shocking jet. Um,

(12:35):
so so you put the other comic book. Yeah. And
that was when I started writing. And I in high school,
we had I had a creative writing class and I
was supposed to write short stories for it. And I
just got into writing and I found my passions switching
from drawing and visual medium to uh writing and figuring

(12:56):
out pros and words and thinking. I would think at
first I was going to be a novelist, writing long
short stories. I actually did write a novel in high school. Um,
what was it about? It was a long life, it
was god, it was about a it was a murder
mystery and it was about this terrible story, but it's
about this female cop who is investigating a serial killing.

(13:19):
I was big into serial killers, as we can talk
about later when because eventually created the show Criminal Minds UM,
but a way from way back then, when I was
a teenager, like thirteen fourteen, I was into serial killers UM,
which is a little creepy, but it's about this female
cop who's investigating this serial murder and what she discovers
is that it's not actually a serial murder. It's a

(13:41):
husband murdered his wife. But in order to cover up
the fact that who's the first person they have they
look at first it's the husband, he kills three other
women to make it look like part of a serial murder.
Collateral Murders has a clever idea. It was my attempt
at doing a like sort of Agatha Christie Mary Higgins
Clark style. Yeah, like a Silence of the Lambs type mystery.

(14:04):
But I I finished it, and I sat there and
I wrote a novel and it was agony to get through.
And then I picked up a book on screenwriting. I
think the first book I picked up was William Goldman's
Adventures in the Screen Trade. Um, and that just inspired
me and I thought, Okay, well I'm going to try
writing a screenplay next. And by the time I had

(14:25):
gotten to college, I had written, Yes, I had written
about um got twenty screenplays. Yeah, I was Did you
get into VASS based off of what what major? And
and did you submit any of this? Had they had
a film major? But you really get in there because
it's a liberal arts college and you just have to
have good grades and and do well on the written

(14:46):
as essay or something. You didn't submit any of your
pieces to get in. I did have to do that
for USC where I graduated from grad school. But yeah,
I got into VASSER, and um, I decided I wanted
to be round in the middle of high school, I
decided I wanted to be a director. Um. That was
after I had sort of have a Quentin Tarantino like

(15:07):
story where I worked in a video store. Uh in
my teen years and so many Easter eggs of Team
Open this season one. Yeah, and at that store, you
were we are the workers were able to take a
bunch of videos home. We couldn't take new releases, but
we could take everything anything else. Uh, So I would

(15:30):
take Hitchcock movies. I would take westerns, I would take
anything I was interested in. I found myself gravitating towards
suspense and horror, and I just that was where I
got my first real movie education. And then I decided, Okay,
I'm gonna go to college and I'm gonna take every
movie class. I could take every film class, and then
eventually ended up at USC for grad school, and from

(15:52):
there it was just writing, writing, writing, constantly setting aside
the desire to be a director in favor of getting
actual scripts written, and then slowly coming back to directing
in my career, do you feel that you were better

(16:16):
at writing or you feelt it was more ticket into
the business versus just going straight for the directing spots.
I definitely knew that I didn't have the patients for cinematography,
and so that was that's one of the issues with
student films. You're not just the director and writer, You're
also the cinematographer, so you better have sort of a
love for images. And I remember being at USC because

(16:40):
I started out in the directing program and there was
this one kid there who was just his stuff was beautiful,
and I realized I don't know how to do this,
and my short films are going to continue to look bad.
They're going to be these crappy short five minute short
films on eight millimeter UM and then eventually video. And

(17:04):
I'm going to leave grad school with a bunch of
clever little short films that don't look very good when
what you really need when you leave film school is
a screenplay. And I didn't have time to write a
screenplay while I was in directing class, because putting together
those short films take that's sort it was logistical. You're like,

(17:24):
I want, I want to finish piece that's going to
take me into the professional market, and this is how
I'm going to get there. And that's the one thing
that happens with directors when they leave film school. They've
got some good little short films that look cool, hopefully
they have some sort of story, but they don't have
a screenplay and they have to wait or they have
to find somehow find a screenplay that they can attach

(17:47):
themselves to in order to make it in the business. Um,
Whereas when you're a writer, you always have the blank page.
It's up to you whether or not you're going to
move forward. Yeah, that's why I wanted to to be
part of that world from the get go, and uh,
the actor surely does not have control. But that's what
I was good at, you know, I am I always

(18:09):
commended you because you were so young, and I am
actually learning in this conversation how truly focused you were
from such a young age. Do you recognize how much
of a blessing that was for you? Did you ever
feel lost? But if you didn't feel lost, did you
feel like, Oh, I'm lucky. I know what I want
to do, and I'm focused, and I have my path,
I have what satisfies me. It's a double edged sword

