From director Eli Roth and writer Eric Kripke, and based on the novel by John Bellairs, the family fantasy film The House with a Clock in its Walls follows recently orphaned 10-year-old Lewis Barnavelt (Owen Vaccaro), who goes to live with his rather eccentric Uncle Jonathan (Jack Black) in a creaky old house full of all sorts of magical wonder. As Lewis discovers a hidden world of magic, mystery and the supernatural, and gets to know Jonathan’s best friend and neighbor, Mrs. Zimmerman (Cate Blanchett), he also accidentally awakens the dead, wreaking havoc in his new but otherwise sleepy little town.

During this 1-on-1 phone interview with Collider, screenwriter/producer Eric Kripke talked about getting to turn his favorite kid’s book into a movie, why The House with a Clock in its Walls is so special, how influential this specific story has been on his own writing, throughout the years, how many Supernatural Easter eggs made it into the film, and whether he’d like to keep the Barnavelt adventures going. He also talked about the 2-hour Timeless series finale, which shoots in October and will air on NBC, whether fans will feel satisfied, and if he could see the story continuing, in some form, as well as his upcoming Amazon series The Boys, adapted from the comic books by Garth Ennis, and how it reflects what’s going on in our world today.

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Image via Universal

Collider:  I had so much fun with this movie!

ERIC KRIPKE:  Oh, good! Thank you so much. I’m glad you liked it!

When you get to write your favorite kid’s book as a movie, is it basically just a dream project?

KRIPKE:  Yeah. It was such a pleasure to write because you feel emotionally invested. People throw this phrase around a lot, but it was truly a labor of love. It really was to the point where it was more than I wanted to write it. I felt like I needed to write it, and I would have been really upset had anyone else written it because it meant so much to me. And it did more than that. It set my career on the path that it went. It’s because of this book, directly, that I wrote Supernatural. So many of the rules from the world of this book, I took into Supernatural. There’s such a direct line between me writing genre, and being a 10-year-old kid and finding this book. It helped me, in so many ways, become the writer that I was. So, to be able to go full circle and actually adapt it, was really important to me. It felt like a promise fulfilled to a chubby 10-year-old me. That book helped me, in a lot ways, and made me realize it was okay to be a little different. I really felt like I owed it to the book to do it right. It was more than a pleasure. It sounds weird to say, but I took it like it was this sacred job I had to do. It was really wonderful.

That’s awesome! Obviously, not every book translates well to film, so what was it that made you see a film in this?

KRIPKE:  To me, it was the tone, more than anything else. I still loved the world, and it spoke to a world that people don’t really make as movies anymore, but the thing that I most responded to was that there’s this world where there’s magic bubbling just beneath the surface. It’s this very Midwestern American world that seems very normal, but underneath it is all of this darkness and occult magic, and there was this real danger, even though it was a kid’s book. Real people could get hurt, and there was real evil and real stakes out in the world, but it was leavened with this great humor and an incredible amount of heart. If you didn’t know any better, you would say that I’m describing Supernatural. That’s how directly they are related, and it’s that combination that’s the reason I was confident Supernatural would work. I said, “That combination of heart and scares just beneath the surface, Midwestern Americana, and humor is gonna work because that was what I remember loving, as a kid.”

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So, I bought the rights to the book with (producer) Brad Fischer. I knew I could capture the tone, and then we really started looking hard at the plot and realized that we had to adapt it. It’s a different medium, and things that will play in a book just will not play in a movie. You have to find a way to switch it and adjust it without losing the reason you love it. Going in, I thought, “Oh, an adaptation is going to be easy. Finally, I don’t have to come up with my own stuff. I just get to adapt this other story.” And it was so much harder. It was the most stressful game of Jenga that I’ve ever played. It would have destroyed me, if that tower had fallen over because I loved it so much and I felt an obligation to the fans of it to do it right. But you have to move it around and every piece you pull, you’re like, “Oh, dear god, this is the piece that’s gonna knock it over.” It was nerve wracking, frankly, but I think we landed in the right place, with a story that works well as a movie, but still really honors the original story that John Bellairs wrote. We’ll wait to see what the fans say, but I got to talk to John’s wife at the premiere party. He passed away in the late 90's, but I got to talk to his wife and she said that he would have loved it. That was a legit emotional moment.

That’s so cool! You’ve talked about writing Supernatural Easter eggs into this script. What made you decide to marry those two worlds, and how many made it into the film vs. how many didn’t?

KRIPKE:  I got in most of the ones that I was trying to do. Luckily, I never told anybody, so Eli [Roth] and the other producers couldn’t stop and say, “Pull that line! What are you doing?” The reason I did it was that so much of the book made its way into Supernatural that I felt like they’re very symbiotic. They take place in very similar universes. One thing that Bellairs, the author, did that I didn’t realize until I was older, but it blew my mind, was that every piece of occult information in the books is real lore that exists somewhere. And when I ran Supernatural, I had this rule where it all had to be Google worthy, which means it all had to exist in real lore somewhere. That came from the Bellairs. I stole that from him. For instance, I learned that iron was an evil repellent, not from the internet, but from The House with a Clock in its Walls. They used it because it’s a real folkloric thing. It was easy to talk about iron in the movie because that was from Supernatural. And then, once I started making sure that I was mentioning all of the things in the book that helped Supernatural, I just started making references to all of the occult items that were also in Supernatural because they all exist in the same world of real folklore. So, there’s about a dozen or so references made to Supernatural, that anyone who’s a super fan could sit with a pad of paper and find, but what they really are, are references made to real-life folklore that both Supernatural and The House with a Clock in its Walls uses as part of their universe rules.

