JAL has a new website

Links to interviews, trailers and other media
Post Reply
User avatar
Siggdalos
Posts: 351
Joined: Sun Nov 01, 2020 8:22 pm
Location: Sweden

JAL has a new website

Post by Siggdalos » Tue Dec 01, 2020 12:46 am

(I originally posted this in Off Topic but later figured it made more sense to post it in Media.)

Yesterday, John's publisher released a new, more comprehensive and up-to-date official website: http://johnajvidelindqvist.com/
The old site, http://www.johnajvide.com/, now redirects to the new address.

The site contains information about all his stories and adaptations (including the afterwords from the Swedish editions of his novels) and will apparently get news updates more frequently than the old site. The only page currently available in English is his biography.

Here are two release videos (in Swedish, of course):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-G95Dy997ic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBWA-Y5KeQw

JAL also wrote a (very) short story titled Dump which can only be read on the site. I could try translating it if people are interested.

Sadly, the new site does not have a link to We, the Infected like the old one did, as far as I can tell.
De höll om varandra i tystnad. Oskar blundade och visste: detta var det största. Ljuset från lyktan i portvalvet trängde svagt in genom hans slutna ögonlock, la en hinna av rött för hans ögon. Det största.

User avatar
Siggdalos
Posts: 351
Joined: Sun Nov 01, 2020 8:22 pm
Location: Sweden

Re: JAL has a new website

Post by Siggdalos » Fri Jan 01, 2021 3:30 pm

The other day, the site was updated with a page about JAL's upcoming and unfinished projects: https://johnajvidelindqvist.com/upcoming.php
He has mentioned most of these projects before, most recently in the 2020 season's greetings, but the page also reveals some new details. Here's a translation attempt:
Film & television

Handling the Undead has received 13 million in preliminary support from the Norwegian Film Institute and shooting is planned to start in Oslo in 2021. The screenplay is written by John and the directing is handled by Thea Hvistendahl who has previously made, among others, Farväl Montebello and Satans barn.
John: "Thea has a completely unique, very intimate and aesthetically pleasing visual language. I am convinced that she's going to make a zombie movie that resembles nothing we've seen before."

The World Council of Magic is in the earliest stages of production. This is John's only original screenplay, that is to say not based on a book, and the details are not yet ready for the public.
John: "I was about to remake The World Council of Magic into a novel since I'm super fond of the story. Then the screenplay aroused interest and now it's gotten rolling. It's going to be a dream to cast this Swedish movie where many of the main characters are 75-80 years old."

An American TV series is also in the starting stage and is even more secret than The World Council of Magic. This is likely what John is going to be working on during the first half of 2021 and is the first thing he's writing directly in English.
John: "I was unsure at first, but after writing a pilot episode which was greatly liked by those responsible, I think I'll manage to write in English. I've been promised help with polishing the dialogue."

John worked on Little Star as a 4 x 1 hour TV series for about a year. Some episodes had gotten as far as version 17 when the TV company in question unexpectedly pulled out. Now the screenplay is lying unused, but there is some interest from the west.
John: "This is probably the most convoluted job I've ever gotten myself into. So many turns, so many meetings, so many rewrites. Many nice ideas and connecting elements appeared in the process, so the screenplay is good, but I don't know if it was worth the time."

Ajvideland was a TV series based on John's short stories which was in production for a few years, but which is currently lying unused, alternatively suffering from rigor mortis. John wrote screenplays for Eternal/Love, Hair, What Kept You So Long?, Come Unto Me and The Music of Bengt Karlsson, Murderer.
John: "Some projects go on for too long and lose their forward momentum. The fact that bosses are often replaced and don't share their predecessors' priorities doesn't help. Such a shame. We had the idea that I was going to present every episode and my face was going to be digitally altered to create horror effects. We recorded a prototype where my eyes suddenly became super scary. Alas, alas."

Novels and novellas

The Pigs is a finished 75-page novella in which the dansband Tropicos' tour bus is hijacked by two bizarre pig farmer siblings. It is John's contribution to the hillbilly horror genre and excels in extreme violence, grossness and quite a bit of humor, if one manages to appreciate it.
John: "I always read what I write aloud to my wife. The Pigs is unique in that after 30 pages, she said: "John, I don't want to hear any more, it's too disgusting." After I told her what was going to happen, she relented and listened. But she certainly doesn't like it. I, however, do."

The Value is another very violent story, this time in an office environment. A stock brokerage firm scams a farmer of all his assets and everything collapses for him. One day he packs a bag with tools and makes his way to Stockholm. This essentially simple slasher story is complicated by the fact that its structure is taken from the video game Forbidden Siren with a completely disorganized timeline where the question is less "What's going to happen?" and more: "How did things turn out this way?"
John: "This is the first time I've had to put up a flow chart with little notes on my wall to be able to move around in the timeline without getting lost. I've gotten about 40 pages in. There is a certain risk that The Value becomes nigh-unreadable."

She is a 30-page short story written for a future British anthology. It's potentially also going to be released in Swedish as an audio novella, read by John. It's a rather brutal ghost story that plays out in a newly-constructed house.
John: "To be fair to my wife, it should be pointed out that she loves this short story, even though it's very disturbing. I got the basic idea for it a few years ago on the same night that I got the idea for what would later become Special Circumstances. That was a good night."

Alternate Facts About Birds is the odd one out in the collection. This is a book with facts about our most common Swedish birds where scarcely a single word is true. It's about loose fantasies with a surreal, comical edge. For example, [untranslatable pun about seagulls]. 25 of the texts are finished and Mia Ajvide is going to be making the illustrations.
John: "This one has been very fun to write. Here I have thrown the restrictions I usually place on my textual imagination overboard and gone crazy in the linguistic toolbox with occasionally breakneck shifts between scientific, theological, philosophical and ornithological terminology, mixed with everyday slang and modern words."

Plays is a future collection of John's texts written for theater. It's going to include the plays "Five dead musicians dead in pileup", "The Unauthorized" and "An informal conversation about the present situation" (with Tomas Alfredson), as well as the monologues "Storstugan - A pyromaniac's confession" and a written but so far secret monologue currently in production. In addition, John has started writing the play "Eerie Machine" which is likely also going to be included.
John: "The most fun thing about writing for theater is when the plays arise through collaboration with the director and actors. Authorship is a lonely job, and it's fun to be able to play with others for a change and then see how the dead text is brought to life through the actors."
De höll om varandra i tystnad. Oskar blundade och visste: detta var det största. Ljuset från lyktan i portvalvet trängde svagt in genom hans slutna ögonlock, la en hinna av rött för hans ögon. Det största.

Post Reply

Return to “Media”