Among the handful of screenwriters whose films have earned over $2 billion at the box office, Steven de Souza has a long resume of successful films, including Die Hard and Die Hard 2, The Running Man, and Laura Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life. He joined Richard Syrett (Twitter) to discuss his remarkable career in Hollywood. The first Hollywood job de Souza landed was writing for the primetime television series, The Six Million Dollar Man, a show he described as a cross between sci-fi and a police procedural. He recalled being asked to convert a sci-fi/horror movie script he had written into a 2-part episode for the show. According to de Souza, Paramount Pictures offered to transition him from television work to feature films.
He recommended budding screenwriters try writing scenes out of order, especially if they have writer's block. The first scene de Souza wrote for Die Hard was the one where Bonnie Bedelia's Holly Gennero McClane character confronts the villainous Hans Gruber portrayed by the late Alan Rickman (in his first feature film role). "The most important thing in a genre picture is the villain," he explained, noting a great villain requires a great hero to overcome him. People confuse protagonist and antagonist with hero and villain, but often the protagonist is the villain, de Souza added. He also commented on 'Hollywood bookkeeping' which somehow shows only two of the 22 movies he has made as profitable despite enormous box office hauls.
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Followed by veteran UFO researcher, Preston Dennett, who began investigating UFOs and the paranormal in 1986. He shared original cases of people who've had extensive UFO encounters. These firsthand accounts cover the gamut of the UFO phenomenon: sightings, face-to-face meetings with ETs, onboard UFO encounters, and whistleblower stories.
Dennett recounted details relayed to him by a school teacher who claimed to encounter a 15-foot tall mantis-like ET while jogging with her dog around 4:30 am in the town of O'Fallon, Illinois in 2006. The dog suddenly stopped and stared ahead into the darkness. She described what she initially saw as "a man walking on stilts down the center of the road and fast... big ten foot strides," he reported. When it walked under a streetlight, the witness saw that it had features of a praying mantis with a large head and stick-like body and limbs, Dennett continued, noting the creature did not appear to notice her. She followed after it until it turned into a cornfield, he added.
Another wondrous account involved a young Canadian couple who were expecting their first child. The pregnancy was confirmed by a blood test from her doctor, Dennett explained, adding the woman's belly grew, they could hear the baby's heartbeat, and feel kicking around four months. About seven months into the pregnancy the couple drove to see friends and along the way lost track of time. They arrived much earlier than they should have and were disoriented, Dennett disclosed. Shortly after a bizarre electrical storm whipped up around their house, and the next morning the woman woke up groggy and no longer felt pregnant, he revealed. According to Dennett, a midwife and doctor confirmed the woman was no longer pregnant. He suggested an alien abduction might explain the missing fetus.