Eyes of Laura Mars (1978) • 40 Years Later

A famous fashion photographer develops a disturbing ability to see through the eyes of a killer.

written by Remy Dean.

Eyes of Laura Mars began life as an 11-page treatment by John Carpenter, who then expanded his initial draft into a screenplay for indie producer Jack Harris, the B Movie legend behind The Blob (1958) who produced Carpenter’s cult classic Dark Star (1974). The project was initially set to be Carpenter’s second movie, with grindhouse favourite Roberta Collins cast in the lead. What a very different film that would have been!

Things changed when another producer, John Peters, got involved and brought along funding from Columbia Pictures. The studio executives insisted on a script rewrite and hired Logan’s Run (1976) writer David Zelag Goodman for the job. They also pushed Carpenter out of the picture, who moved onto making Assault on Precinct 13 (1976), and replaced him with veteran Irvin Kershner, whom they thought would be more reliable (or controllable?) as he was already 25 years into his career.