Deadly Aliens: Adapting Richard Matheson’s third Kolchak script, Night Killers
 |
 |
Kolchak the Night Stalker: Double Feature by Richard Matheson and
Chuck Miller (Moonstone, November 2017). Cover art by Mark Maddox
I’ve been asked over the years about the process I used to adapt the late Richard Matheson’s unproduced script for “The Night Killers” into a novella. I thought I’d go ahead today and give a few brief answers.
First, to address the changes I made in the story: It’s not that I think I’m more talented than Richard Matheson, because manifestly I am not. But what I had was very much a first draft script. If “The Night Killers” had gone into production, a lot of things would have been reworked, based on input from Matheson himself, the director, and certainly Darren McGavin. So that’s how I approached it. I regarded the script as a living document that I could have a hand in shaping.