Mark Stay
Mark Stay | |
|---|---|
 Stay in 2014 | |
| Born | London |
| Occupations | Screenwriter, novelist |
| Known for | Robot Overlords, The Bestseller Experiment |
| Website | markstaywrites |
Mark Stay is an English screenwriter and novelist, best known for his collaborations with Jon Wright. He also co-hosts the writing podcast The Bestseller Experiment.[1][2][3]
Biography
[edit]Born in London, Stay worked in retail and then in publishing. He would write in his spare time, eventually publishing novels such as The Witches of Woodville series from Simon & Schuster [4], praised by the Irish Independent as 'extremely funny, full of imagination, verve and typical English ‘home counties’ wit'[5], as well as The End of Magic Trilogy from Unbound. His first screenplay, Eddie’s Dead, was chosen for the Film London Microwave scheme, and he was selected for Vipers Nest, a creative collective for commercial-orientated emerging filmmakers.[6]
Meeting Wright in 2006, Stay co-wrote with him the 2014 science fiction adventure film Robot Overlords starring Ben Kingsley and Gillian Anderson. Stay would also write the film's novelisation.[7][8] The book included extra scenes and bonus material not included in the film.[9] It was published in the UK on 12 February 2015, and Stay wrote a satirical piece for The Guardian about surviving the story's robot occupation.[10]
Reuniting with Wright, Stay co-wrote Unwelcome, a fantasy horror film starring Hannah John-Kamen.[11]The monsters in the film were based on creatures from Anglo-Scottish folklore called Redcaps.[12] Stay and Wright finished and sold the screenplay at the start of the 2020 COVID-19 lockdown.[13] Unwelcome was released in Ireland and the United Kingdom on 27 January 2023, and in the United States on 10 March 2023. Stay would also sell a treatment to Moonriver TV, a prequel to the Jules Verne novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas, that became the 2025 Disney+, later Amazon, television series Nautilus.[14][15]
Stay now lives in Kent with his wife Claire Burgess.
References
[edit]- ↑ Barnett, David (29 November 2016). "The Bestseller Experiment: can you deliberately write a blockbuster book?". The Guardian. Retrieved 25 July 2019.
- ↑ Heller, Karen (28 December 2016). "Meet the elite group of authors who sell 100 million books". The Independent. Retrieved 25 July 2019.
- ↑ "From Podcast to Self-Published Bestseller". www.publishersweekly.com. Retrieved 2019-06-09.
- ↑ https://www.thebookseller.com/rights/ss-takes-two-more-witches-of-woodville-books-from-stay
- ↑ https://www.independent.ie/entertainment/books/book-reviews/book-reviews-in-brief-world-war-ii-still-fuelling-our-21st-century-novels/a/134423939.html
- ↑ https://www.johnsonandalcock.co.uk/stay-mark
- ↑ https://www.hachette.co.uk/mark-stay/2015/03/27/the-robot-overlords-are-here/
- ↑ https://www.starburstmagazine.com/reviews/robot-overlords-robots-never-lie/
- ↑ Calder, Sophie (2013-05-13). "Robot Overlords - The Novel!". Archived from the original on 24 September 2015. Retrieved 2014-06-09.
- ↑ https://www.theguardian.com/childrens-books-site/2015/mar/27/robot-overlords-how-to-stay-sane-in-robot-occupation-mark-stay
- ↑ "Unwelcome Trailer Sees Hannah John-Kamen And Douglas Booth Battle Murderous Goblins". Empireonline.com.
- ↑ https://uk.movies.yahoo.com/unwelcomes-director-breaks-down-the-first-trailer-gremlins-meets-straw-dogs-163854874.html
- ↑ https://cenemagazine.co.uk/news/unwelcome-goblins-horror-and-bugs-bunny-with-mark-stay
- ↑ https://www.smh.com.au/culture/tv-and-radio/how-australia-s-most-expensive-tv-show-almost-sank-without-trace-20240925-p5kdam.html
- ↑ https://www.kentonline.co.uk/herne-bay/news/warner-bros-turned-my-script-into-a-multi-million-pound-mov-285009/