(18:29):
because at one point you think you're not like your friends,
who some are still figuring out what they want to
do by the time they're thirty. I know exactly what
I wanted to do. I think I was fifteen where
I said, yes, film is for me, this is what
I want to do. I want to be a director,
write my own screenplays. I want to be James Cameron,
I want to be Steven Spielberg. I want to be
all of this. And so yes, it's a relief to

(18:51):
know exactly what you want to do, But underneath that
is the fear. Nobody's gonna ever let me do it,
or I'm never going to succeed. But when you're starting
that early, you have so much hope. Yes, you do,
you know, and you if you're if you're honing your
talent every day, like you've said to other writers, right,
every single day. That's how I got better. Yeah. Um,
I mean do you feel like you did get a

(19:12):
lot better? Like do you feel like you didn't start
an amazing point or did you have a sort of
natural talent? I did, at first what every artist does
to learn. I copied, so I had influences. I had
um all the authors. I was reading Dean Coon's, Stephen King, Um,
Michael Crichton. I had devoured all of those books. So

(19:33):
the first time I sat down to write a short story,
it was just a copy. It was they started with
an anecdote. I'll start with an anecdote. It's yeah, I
always I knew I wanted it to have a twist ending.
I knew I wanted to have suspense. So I learned
from them. Um, it's the same with a musician, same
with artists. I learned to draw by copying Marvel artists.
Uh So what I did eventually was you craft your

(19:56):
own style, you craft your own voice, um and starts
to come together and it becomes you instead of just
a carbon copy of other writers hopefully. How long would
you say that process took it? It's an ongoing process. Okay,
I like that. It's not that's it is a murky answer,
But there was always one thing I remember reading an

(20:18):
interview and this stuck with me. James Cameron was asked
about Aliens what inspired him to write it, and he
said something along the lines of not exact quote. He said,
I wrote exactly the movie I wanted to see when
I was a thirteen year old, and well, that's my
team wolfs a hit. You write what you want to see,

(20:38):
and if you write the movie that you want to
see instead of the movie you think people are going
to pay money for, you're always going to succeed more.
The first way makes sense. Yeah, whenever you chase the money,
it never comes unless you want to be a banker.
And then I always say to writers and artists and actors,
kobe a banker. If you really want to make money,
there are much easier ways to make me easier. Oh

(21:01):
my gosh, And you know there is. I find there's
an addiction to the business that even when things aren't
going your way, there is just a feeding here that
we want to come back for more. We're still hungry
for more. Um. Well, there's another saying everyone comes to
Hollywood looking for parents to love them. So we're not
just looking for the money. We're looking for adulation, adoration,

(21:23):
and people to say we love you, not we like you,
we love you. Do you feel like you've got that
recepte will? I'd say more often than not people have
said said we hate you, But that's an emotion. I
feel like the fact that they are engaged and they
are that passionate about what you've done with these characters. Yeah,

(21:44):
I've gotten so much goodwill and good feeling off of
this show. That's the only reason I would come back,
because I'm not coming back to write it because they
offered me a ton of money to do it. Um.
Teen Wolf is never going to be a We're throwing
ton of money at this kind of project. Are the
actors for the creator? It's like, don't I know it?

(22:04):
We all know it. I mean, this was a show
that I think it's a great place on this podcast too.
Briefly talk about is that we were on a network
that was not the CW and we were all cable,
So why weren't we all making the same amount of
money as Pretty Little Liars or Vampire Diaries. And we
didn't do the ratings. We didn't do the ratings because

(22:26):
they didn't do the marketing. They not only didn't do
the marketing, but and I can talk about this now
because all the people who put us on at MTV
back then are no longer there. They put us on
UH at ten pm on Monday night, where Freeform already
owned that night from eight to ten pm. So it

(22:48):
was the Secret Life of the American Teenager I think,
and then Pretty Little Liars, and we were essentially asking
that very same audience to stay on their couch and
watch a third hour of t elevision because when when
they had to go to bed, where they had to
go to sleep. Yeah, we we actually did her from
the research that a lot of people were watching it
the next day because they had just had to go

(23:10):
to sleep. So you're not going to get the c
three ratings that you want. Three rats that's the commercial ratings,
because it's actually a show's success does not depend on
how many people watch the show. It depends on how
many people watch the commercials. That is the rating that
the advertisers used to look at. It's a completely different

(23:32):
world now with streaming, but we were not getting enough
eyes on advertisers for MTV to justify paying more money
for marketing, more money for the budget. We were doing
it as best we could on a network where the
top show was Team Mom to Sharantine Mom. Yeah. And

