This month's issue of The Hollywood Reporter features a great behind the scenes look at Beasts of the Southern Wild.
Including this anecdote from Director Benh Zeitlin, who was traveling from New Orleans to Austin for a screening of his short Glory at Seain 2008 when his car was rear ended by a drunk driver.
"It was 5 in the morning, and we were at a stoplight, and the driver was drunk and ran into us at full speed," he recalls. "I was in the back seat, and the collision collapsed it into the front seat, like an accordion. It turned my leg backward and shattered my pelvis, and I had to move back to New York for eight months. And that was when I started writing Beasts."
Inspired by the stage play, Juicy and Delicious, written by childhood friend, Lucy Alibar, Benh and Lucy spent the next year hammering out the script that would become Beasts of the Southern Wild. A year and a half later, the film was heading into pre-production.
The piece continues:
"Nearly four years after the car accident that launched him on this strange and magical journey, he (BZ) was whisked onto a plane where he fell into a profound sleep, effectively waking in a theater where he was able to see his work before an audience for the first time.
"People went crazy," he recalls. "But I thought, maybe that's the way they always behaved, because I'd never been to a premiere before."
Read the full article from The Hollywood Reporter here.