Live-Action Knights of the Zodiac Writers Josh Campbell & Matt Stuecken

Screenwriters Josh Campbell and Matt Stuecken, best known for their work on 10 Cloverfield Lane, are the minds behind the movie's script. Having worked on multiple projects in the past, the duo came together to bring Seiya's character journey on screen in this brand-new story. Both Campbell and Stuecken extensively researched the Saint Seiya material and brought forth their vision of Seiya and transform his tale into a universal experience.

How long ago did you start working on Knights of the Zodiac?

Josh Campbell: About two years ago. Yoshi, the main producer, was on the project for 10 years and they were doing the animated series simultaneously. There was a lot of different stuff going on when we came on. It was our job to figure out what the movie was supposed to be in terms of all these other things that were going on simultaneously.

What's your process for doing the script?

Matt Stuecken: The best ones are ones where we start with character. We identify the character and then we start asking “What's the core of his emotional journey or her emotional journey?” Before you even talk about the plot, and all the action, it's trying to find a an emotional through line that's going to carry us all the way through the story. With all of the manga and the anime, we know we have the action covered. We know we're going to have world building and fight choreography. It's asking who's our main character and why do we care? That is the backbone of everything.

This is your fourth project together with two more upcoming. Can you talk about this working relationship and how it's changed over the years?

Matt Stuecken: When we initially got together, we were both writing separately and wrote from different points of view. I had worked predominantly in production, with a studio-oriented company. Josh was more indie. I wouldn't say we fought a lot, but we argued a lot. It was great because then you're forced to justify everything you're doing, the why of it, and in the end those two different points of view came together. Our first screenplay became 10 Cloverfield Lane, and it worked so we continued to do it.

Josh Campbell: We grew up as writers along the way. Early on, Matt understood structure better and knew what the marketplace was looking for. We were also writing from instinct, and we got real lucky our first script did really well. It wanted to write itself, but over the years we've got really good and we have a very specific process when we're looking at a story to try to figure out if it's a movie. If we don't figure it out, usually it means we're not the ones for the project.

Is this movie its own story?

Matt Stuecken: It's an original movie, but it is very much inspired by the manga and the original anime. As much as we would have loved to put every knight in it, and every story, you just can't. There's just too much. We want this to be accessible to folks who don't know the underlying property, and if you were to throw everything in there, you don't have enough real estate to give everyone the proper introduction. Thankfully our collaborators were on the same page with us and focusing on one key character. You can't make The Avengers before you make Iron Man. Our hope is that this is the first one and we get to dip our toes into all those great characters.

What was the biggest struggle of adapting an anime into one feature length film?

Josh Campbell: I think anime specifically have great raw emotions and dynamic kinetic energy and storytelling. You've got to make sure you're getting those two things. That's more about the heart of the story than the visuals. I'll leave the visuals up to Tomek, who did an incredible job. When you're watching it, it feels like watching an anime. Emotionally, you got to be able to hit those critical pressure points in people's hearts accurately because that's what anime and manga does. It just goes right to the heart of the matter, and then it's got to feel like it's moving. We had both of those things in mind the whole time we were writing it. We didn't write it to just be flash and action, but we knew it had to keep moving while trying to get these touch points.

What was it about Tomek's style that made him the right director for this project?

Matt Stuecken: When we had our first conversation with him when we were getting involved in the project, he told us how he would translate that anime style into live-action. It was so clear that he had a vision for it, that he knew exactly what it wanted to be. When we started seeing clips and sequences cut together, he had the clear vision and he delivered.

Josh Campbell: I think that's because he's a true genuine fan of the genre. He didn't come into it as a guy who just wanted to direct a movie. He came into it as a guy who specifically wanted to direct an anime movie, live-action style.

Matt Stuecken: It's technique and heart. You can feel it both in the sequences.

How did you guys work with Toei and Yoshi in terms of crafting the story? Were there any earlier drafts, or a couple of ideas that became the story we're going to see?

Josh Campbell: It was collaborative and there were a lot of people involved. This franchise has such a long history. Toei, Mr. Kurumada, Sony, and Tomek had a lot of thoughts. It was a very collaborative process, and there was a series of scripts to get to where we were. Some movies want to be carved out of stone all at once, and they are what they are. Other movies are iterative, and we've done it both ways. It can work both ways as long as you have collaborators working in good faith, and we did. They were really good partners.

We talked about the importance of that emotional core that's going to bring the audience in from beginning to end. Why do we care about this property and Seiya's journey?

Matt Stuecken: Because he's such a great character from the get-go. You have this orphan and the only one person he's ever loved in his life is his sister. Then she gets taken away from him when he's just a kid. He grows up feeling so lonely and in that loneliness, he builds walls around himself because he's afraid of letting someone else in for fear of getting hurt again. Then someone comes to him and tell him he's special and he has this extraordinary gift. “I need you to help save the world” and he's like, “Save the world? The world's done nothing but turn its back on me.” I think you can latch onto that journey, be in his shoes, and feel that. I think we've all had those moments where we feel alone and we don't have any allies, no one's in our corner. But turning your back is not going to solve problems. You have to step up and perform. I think it's a universal story and one of the things that makes Knights of the Zodiac timeless.

Who were you aiming for the story you created?

Josh Campbell: It's a great question, but it's kind of a producer question. I'm happy to answer it from our point of view. I think what Matt just said, which is find the universal story in the through line and make sure it's accessible. You can tell a story for hardcore fans that's also accessible to a general audience, but you have to go into it knowing that's what you want to do. In a way, we might have been the right writers for this, because if we were hardcore Knights of the Zodiac fans coming in, we might not have had the perspective to understand how to tell the story that would open itself up to everyone.

Matt Stuecken: I think if you know something and love it so much, you just assume certain things about it that have already tapped into. Coming into it without being totally immersed inside of it, allowed us to help the producers and the director to focus into what makes it universal.