Essays

Thanks to everyone who has written to me about the ODD THOMAS movie after seeing it via view-on-demand or on DVD. Two have been negative, but many hundreds have given it five stars. As you know if you read my opinion here more than a year ago, I think Stephen Sommers did a terrific job, as did the lead actors. With only a 25-million-dollar budget, in spite of an epic crisis midway through, he delivered a movie that looks like it cost three times as much, and the film is as faithful to the book as any film can be.

The biggest question I get is “Why didn’t this receive major theatrical distribution?” If I set out to fully answer that, I would probably deliver a book-length manuscript and would, toward the end, be raving incoherently in language so offensive as to burn the ears off a demon. Let me just say that Steve Sommers is a good man, honorable and smart and kind, with integrity to burn–which makes him a rare fish in the dark sea in which his art requires him to swim.

– Dean