page_title: The Devil's Advocate (1997 film)
section_title: Development
hierarchical_section_title: The Devil's Advocate (1997 film) / Production / Development
context_page_description: The Devil's Advocate is a 1997 American supernatural horror film directed by Taylor Hackford, written by Jonathan Lemkin and Tony Gilroy, and starring Keanu Reeves, Al Pacino, and Charlize Theron. Based on Andrew Neiderman's novel of the same name, it is about an unusually successful young Florida lawyer invited to New York City to work for a major firm. As his wife becomes haunted by frightening visual phenomena, the lawyer slowly begins to realize the owner of the firm is not what he appears to be, and is in fact the Devil.
  Pacino's character, Satan, takes the guise of a human lawyer named after the author of Paradise Lost, John Milton. The story and direction contain allusions to Milton's epic, Dante Alighieri's Inferno, and the legend of Faust. An adaptation of Neiderman's novel went into a development hell during the 1990s, with Hackford gaining control of the production. Filming took place around New York City and Florida.
  The Devil's Advocate received mixed reviews, with critics crediting it for entertainment value and Pacino's performance. It grossed over $153 million in the box office and won the Saturn Award for Best Horror Film.
context_section_description: Andrew Neiderman wrote The Devil's Advocate as a novel, and it was published in 1990 by Simon and Schuster. Believing his story could be adapted into a film, Neiderman approached Warner Bros. and claimed to have led his successful sale with the synopsis "It's about a law firm in New York that represents only guilty people, and never loses".
  Various screenplay adaptations of The Devil's Advocate had been pitched to U.S. cinema studios, with Joel Schumacher planned to direct it with Brad Pitt as the young lawyer. Schumacher planned a sequence in which Pitt would descend into the New York subway system, which would be modeled on the circles of hell in Dante's Divine Comedy. With no actor to play Satan, this project collapsed.
  The O.J. Simpson murder trial and its controversial outcome gave new impetus to relaunching the project, with a $60 million budget. Warner hired Taylor Hackford to direct the new attempt. The director embraced the legal drama aspect, theorizing, "The courtroom has become the gladiator arena of the late twentieth century. Following the progress of a sensational trial is a spectator sport".
  Tony Gilroy led much of the rewrite, with supervision by Hackford, who envisioned it as a "a modern-day morality play" and "Faustian tale". As the screenplay developed, free will became a theme, in which Milton does not actually cause events. Hackford wanted suggestions that Milton does not kill Barzoon, as he defied his muggers, or United States Attorney Weaver, who arrogantly did not watch for vehicles before stepping onto the road.
  The screenwriters added the plot element that Lomax was Milton's son, and that Milton could produce the Antichrist, neither of which are in the novel. Hackford cited the films Rosemary's Baby and The Omen as influences, and both had explored the Antichrist mythology. Another change from the novel was converting the book's lesbian client to the male molester Lloyd Gettys, avoiding undertones of homophobia. In an early version of the screenplay, the "Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven" quotation is given to Milton rather than Lomax.
caption: Eugène Delacroix's depiction of Milton dictating Paradise Lost; Milton's line "Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heav'n" is used in the screenplay.
exif: {}