Halesowen author wins Hollwood movie deal and linking up with Guillermo Del Toro

Feb 8 2009 Lorne Jackson, Sunday Mercury

DAVID Moody has no need to be broody any more.

Thanks to the magic of the worldwide web, his career has gone from catastrophe to cockahoop.

The Halesowen banker struggled for years to hit the big time as a horror novelist.

But his books – which imagine world-wide catastrophes and disasters – were met with shrugs of indifference from the reading public.

That forced him to set up a website, where browsers downloaded his work for free.

Which sounds like a no-no for any aspiring novelist.

Yet the crafty move led to major players from Hollywood getting in touch.

Now he’s set to see his latest yarn, Hater, adapted into a major motion picture.

“I honestly can’t tell you the exact root that got everything to this stage,” grins a dazed David. “The first I knew, I was sitting round my house in the summer of 2006.

“My latest self-published book, Hater, was doing OK. The feed-back was positive, and I was cool with that.

“Then this e-mail came through to me, claiming to be from a production company in Los Angeles, that wanted to talk about film rights for the book.

“I didn’t believe a word of it. I phoned round everybody who I thought might be winding me up, but it turned out to be genuine.

“So I got back in touch, and everything has come from that.

“It’s the defining moment of my life.”

The movie version of Hater, which is now in pre-production, will be produced by Guillermo Del Toro, the director of such international hits as Pan’s Labyrinth and the Hellboy franchise.

Del Toro is a huge fan of Moody’s work. He has been quoted as saying: “Hater will haunt you long after you read the last page.”

The director of the film is Juan Antonio Bayona, whose first major hit was the Spanish horror movie, The Orphanage.

His reputation is on the rise in L.A., and this will be his first English language movie.

David’s reputation is also scaling some dizzying heights.