- Upon graduating from USC Film School, David Veloz had recently promised his wife that he would quit writing and they would move out of Los Angeles.
With a couple of good screenplays under his belt, and having the sensibilities to write extreme material that still retained its humanity. Veloz was contacted by producers Jane Hamsher and Don Murphy, who offered him the job of rewriting a screenplay for Oliver Stone.
The screenplay, "Natural Born Killers" (NBK), was based on an original script by Quentin Tarantino, and was about the media and America's infatuation with a serial killer couple, Veloz, Stone, and Richard Rutowski significantly expanded and modified the script into a satirical condemnation of media violence.
After the critical and box office success of Natural Born Killers, Veloz became one of Hollywood's most sought-after screenwriters, he would leverage his success into many opportunities, writing scripts for Stone, Luis Mandoki, and Ridley Scott.
Veloz would work with Hamsher and Murphy again on his next project, which would also mark his directorial debut. The resulting film was "Permanent Midnight", an adaptation of Jerry Stahl's autobiographical book, starring Ben Stiller. The movie, which would go on to make $1.2 million domestically, later became a cult classic.
Veloz's next feature was "Behind Enemy Lines," a big-budget war/action movie starring Gene Hackman and Owen Wilson.
- IMDb mini biography by: F.J. Trescothik
- SpouseKandeyce Jorden (divorced)
- Graduated from USC School of Cinema-Television (1991)
- Aside from his produced works, Veloz had worked on several projects that were never made:
- "Spidertown", a love story set in the South Bronx for Columbia Pictures.
- A project with producers Jane Hamsher and Don Murphy called "Gingersnaps", which had Dwight Yoakam attached.
- "The Bath", a surreal examination, in the vein of Altered States (1980), of how violent behavior is learned or inbred.
- "Lucky Strike", a true story of a team of international jet thieves who heist a big bird and then look to the black market that was to be produced by Scott Free Productions.
- A remake of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) that was to be directed by Oliver Stone.
- "Tell Me Something", a pitch to Miramax.
- "The Crash Detectives", a project that was to be directed by Barry Levinson.
- "Thunder Roads", a dramatic show for the USA Network about five delinquent teens on the Mexican border who "become reluctant arms of the law".
- On Natural Born Killers (1994): The work on this film was no different for me. It was my first produced screenplay and I'm very proud to have worked on this film.
- I see the violence in Natural Born Killers (1994) as comical or surreal, what a lot of people have called 'MTV on drugs'.
- For me, focusing on the evil and the violence of these characters was like examining the landscape of the darker side of man's nature.
- I don't think kids should see Natural Born Killers (1994). But in the end, I think this is a movie that has a powerful message about our world. This is not a movie meant to incite violence . . . but one meant to reflect upon it.
- It was about taking a look at the harsher side of society. I didn't just delve into evil and violence, but I also made the story more romantic.
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