Holes

Louis Sachar adapted his own novel although he had never written a screenplay; his first answer to Andrew Davis was to find someone who knew the job. Sachar chose the director deliberately: he wanted a man whose earlier work was fast, gritty action, not someone who would turn the book into a soft children’s picture. In the novel Stanley is overweight and slims down as the story goes on. That thread was dropped: a film is not shot in sequence, and a 15 year old cannot be asked to gain and lose that much weight. The teenage cast arrived a week early and the head stunt coordinator had them digging and training hard. Jon Voight stayed in character around them so they would be scared of him. Shia LaBeouf was still finishing Even Stevens, so on day one he really was the new boy. Heat on the 10 week California shoot meant the boys could stay in the holes only about 5 minutes at a time. The yellow spotted lizards were played by 14 bearded dragons, 4 of them in the main shots. A good fit if you want to work out late that the digging is a search, not a punishment. Not for small children who meet the mob killing of Sam in the historical strand unprepared.