I used to listen to audiobooks non-stop. Getting ready in the morning, going for a run, driving to work? Audiobook time. However, during the COVID lockdown, I fell out of that habit. I was living with family, had a very different daily routine, and just lost the eagerness to push play. Even after moving back into my apartment and tapping into my former day-to-day, I still had a very hard time jumping back into listening. However, that changed as soon as someone recommended Ski Weekend.
Written by Liani Kotcher writing as Rektok Ross, Ski Weekend is a young adult thriller that covers what happens when a group of teenagers heads to the mountains for a senior ski weekend. On their way there, their car crashes into a snowbank leaving them stranded with no cell service and dwindling resources. Do they brave the cold and snow to find help? Do they wait it out in hopes that someone will find them? While the incident might seem like a brief ski trip delay initially, the group soon comes to realize that every decision they make is a matter of life and death.
While in San Diego for Comic-Con 2022, Kotcher and producer Miles Koules swung by the Collider interview studio to offer an update on the adaptation process. News of their collaboration first broke in April of 2022 with Deadline revealing that Miles Koules would be teaming with his father, longtime Saw producer Oren Koules, to bring Kotcher’s book to screen. Just like his father did, Miles Koules is making the transition from professional hockey player to film producer, and Kotcher suspects there’s something in that evolution that makes them both an excellent support system and ideal collaborators:
“I think there’s something really unique about Miles and Oren both coming from the world of being professional athletes to now being producers. I’ve noticed it in working together, they really care about — it’s weird to call myself talent, but they really care about that person having a say in the story and involvement and I think that is really rare. I do have a lot of friends and colleagues that are writers as well, young adult authors, adult thriller authors, and it’s like they sell the project and then it’s hands-off. They never hear about it again. I ask them what’s going on; ‘I have no idea. Once I sold it I never heard from them again. Maybe it doesn’t get made. Whatever.’ It’s like they have no skin in the game afterwards, and I feel like this has been such an amazing experience. I feel like I’m in such good hands. And I don’t know if that’s from being an athlete or that experience, but they just really care about the creator and my input.”
Not only has Kotcher learned from friends going through the book-to-film adaptation process, but she also picked up quite a bit while working as a journalist who specialized in young adult entertainment. Here’s what she said when asked how working on that side of the business influenced her own work:
“I would say more of an etiquette thing, and I think this is also through being a lawyer too, is, I firmly believe this, be kind to people. Be nice. I dealt with a lot of people. Some were very nice, some were not as nice, and I just feel like there’s so much to say for just being respectful, being kind. Everyone’s doing their job and no one’s better than anyone, no one’s bigger than anyone, and so I think I will always, and we’ve talked about this too, I hope to always come with a very kind, humble attitude to everything that I do. And I really do think that that’s important. I think that recognizing other people are doing their job, doing the best that they can do, and I think for me, it’s just the professionalism and the etiquette.”
With those qualities being a top priority and given how engrossing the book is, the Ski Weekend cast and crew could be a mighty exciting team to join as Kotcher and Koules move further along with the project. The next step in that process? Finding a director. Here's what Koules had to say about the search:
“That’s our next step, and that’s something we’ve begun to talk about. I think it’s one of the hardest things, but also, the most satisfying when done right is to shoot a contained movie. And I think obviously looking into the past, we’d love to have someone that has shot a contained movie and done it well. So for me, obviously my outlook is to start there and then branch out from there.”
Kotcher highlighted a few additional qualities she’d like to see in a director and event pinpointed a couple of names who could be excellent fits for the role:
“I would love to have someone on board who really appreciates late 80s, 90s horror thrillers. Someone like Leigh Janiak who just did the Fear Street trilogy. I think she’s incredible. I do love her. I know they’re just doing TV, but The Duffer Brothers. Someone like that who you can tell has the heart and the passion because I feel like it’s not horror, but it’s a lot of that love that went into those late 90s movies is kind of who I envision. There’s a lot of Easter eggs, there’s the fun, having the fun together as they’re driving up. I want someone who can shoot that and can get that feeling on the screen.”
When it comes to filling out the ensemble, Kotcher sees great potential in every single role whether it's her lead character, Sam, or the others involved. She explained:
“It took me like 10 years to write the book, so every character is crafted very deeply. They all have a really interesting backstory, their own views, their own experience. I really think, and we’ve talked, each character would be a really great meaty role for someone.”
Koules went into further detail while discussing their goals for the casting process:
“This is so exciting because there is so much young adult, and I mean young adult but also in their 20s actors right now more than ever in Hollywood. We’ve gone through the list of people that we’d want and it’s great because you have a melting pot of a cast of six people in a car and I just think that that’s really — obviously with any survival story it’s all about what happens and who lives and who dies, but really the core of what makes this such a great story is their inter-dynamics in the car. So I think that definitely one or two big names then, you never know. Maybe we could have an emerging star come out of this thing, too.”
A question that often pops up with an adaptation of a young adult novel that involves danger and death, what about the rating? Given the likely target audience, PG-13 seems like it should be the goal, but given that Ski Weekend features quite a few intense scenes, they could run the risk of teetering into R-rated territory. While Koules is well aware of that possibility, he did emphasize that the plan is to make Ski Weekend a PG-13 film; “PG-13 is, of course, the goal, but with deaths always comes that R push, but I think we’re gonna do the best we can to make it PG-13.”
Eager to hear more about Ski Weekend from Kotcher and Koules? Be sure to check out our full conversation, which also includes a brief tease of Kotcher’s next book, in the video interview at the top of this article!