(23:53):
and we were working with executives that just didn't have
a scripted mentality. Yeah. And there's also all the other
networks um use their pre existing shows to launch new shows.
We never had that. We were the marquee show. Yeah.
We there was nothing on but repeats before us when
we came on. I remember MTV being ecstatic about Awkward

(24:15):
success my friend Laurens show, which was fantastic, Yes, and
it deserved every success it had, and they said, we
can't we They came to me, like, Awkward to such
great numbers and it's amazing, and it's even at even
at eleven o'clock or or like ten thirty at night,
it's doing these numbers. And I would say to them, yeah,
because it's on right after teen Mom too, so you've

(24:38):
got a huge audience already on your channel, and all
they have to do is not change the channel. Yes,
it was a great show, but time slots do matter.
Time slots matter, at least they mattered back then. Absolutely
Nowadays if a network, if someone's talking about time slots,
all they're really talking about our sports. Yeah, lot's changed.

(24:58):
I mean there was the at the social media during
teen Wolf UM and the birth of streamers, sort of
a heightened level during almost post ting Wolf at this point,
so we are in a completely different market, uh with
this Team Wolf movie where that could be shopped at
and and aired on. Yeah, and you have to ask
the question if the show had been on the CW,
would it have done a lot better? I tend to

(25:21):
think it would have. The one thing I love about
our show, though, is that we never took ourselves too seriously.
I love that you played in that vein that we
always were very self aware of what we were and
I remember watching Stranger Things and the one regret I
have of Team Wolf is we had these odes like
how it was lit styles is Jeep, that the buddy
comedy of the two of them together felt so John

(25:43):
hughesy into me in so nineteen eighties. Well, hell, we
should have just had a little bit of a you know,
magic eight ball. We should have just made it at
the eighties. And and and then that nostalgia you know,
would have been there for for that demographic because watching
Stranger Things and there was the monster in the wall,
and when I writers walking down the hallway, I'm thinking, guys,
this is huge readings. This is Team Wolf. Where were

(26:05):
the readings for teen Wolf? Well, we didn't have the marketing,
and we didn't have I mean, well, there's another reason
not to do it in the eighties, which is even
if it's the eighties, you're still doing a period piece,
so it's much more expensive. And we were what can
you can we talk about budgets? Like, what were we
an episode? I don't know if I can talk about it,
so we can far below. I mean, the show budgets

(26:27):
these days are incredible. Uh, they're basically made for movie budgets. Um,
something like Marvel TV show just blows my mind how
many different locations they have, how they're shooting in the
middle of New York and just the money and the
amount of crew and what it takes to do something
like that. We were well well below what most other

(26:49):
shows were. How good we looked for that price range.
It's incredible. Yeah, well there's a difference too, is like
pretty Little Liars, Let's say, didn't have that much more
money than us, right, They maybe had like a million
more an episode. Yeah, but what they had was they
were a soap opera that shot everything in a very

(27:09):
standard way, master close up, close up to shot, and
they were done. We were trying to make it look
like a movie, and you did every time. I mean
between we had action, we had special effects, we had stunts,
we had car chases, um and that stuff is expensive
and most of all, it's time consuming. So our shoots,

(27:30):
whereas other shows could shoot in seven days, we actually
had to stretch our us to about eight or even
ten days and then overlap episodes. So we blocked schedule
exactly to be able to afford that. And I'll never forget,
you know, the kinds of cranes coming in. We're not
normal for our budget and not normal for a TV show,
not at all. A crane shot on a small cable show.

(27:51):
It's insane, but we made it work. The way we
met at work was by sacrificing certain things. Yes, we
weren't paid as well, and we all were multiple hats.
I mean when you only have two mainly two series directors.
So for anybody that's curious, there's multiple directors, like almost
you know, there's twelve episodes, there'll probably eight directors in

(28:12):
that season directing, and we had to two with occasional guests.
We started out with them three different directors. On the
first scene, Yeah, there was Toby Wilkins, there was Russell,
and then there was Tim. But our main two directors
were Russell and Tim, and we would try to try
to give each of them as many episodes as possible.

