Writing ‘John Henry’, the not-quite-a-superhero Hollywood blockbuster
Damon Lindelof crafts a fictional Hollywood blockbuster based on the life of John Henry. Then he adds in the expected ;notes; from the studio, and crafts a perfectly believable script. Pitch us a summer blockbuster based on something very, very unblockbustery, a simple American tall tale. Let’s say, the ballad of folk hero John Henry: the nineteenth-century ex-slave who raced a steam-tunneler through a mountain, won, and perished, the first martyr in the great war twixt Man and Machine. Lindelof, not missing a beat, tongue firmly in cheek but mind fully engaged, dives in—no notes, no pauses, barely stopping for
