The movie has been out for a few weeks now, and there were obvious changes during the transition from page to screen.  I have to say that I really loved the acting and the interaction between the two main leads as well as the supporting actors.   And from what it seems, the writers of the Caster series liked them, too.  So, what did they think about the movie and the people involved?  And what did they think of that quite surprising ending in the film?  Read on. 

Hey guys! It must be really strange seeing the world you imagined on the big screen – were you nervous about letting others in on the creative process?

Margaret: We weren’t nervous after we met Richard LaGravenese, our director. After one meeting with him, we knew we were kindred spirits.

Kami: We have so much respect for the teens we write for, and he does too. Richard took our magical universe as seriously as we did, so we knew we could trust him with it.

Ethan wants to get cuddly with Lena

We really love that the books are written from the boy’s point of view. What made you decide to tell the story from Ethan’s point if view and not Lena’s?

Margaret: We wrote the first book on a dare from my oldest daughter. My daughters and Kami’s sister and their friends gave us stipulations – no more vampires! No girl narrator. No generic setting. And the girl had to be the magical, powerful one. She had to be able to do something other than fall in love.

Kami: Emmy Rossum calls it a girl power story, but it’s also about the kind of boy we wanted to write. We have six brothers between us. We wanted to show the boy’s side of the story, what it is to be a boy falling for a girl. And how decent and loyal and kind a boy can be.

Lena is pretty kick ass, but there’s a lot of feisty girl characters around at the moment. How do you think she’d stand up against the Katniss Everdeens, Clary Frays and vampire Bella Cullens and out there – do you think she could take them in a fight?

Margaret: When we wrote Beautiful Creatures, there was no Katniss Everdeen. How great is that, that you could even ask this question? Go YA! We’ve come a long way, baby.

Kami: Lena’s the most powerful Caster the mortal world has ever seen. We’re pretty sure she could stand on her own in a fight. Plus, she has Ridley for backup.

How did you feel about the movie casting – were the actors how you imagined or did you feel like it was important that the movie was a unique entity in itself?

Margaret: As we said, we really trusted our production team. We were shocked to hear Viola Davis and Emma Thompson and Jeremy Irons and Emmy Rossum would be in the film. But the teens were the really pleasant surprise – Alice [Englert] and Alden [Ehrenreich] are going to have brilliant careers, and Thomas [Mann] and Zoey [Deutch] are fantastic.

Kami: Jeremy Irons was the person I imagined as Macon while we were writing the book. That said, I always say that the movie is an extension of the book universe. I think it’s wonderful that Richard can show things we sometimes only refer to in the book – like Ridley’s Claiming, for example. And vice versa. They’re not meant to be exactly the same, but the heart of the book is in the movie. We’re happy.

How did you feel about changes being made to the story to make the movie work – like Amma and Marian becoming one person?

Amma (Viola Davis)

Margaret: Combining characters is not an unusual thing for a book to movie adaptation. We were worried about it at first, but Richard really did a great job bringing out aspects of both characters exactly as we’d written them.

Kami: I agree. Richard is a genius, and Viola Davis is a wonderful actress. We were definitely lucky to have her in the movie.

We HAVE to talk about the ending to the movie, which was definitely a bit of a surprise! How did you feel about the way it was reworked? If Beautiful Darkness is made into a film, it’s definitely going to make that interesting…

Margaret: Many of the elements from the end of the movie are taken from the series, some of them from Beautiful Darkness. We actually really love the ending, it’s so emotional.

Kami: We do. It all works with the spirit of our book. And as for Beautiful Darkness, all we can say is that Richard has a plan. We’re not worried.

I do like how stated that the movie is an extension of the book.  The spirit of the characters are still there and the tone for the movie was great.  Whether or not the ending was to your taste, I can’t say, but I enjoyed it for what it was and I still feel like the actors portrayed the characters correctly.  Everyone has their own opinions, I suppose, but seeing how the movie has been doing on theaters, it would be hard to imagine there being a sequel – in which case we won’t be able to see what Richard had planned, unfortunately.  

Have you seen the movie?  If not, do you plan to considering that the authors gave their approval?  

Read the whole interview at Sugarscape.