(28:34):
But we had great directors like Jen Lynch come in.
We had um numerous other names. Tyler Posey got to
direct an episode are director. No, I never directed an episode.
I've directed pieces here and there. I directed half of
one episode. Whenever I didn't like a scene, I would say,
all right, I'll just shoot it myself. And then Russell,

(28:55):
who's usually the director, is always on camera. He loved
and grabbed that camera and U uh, there was so
much to do on the show that um. When Christian
Taylor directed and directed some great episodes for us UM
rob Our VFX guy and directed two episodes. So we
had a lot of great guest directors, but are two
main people, yes, were Russell and Tim who really Russell

(29:16):
created the look of the show and Tim was just
an absolute workhorse and so dedicated to the show and
always trying to make things look new and different. And
he was one of the people who kept us on schedule.
I mean Tim's was there doing ninety setups a day,
whereas most shows don't get past sixty or even fifty,
some even less. Yeah, so if you guys want to know,

(29:37):
like why do you like Team Wolfs so much? What
is the recipe? Like this, these are the ingredients. This
is why you guys like teen Wolf And this is
why I wanted to do a podcast really breaking down. Uh,
you know, we can maybe do this in pieces at
a convention, but Davis certainly you know, wouldn't be there.
So it's like, this is the place that we get
to talk about this and how hard it was to

(29:58):
produce this show. And when somebody said, as it's always
interesting to me when when a fan calls us out
on online on Twitter or something or Instagram of a
bad effect shot, I sit there and think, trust me,
we know. We're aware, guy, We're very aware. First of all,

(30:19):
we probably tried to darken the shot up in color
corrections so it didn't look so bad. Second of all,
we were begging the VFX company, can't you do it
a little better? And the VFX company would tell us
we need to that thing needs to render, we need
forty eight hours from the computer just to catch up,
and saying we need to deliver Sunday night, and finally
saying to ourselves, all right, it's fine, we'll live with it.

(30:42):
If you were twelve today or fifteen today, do you
feel like you would have watched Team Wolf and had
a critique for yourself. I'm wondering about a question. But
because your nerd, every movie or show out there has
bad VFX shots. I don't care what the budget is.
I saw TV show the other day that it was

(31:03):
a Marvel show that had one of the worst a
DR moments I've ever seen, where it's so clear you
are the actors so clearly not moving their mouth, but
they threw an a d R line in any way. So,
and this is a show that probably has a budget
of fifteen to twenty million in episode, so it really
doesn't matter, there will be bad shots everywhere, Um, unless

(31:26):
the director is someone like Deny Villeneuve, who, my god,
every shot in June was perfectly crafted. Yeah, it was
a feast for the eyes. And he read the book
of course. Yeah, the book is one of my favorite
books of all time. Actually, Um, it's hard. It's hard
when you're up against the budget, and not only against
the budget, but against time. It's hard. So to all

(31:48):
those fans who are like, this effect shot sucked, trust me,
we know we wish we could go back and redo it.
And not only me, but the VFX guy who did
it is probably a thing. God. If I just had
another day, right, that's the saying of every artist. I mean,
as an actor, you're like, off, I just had one
more take, or if I just had one more day
to write, or if I had, you know, a little

(32:09):
bit more budget to write these five pages I want
to write. Art is never finished, It's abandoned. Though, it's
a good quote artist. We have to have like a
team of podcast hollibag quote. Art is never finished, it's abandoned.
That's a good one at Metric on the list. Now,

(32:32):
I want to take it back. You created criminal minds,
then teen Wolf. What was that process like? Like from
USC two Criminal Minds to teen Wolf? Was there were
there jobs in between that you hated. I was an
I T administrator. That's a very fancy side Hustle explained this.
I was a computer guy. Okay, so I was the guy.
I worked for an agency for a while, Talent Agency,

(32:53):
and I was the guy. Agents would come to my
office and they furious, the servers down. I'd get up
and I say, servers not down. Let me take a
look at the computer full stop. You're you're a drawer,
you're a writer, And then where the hell did you
learn computer skills? I loved computers, um, but back then,
so I was a Mac computer guy, and back then

(33:15):
the number one fixed for a Mac was unplugged it
and plug it back in. So there wasn't that much
to do. But I would be the guy who would
come over to the agents computer tap really fast on
the on the keyboard and and I'd say, all right,
it's fixed. And they look at me like I was
a magician, and they kind of hate me at the
same time. But it was a job that paid the bills,

(33:37):
and I did I T work. Um, what I was
doing it from about twenty three to twenty in your
free time. Yes, there was a time where I worked
at the Fox Studio where I would work in a
basement with all the other I T. Guys. We had

(33:58):
no windows, barely any um and I would take my
notebook and I would go sit out at the studio
cafe outside and I write down idea that had to
be inspiring that Like you, I find it interesting you
were an I T. Guy at a studio. You know,
you you found ways to be inspired and be around
what you want to be a part of. It's hard

(34:20):
because you're around it and it's inspiring, but you're not
a part of it. Yeah, exactly, You're like you're still
sort of outside the gate looking in and saying when
when am I going to get my chance? And I
remember a day when two friends of mine who had
gotten the job to rewrite the script for X Men Too,
they were there with the director and they came walking

