Interview with Tremors and Short Circuit Screenwriter S.S. Wilson

Tremors and Short Circuit Screenwriter S.S. Wilson joins Aaron and Justin to discuss his Hollywood career in this special episode of The Hollywood Outsider! Following our long-standing debate from way back on Episode 103 of The HO over whether or not Tremors is science-fiction, Steve…the creator of Tremors himself…agreed to come on and squash this debate once and for all.

During his engaging interview, Steve discusses working in Hollywood, from where he received his start in filmmaking all the way through to the current climate of remakes and sequels. He discusses his novels (Fraidy Cats and Tucker’s Monster) as well as several of the films he has worked on: Tremors, Short Circuit, Batteries Not Included, Heart and Souls, and even Wild Wild West. He shares stories of working with Steven Spielberg, director Ron Underwood, the Tremors phenomenon, and even offers some intriguing behind-the-scenes info into Kevin Bacon’s take on his infamous Tremors role.

An insighful interview with such an infectiously genuine guy, you will have a great time listening to Steve as he recounts his own storied career. Listen and enjoy our exclusive interview with screenwriter, author, producer and director S.S. Wilson!

Below are a few tidbits from our interview. Listen to the full episode for the entire S.S. Wilson experience:

On how Wilson got started in screenwriting

‘Because the writers writing in that field (educational films) didn’t know how to write stuff that I could do on my budgets, I started writing the animation sequences and from there it was an easy step to ‘Well, you know, we’re doing how to look up a word in the dictionary or how to use the reference section…why don’t you just write the scripts, Steve, since you’re going to be doing the animation?’ And I fell into it that way.’

On why Short Circuit and Johnny 5 still resonates with fans to this day

‘My personal theory is that he is this babe in the woods with a real problem. I think he resonates in the way that a really good kid film…I think he resonates because he’s like a little kid, and he has this enormous problem because people are trying to kill him, and his problem is that he can’t convince him that he’s alive. That’s my feeling, is that kids relate to Johnny 5 because he’s got this problem and nobody will listen to him and I think that’s how kids feel.’

On what was almost in Wild Wild West

‘We wrote the giant mechanical spider, because we thought ‘What a great, steampunk thing to do?” (Jon) Peters nixed that idea and told us we had to rewrite the script with a stealth bomber. And we said ‘Well, surely you don’t mean A stealth bomber?’, he said ‘Yes, I do’. We said ‘Remember the horses and the 1880?’, he said ‘I don’t care’. Our heads were spinning at this point…we finally just sort of danced around it and said ‘Can we make it sound a little bit like 1880’s?’ ‘As long as it flies and it’s cool, yes.’ So we wrote a whole draft with this weird flying machine.’