The Larely Beagle – The Community Newspaper of Larely, California

Hollywood, CA – In a recent interview given to “The Larely Weekender”, screenwriter Eric Bernt lamented his decision to make Gary Busey the first character to die-off in his movie, “Surviving the Game”, a tour de force thriller in which six hunters try to hunt and kill another man for sport.

Busey’s character, Doc Hawkins, meets his demise early in the movie after being tossed into a burning cabin by Jack Mason (played by Ice-T).  He is the first of six villains to be killed off in the film, which Bernt now admits was a huge mistake.

“It’s something I think about and regret every day” said Bernt.  “I mean, in retrospect, I put in all that work developing his back story, even giving him a three minute monologue to tell the story of his self proclaimed ‘birthmark’ [scar] that he received when his father made him fight Prince Henry Stout to the death [Busey’s own bulldog that he had raised from a pup].  After giving viewers that kind of window into the character, he should have been kept around much longer.”

Bernt also blames inexperience for that error, pointing out that “Surviving the Game” was his first screenplay.  “If I had the chance to do it over again, I would alter the order of deaths drastically.  But I was so wet behind the ears that I didn’t think about the big picture, and I have to live with that.”

When prompted further about what he would change, Bernt responded, “Without question, F. Murray Abraham’s character (Derek Wolfe, Sr.) should have died first.  That would have made it easier for the character’s apprehensive son (played by William McNamara) to get over the fact they were hunting another human and dive headlong into the hunt.  Plus, I could have had Busey step in to become a father figure to McNamara and that quasi father/son dynamic would have slowly morphed McNamara’s character into a second Busey. If I had done that, I’d probably have an Oscar on my mantle right now.”

Bernt was also asked which character deaths he got right, and he offered, “I think I really nailed the deaths of John C. McGinley’s character [John Griffin: killed by Rutger Hauer after trying to quit the hunt] and Charles S. Dutton’s character [Walter Cole: mercy killed by Hauer after being mortally wounded in an ATV explosion precipitated by Ice-T].  To get to those, I really tried to put myself in the shoes of a group of guys hunting another human, and I wasn’t let down.”

All regrets aside, Bernt has continued to show that he has what it takes to make it in the move business as he has had six screenplays made into movies since “Surviving the Game”, including 2000’s “Romeo Must Die” and 2007’s “The Hitcher”.