(34:40):
by as I was writing in my notebook and one
of them reached out and said, Hey, what's that And
I was like, nothing, nothing, don't look at this. So
you didn't have the confidence back then, No, really were
like a shy I T. Guy. Yeah, and I grabbed
my notes for my little screenplay and watched them go
off to their meeting for X Men to you just
did your heart just like fallunteer stomach, Like what was

(35:02):
their feeling? Do you remember that emotion? Yeah? Well, I
had the typical frustration that any writer actor comes out
here is gon when is my time? And I eventually,
I mean that's a little bit of a narcissistic thing
today to to say that it's true. But it's true.
We all have very sacrificed so much, and so is
it worth it for your life? Yeah? So what I
would actually say to myself was I came up with

(35:23):
a little mantra when I started to get anxious about
it and be like, oh god, I haven't sold a
screenplay yet, I haven't got a movie made. And I
would just say to myself, you have all the time
in the world. And I gave myself actually until thirty
to sell a screenplay, which is so young, by the way. Yeah,
I was a little hard on myself. Yeah, but people
get out of film school now and they think they're

(35:44):
going to sell a screenplay at twenty three. We're not
all J. J Abrams, who I think got his first
credit at twenty two or something. I can't remember what
it was. It might have been regarding Henry, but he
was a working screenwriter right out of school. Normally. Because
you're me, I consider, I'll never forget when I saw
you a team wellf you had already gone through Criminal Minds.
You were so young, you're a baby. You're like my

(36:05):
age right now. The stories of me of like the
Transport Department saying the kid, the kid, I told you
the medical student, because you always had a backpack on
and you always looked like you were just going to
your next medical class. Um. Yeah, so so, so you're
in I T you're writing, you're writing in a free time.
You're at least on a studio a lot. But it's

(36:26):
it's hard to sort of be at the party, but
you can't talk to anybody. And and at what point
did how the Criminal Minds commit your life or was
there another project before that that went put in? Then
you've got Criminal Minds. I had written a lot of screenplays,
and I had landed a manager, and I've gotten that
script option for paltry some they had They paid me
like five thousand dollars to do one Polish on it

(36:49):
and then I bet you were like the static though
at that time, Oh yeah, I was like, oh my god,
five thousand dollars um. But uh, what happened after that
was I started to actually make money. I had sold
a pitch to Paramount with it was based on a
book by Robert Silverberg. Um. I was actually on the

(37:09):
cover of Variety while still working in I t at
Fox for this this this sale to Paramount. Yes, how
did you get the cover of Variety? I think it
was mostly because of William Friedkin, but the director of
the Exorcist, so he had attached his name to it.
The producers had brought him in. So do the producers
you got that contact? Um? Yeah, some one producer had

(37:33):
read a script of mind and said, hey, would you
be interested in adapting this book? And then we pitched
it around town and we pitched William Friedkin through this
company called Alphaville, and they got it sold. Yeah. I
think I was twenty. Do you feel like that was
going to be your big break? There was no chance that, like,
how can this not work out? You do feel like that,

(37:55):
and then you get heartbroken and then you say I
have all the time in the world, and then you
know men, my wound and the heart the heartbreak continues
happening even when you've gotten TV shows on the air.
Um so, and that's one thing you have to learn
about the business. But did you start to write Criminal
Minds or the next job during this process or did

(38:15):
you wait for it to quo fail and then start
the night do you overlap? How did that work? Well?
Criminal Minds. I had been writing out outlines to do
a movie about serial killers and the behavioral analysis unit
of the FBI. So what happened was I had lost
the paramount job that eventually just went away. I had
another script where I was replaced by a writer. Um.

(38:39):
And then I had to pitch with a big producer
and a big director. That failed. So I said to myself, well,
I can't get anything made. I'm actually making money now,
but I can't get anything made in movies. They have
to make stuff in TV because there's a schedule. Maybe
I'll try pitching this movie movie idea I have as

(38:59):
a TV show instead Logic Logic always finds you, and
that became Criminal Minds. Uh so, Um, how fast did
the Criminal Minds project come together? Like? Did you make
a visual pitch deck or did you just write the
first script I had. I came up with the pitch
Um it was actually quite different. Um. It was a
serialized show first at first, and then when I hooked

(39:21):
up with Mark Gordon and Deb Spara at the at
Mark Gordon's company, they eventually told me, look, nobody's going
to buy a serialized TV show. They don't make money
off them. So could you see this as a procedural
And I said, yes, let me rethink it. And I said, Okay,
I'm going to base the pilot off of two real
life serial killer stories and introduced the people of the