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Image via Universal Pictures

With the script for the two-hour series finale of Timeless approved by the network and a green light for shooting, when do you start that?

KRIPKE:  That shoots in October, I think about mid-October. Arika Mittman, who did the lion’s share of the showrunning in Season 2 and was really quarter-backing a lot of it, will be doing that. I’m there to check in and provide whatever guidance I can, but Arika is very, very good, and so passionate about that show, those characters, and that material. She’s captaining the ship, in a really great way.

Are you getting the time that you’d get, if you were shooing two episodes?

KRIPKE:  Yeah, it’s basically the equivalent of two episodes. As a matter of fact, we tried, at one point, to do one long historical period to last over two hours, and then eventually, Arika wisely said, “Why are we doing this? Why don’t we just do what we always do, which is spend an hour in two different time periods?” And so, though they’re connected and though it’s one long mythology story that plays over both, they really are, in effect, two time periods of Timeless that they visit, and we’ll shoot each one. We shot 8-day episodes, and this will be a 16-day shoot. It will be exactly like two more episodes of the show.

Do you feel like it will give a feeling of satisfaction to fans of the show, who really were so crushed about the cancellation?

KRIPKE:  I hope so. The short answer is that I don’t know if there’s anything we can do that will make them finally say, “Oh, that’s great! I’m gonna close that chapter of my life.” There’s a certain amount of shocking turns, and we tried to let it build to something and provide a certain amount of closure, and give you a sense of where these characters go. We tried to put a period at the end of the sentence, but not so much that the door isn’t open for further adventures, down the road. One of my favorite finales is Buffy because, even though it’s over and even though they closed the Hellmouth, there’s more work to do, and they look at Buffy and say, “What do you want to do next?” She smiles, and then you’re out. That, to me, is always the perfect way that you want to end the show. It’s also what Shawn [Ryan] did with the end of The Shield, where Vic Mackey takes off and is gonna have more awful adventures. And so, I think we’re trying to create something that will be satisfying to the fans, but that doesn’t close the lid either. But, god bless them. They’re so passionate about that world. Whatever we do, they’re just gonna want more, so someone has got to get the novelizations going. That’s the answer.

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Image via Universal Pictures

Do you think the series could continue on, as a comic or an animated project, if demand is there?

KRIPKE:  Sure! Anything is possible. I’m really proud of that show. These are some scary times, and I think that show is a force of positivity, and inclusion and diversity, in a world that, frankly, desperately needs it. I’m really proud of the message of that show. I’m proud of its heart. And everyone else who works on it feels the same. I think we’d be happy to find a way to continue that story.

What was it about the story in the Garth Ennis comics for The Boys that made you want to jump right into another TV series, especially among all of the superhero fare that’s out there?

KRIPKE:  I like it because, in so many ways, it’s the anti-superhero story. The source material is amazing, but it was written in 2004/2005. What I really responded to was how prescient Garth Ennis was and how much today’s world reflects the world of The Boys more than it ever has. What I really sparked to was the idea of having what is, on the surface, a really fun, biting sense of humor, or action, or drama, but what it’s really about is everything that’s going on in our world, and I don’t just mean the preponderance of superhero shit everywhere. It’s about the runaway effects of celebrity and social media. It’s about how the line between celebrity and politics has now blurred to the point that it’s totally unrecognizable, and Kim Kardashians is going into the White House to plead for clemency. It’s such an insane media driven world that we live in, that a show about high-powered celebrity superheroes who, behind the scenes, are making decisions that actually affect the life and welfare of people, is just right there. It’s a dead bull’s eye of the zeitgeist, so it felt really natural to explore that world and explore what it means to be just some blue collar guy with no power, doing their best to take on these powerful elite media/political assholes. It’s been a blast. For what it’s worth, maybe people will love it, and maybe they’ll hate it, but it’s the closest to my sense of humor that I’ve ever done. It’s really, really edgy, and really, really satirical, but it’s also got a lot of heart. It’s really making a point about certain aspects of the current administration, it’s politically aware, and it does all of the things that I’ve always wanted a show to do. So for better or for worse, success or failure, you’ll be able to watch it and maybe everyone will be horrified, but they’ll go, “Oh, okay, that’s the stuff Kripke’s really into.”

I’m excited about it. It sounds awesome!

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Image via Universal Pictures

KRIPKE:  I think it’s going to be really good. I’m really happy with it.

What made you want to direct the season finale for The Boys, and is that something you’d like to do more of?

KRIPKE:  I got into this business wanting to be a director, and then just stumbled my way into writing. I love being on set. I love working with actors and directors of photography, and just being where the action is, rather than in some fluorescent lit room and trying to bang out pages. It’s fun. I directed a couple episodes of Supernatural, but then my kids started to notice that I would be gone most of the time, so I put that on hold for awhile. But I feel really connected to The Boys, and I wanted to get out and do it. I love Revolution and I love Timeless, but there’s something about The Boys that just speaks to me, very personally, so it was important to me to get out and get behind the camera and make an episode. And it’s something I would love to do more.

Because The House with a Clock in its Wall was such an important project for you and since there are 12 books, if there’s a demand for more films, would you like to return to the books and this world?

KRIPKE:  Yeah, 100%. We’re already talking about it. The next book is called The Figure in the Shadows, and even beyond those Barnavelt books, Bellairs wrote these amazing books with other characters, as well. It’s a whole universe that he created, that’s just so appealing. So, nothing would make me happier than to keep these adventures going, and I know Eli wants to do it, and Cate and Jack and Owen want to do it. The last people who have to check in is the audience, and if they all show up and make it clear that they want more, then we’ll do more.

The House with a Clock in its Walls is now in theaters.

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Image via Universal Pictures