(39:41):
Behavioral Analysis Analysis Unit and try to launch basically the
psychological version of c s I. And that's what we did.
You truly did and and did you ever see it
going for fifteen years? I don't think I saw it
for that long. But I knew after the pilot, after
having seen Mandy and the other actors in it, I

(40:02):
knew we kind of had something pretty good and special,
and that I was really interested in the science of
it myself, things like the homicidal triad um, all the
ways that they got into the mind of the serial killer,
the psychology of it. Um, these behavioral patterns that showed
up again and again and again. Um. I don't know

(40:22):
if you saw a mine hunter, but I just loved it. Yes.
That was based on a John Douglas book, which was
one of many profiler books that I read, and I
knew that if I could get all this cool, really
information that happened in real life onto the screen, then
there could be something there. So I had faith in
it faith And then how long between criminal minds and

(40:44):
team will for their other jobs? You pursued or will? Yeah? Yeah,
there were many pilots. Once you get to show up
and running, they say, they say, we love this, Can
we have three more? So I did a deal with
ABC Studios. I wrote some more pilots um and and
emotionally at this point because I always like to hit
on that point is is uh like, do you finally

(41:06):
feel like you've you've you've arrived and you feel like
you're more confident, or you can make your bills, you're
maybe stressed, or do you feel like you're part of
the party. I don't know if anyone ever feels like
they've truly made it, because once you get in the
gates of Hollywood, it's a constant fight to stay in
UM because you feel as though you could get dragged

(41:27):
out at any time by security and the gates get
locked again. Even after Criminal Mind. Oh yeah, okay, um.
I think any actor, writer, director feels like that. I mean,
there's literally a term called director jail. Have you ever
heard of that? Director jails? When a director has several
flops in a row and can't get hired anymore, you
basically say they're in director jail, um, and it's up

(41:50):
to them to do that small indie movie or the
passion project that gets them out and then they can
go off and direct the next Marvel movie. Right. But
now I felt I felt comfortable in that I was
making money, which was good because I could I could
actually concentrate writing UM. But there were a lot of
projects that I would have loved to see go forward.

(42:12):
There was a pilot I had at ABC. There was
a pilot that I had to the Sci Fi Channel.
Do you have a favorite of? Like, how many pilots
do you think? Like that didn't go forward? For those
aspiring pilot writers. Oh my gosh, I had a bunch
after selling Criminal Moneys. Yeah, there's so many factors in
getting a studio or network to say yes, um, that

(42:32):
it can take a while. How many pilot scripts would
you say your you would write a year on average
to at least yeah. Um. One of the projects that
I really wish had moved forward was something I did

(42:53):
a couple of years ago, which was an adaptation of
Strangers by Dean Koontz, who was one of my favorite
author is growing up as a kid, and I got
to meet him and become friends with him, and he's
an amazing guy. And I had what I felt was
such a good story, but it wasn't right for Fox
at that time. And did it come down to a
political situation of why you couldn't take it to another network?

(43:16):
I could take it to another network, but at that
point there's so much money against the project that the
network basically has to say okay. If we took it
to say Netflix, Netflix says, okay, first of all, we
don't own this. Second of all, we have to pay
fox ifee. Third of all, we have to pay the
production company on it a fee. So this project comes
with all these fees and these attachments and this chain

(43:39):
of title that they don't want to have to pay
for unless it's starring Tom Hanks or something. Problem with
problems with I P Yeah, so that's the challenge with
reselling some but at a certain point, I'll buy it back.
I'll buy my script back. You basically give up your
money and you do. I hope you've been sending that story. Yeah,
I do too. It was a great story. UM. What

(44:00):
I learned from that was I really don't want to
write network TV anymore, which is why when the deal
from Paramount Plus came from Biacom CBS, I said yes,
I said, yeah, I don't want to write commercials. I
don't want to write stuff that has to has to
uh guarantee a certain rating from commercials when I don't
watch commercials myself. I don't have live TV very if

(44:23):
you have us do now there's no point. Yeah and
so and so from those few years of writing those
pilots that didn't go forward, at what point did teen
Wolf come about in your life? Did you find it
an approach MGM or vice versa. It was a meeting
I had at MTV. UM. So what had happened was

(44:44):
I was developing this pilot for the Sci Fi Channel
with Marty Edelstein and Michael Thorne. Michael Thorne, Michael Thorner
was now the president of Fox UM and when sci
Fi passed on it, uh, we really wanted to work
together again because Michael and I had a great working
relationship and I loved Marty and we said, okay, well,

(45:06):
let's come up with something else to do. Uh And
I said, I meant and they mentioned me. They said,
we hear you're going to have a meeting with MTV.
We're probably going to be attached to a reboot of
Team Wolf. Would you be interested? That's how it happened. Yeah,
And I said, oh, that's interesting. I loved that movie
as a kid. And where were you having this conversation,
like that's such an that's such an origin conversation. It

(45:28):
was just at their office, at their office, and I said, oh, yeah,
I'll ask them about that. So I get into the
meeting with MTV and they mentioned Team Wolf and I
say to them, so, how do you guys see an
adaptation of that happening. They're like, well, we just know
that we wanted to be about teenagers and werewolves. And
I said that's cool because if you look back at
the original movie, it's not actually a werewolf. Movie. It's

(45:50):
a basketball movie. It's a sports movie, just kind of
like The Karate Kid where they have the big song
at the end and it's all about winning a basketball game,
not about werewolves at all. And they liked that take,
and well, what I said to them is what if
we do it more like The Lost Boys, which is
actually scary, sexy, funny, suspenseful and has a great twist ending.

(46:12):
And they said, yes, let's do that. So initially they
were just open to teenage boys werewolves and they and
they thought it could have been a comedy in their eyes.
Oh yeah, what what happens when you have When a
studio has a piece of I p they go out
to writers and they say come in with a take,
and so the writer has to come in, usually with
very little information, and say this is how I would

(46:33):
do the movie. And so when they said, yeah, we'd
love to hear your take on it on that, when
I said, okay, what if it's like The Lost Boys?
They said, yeah, prepare a pitch. And so I had
a little bit of information of how they wanted to
do it. So I went back and I thought to myself, Okay,
one of my favorite movies of all time favorite stories
of all time is stand by Me. This is when

(46:54):
we go back to the fact that we're always copying
other artists by Stephen King right. So I thought, what
if it's about a couple of kids going into the
woods to find a dead body, which is exactly how
stand by Me starts. And what if I take it
from there? And what if the body they find is
actually half of a body? And what if the thing
that killed it was a werewolf? And what if one
of the boys gets bitten by werewolf? And I just

(47:15):
took it from there? How fast did you come up
with that that thing in your mind? Were you like
walking out of the offices and driving home or was
this a couple of months later, you know what I mean? Like,
I don't remember, but I do know the pitch came
very quickly to me. I knew that I wanted it
to be um a story about two best friends in
high school. I wanted to be about the friendship that

(47:36):
I never had in high school. UM. I knew from
early on I wanted tell the Posey's character, Scott to
be a werewolf and the girl he falls in love
with to be the daughter of a werewolf hunter. It's
so good. I loved that. And I always thought that, Um,
that was actually taken from real mythology, that you're like
a you know the last name of Argent, which means

(47:57):
and it was just you know, Jeff Davis mythology. Yeah,
I'm sitting there. I think I'm so clever. Silver that
kills the werewolf, it's the family silver Gent. And when
you wrote the pilot, did you have that tingly feeling
like the strangers, like criminal minds that you when you

(48:17):
saw you know, Manny on screen. At what point did
you feel like you had something? And then at what
point did that grow for you? There were a couple
of different points. Um. When I met Russell, how did
you guys meet? How did you guys hook up? It
was just a director meeting, like from your agent. Yeah,
from his agent put him up for the pilot, which
was only a pilot presentation, remember, Um. And he came

(48:39):
in with all these drawings and he had this great
vision and I said, oh my god, this could look
really cool. We might have five dollars to make this thing,
but he looks like he could get this done. He's
also a very particular energy of a human energy that
comes out of that human being Russell, and he's kind
of I call him the Australian Ozzy Osborne when he's
have you ever heard about it? It's called it perfect yeah,

(49:02):
blood But most people couldn't understand word he was saying,
and you could, Yeah. I was the Russell translator for
truly were and his brain is a beautiful thing to translate.
Absolutely worth translating Russell is. And he's a teddy bear,
one of the sweetest, nicest people I've ever met in
my life. Truly, he has a part of and a
visionary who should have had a much bigger career. Huge, huge,

(49:23):
because he's one of the toughest true in true Aussie form.
He's a special human being. I just remember having such
a special feeling seeing you and Russell worked together, especially,
so I'm glad that you guys. You felt that right
off the bat when he puts pitching to you. The
other moment I would say was I think I've felt
something unique when I first saw we were we were

(49:43):
in the animal clinic, that first scene between Tyler and
Crystal where they had a real spark of chemistry together,
and I was I took a picture of them off
the monitors, and I was showing it to everyone and
how like kind of romantic and cute but still sort
of sexy it looked, and I said, I think we've
got something here. I think we might have something, and
all the other parts just seemed to work out. Um.

(50:06):
I remember there was a moment where the studio wanted
to pull the plug on shooting that night, and I
actually gave up my producer fee because I wanted. I
called my lawyer and everything, and I said, just give
them my feet. And it wasn't It wasn't a big fee,
by the way, but it allowed us to get a
couple extra hours of shooting in. And it was the
scene between uh Tyler and Colton where Jackson asked him

(50:30):
where you getting your juice? And Night was desperate to
get that scene, and I paid for it. Um they
paid me back eventually, But I just knew that the
show needed that sense of humor too, you know. I
wanted to make people laugh as well as scared them.
And the laughter was a lot of I think a
lot of what makes the show memorable. What I want

(50:51):
to discuss is from that script to these moments on set.
There's casting. There was that and how did you approach casting?
We saw everyone under the age of I think, and
we saw multiple people several times. There was one kid
who almost was the teen Wolf, who I won't neve
mention his name, but I think he was probably pretty

(51:13):
wrong for the show. Tyler had this quality about him
where he was charming and innocent, um, but he can play.
He had play aggressive as well. Hecklin had this brooding
sexiness to him and this darkness. Uh. Crystal was the
first one we auditioned for that role, and I kept

(51:35):
saying every time someone knew came in and kept saying,
not as good as Crystal. That was good as Crystal.
And I don't think I saw your audition. You didn't
see my audition and I and I did go. I
think it was they were thinking you about bring me
to network and they didn't. And the Crystal was no
one that tested with one girl from Canada. I remember, Yeah,
the cast just felt right. We got everyone we wanted
and when you came in on, I mean we we

(52:00):
flew you right in. It was so last minute. I
just remember, yeah, I just remember you doing your first
piece and us all of us going, oh, thank god,
she's perfect. Snarky, snarky snarky, because yeah, there's all these
opinions of what that character type should be. It's more
of an attitude than let look, she has to be

(52:20):
a bombshell who who walked on the runway seven ft
tall and that was the runway and that was the breakdown.
It was like off the runways of Milan. Remember that,
Like is that what it said? And it's stuck in
my brain? And did you look like the fact she
was the genius fing to be given the get go?
You want to know where the inspiration for that idea
came from, because we had talked about it before. But

(52:43):
I think have you ever seen Superman three? No, there
is the blonde bombshell in Superman three who is actually
much smarter than she appears. And I always liked that character. Okay,
I had no idea I was pulling from this character, right,
But I think we were in sync really early on
in the character. I remember when after the table read

(53:05):
they liked the cast so much and they liked us
so much that they said they would actually allow us
to do like two or three more days of shooting.
So we had a little more than a pilot presentation.
And then when did you know it was going to
be a hit. I don't think I ever really knew
it was going to be a hit. I remember the
ratings coming out in the first season and thinking, oh God,
we're in trouble. But then it became very clear that

(53:29):
people were actually watching the show. Um, and then I
heard I got a glimpse into what the streaming numbers were.
It was one of the only times they ever shared
it with me, and I said to them, that sounds
like a lot of people, and they said, yes, it
really is. So I think I knew we had caught
attention in season three when we debuted with our best

(53:50):
numbers ever. Um, and for if you're debuting with your
best numbers ever in season three, you've got traction now,
So people are watching, Jeff, I'm gonna give you a
few rapid fire questions. Go for it, and we would
love to have you on for a second episode. But
I think it's a really great foundation to know. This
is a team of podcast who created Team Wolf, and
we love to pick your brain. So thank you for

(54:12):
coming ready for these fire questions. Yes, let's go for it. Okay,
fun questions. What's your biggest guilty pleasure for TV NO
in general in general. Oh my god, Candy, Candy, Yeah,
that's totally true. I should be it. Have you repeat
sitting down? Yes? Why because it was easier? Yes? Okay,
favorite songs dance too, Staying Alive by the Bgs. Okay,

(54:33):
would you rather lick a homeless man's foot? Would you
rather spend at least two years living with your most
toxic X? I would lick that foot. I would like that,
but the whole foot in my mouth if necessary? Uh?
And then what is your most recent embarrassing moment? Oh?
I can't think of something. Um, okay, I do know. Actually, yes,
I was in the Soho house and they had the

(54:55):
water features uncovered and I stepped right into it and
I had to walk out of a solo house with
a leg utterly drenched in water. That's amazing. Well, Jeff,
we love you. Thank you for having me. It's amazing
to see you. I would love to come back. Okay,
we'll see you later, guys. Thanks for listening, y'all. Follow
us on Instagram at halliback Now podcast and make sure

(55:17):
to write it's a review and leave us five stars.
We'll see you next time.