“The Life of Chuck” is a new movie based on the Stephen King novella of the same name. The movie was shot around Mobile and Baldwin counties and comes out this weekend. Scott Lumpkin is the Executive Producer of the movie. 

“‘The Life of Chuck’ movie hits everybody in a different way. I’ve seen it three times, and each time it means something entirely different. 

The story and script are nonlinear. The first time I read the script, I wondered how I was going to break this down? What did I even read? Then I realized this was just a story of a guy’s life flashing before his eyes. All of the things that he imagines are a sort of grander vision of ‘what should I have done?’ It’s just him appreciating those moments, those beats that glow. Those are the ones that you wished you had spent an extra minute soaking up. 

Shooting this movie was art imitating life, and life imitating art. The world was barely out of COVID when the Screen Actors Guild went on strike in 2023. That’s when they said ‘The Life of Chuck’ was ready to go. We’re making a movie during this? How do you make a puzzle even harder? But the script works. As much as ‘The Life of Chuck’ feels like a post-apocalyptic film, our industry was almost in this sort of post-apocalyptic survival mode. 

We shot the movie in Mobile and Baldwin counties. I think I’ve done every one of Director Mike Flanagan’s movies–a lot of them shot in Alabama. It’s always a puzzle of how to make the movie and fit it into the box that I promised the studio, the buyer, or the distributor. That was difficult for ‘Chuck’ because the world was on strike. People were afraid to negotiate about certain things. I made a promise that we could deliver the movie in this time for this money; I had to juggle things around and fit them back in the box. 

My daughter, Lilly, has a few lines in the movie, and I took her to the premiere in LA. She’s 17 and knows every actor in the room. We walked the red carpet and went to the afterparty and the celebrations of the movie.  It was so fun to watch this through her eyes. We also did a marathon of everything to see and do in LA. This is Lily’s ‘Life of Chuck’ moment right now–she’ll remember it for the rest of her life. This is my reward for making the movie. 

I shoot movies around the world. The best part is exploring and trying something new. That leads back to Chuck for me. There are moments and experiences that you soak up and hold close–those are the valuable things.

I grew up in Fairhope and hold those memories close, too. We rode our bikes to Gulf Shores and back, taking all the county roads. We even rode to Ft. Morgan, going as far as we could ride. My mom used to joke that we would fish and swim in every cow pond in southern Baldwin County. They shot one of the Friday the 13ths at Burns Lake. It was an awesome fishing hole, and we later shot the movie ‘Frankenfish’ in the same place.  

Making movies started in Fairhope. I grew up with a camera in my hand. I was the yearbook photographer at Fairhope Middle and High School. It evolved into loading film into motion picture cameras and making movies. After high school, I worked cameras with low-budget films and commercials in Mobile and learned how to be a production manager and a problem solver.  

I’ve made 60 movies over the last 30 years.  I just finished an adventure story in the woods with David Ayer in New Zealand. There are a lot of awesome things about that, but the sacrifice was not being able to come home. I’m on the back nine of life; the constant is still the puzzle, but I’ve gotten pickier about my puzzles. I need to like the story, and hopefully, we are shooting in a cool place. I also need to like the people I work with. I’ve gotten a lot more protective of the people on the team and how I assemble the puzzles. I need to stack it to succeed and deliver because we’re only as good as our next movie.

I also have a grass-is-greener problem. In my other life, I would’ve skateboarded longer and become Mike McGill. I would’ve played guitar better than Tom Petty. I would’ve already hiked the Appalachian Trail and probably climbed Everest twice. When you are younger, you take more risks–it’s almost like you’re empowered by not knowing what you don’t know. As you get older, you know what it feels like to fall down, so you’re more careful about not falling. Today my pickiness about projects is a product of learning from those falls. Just like skateboarding, but through the film industry: fall down, get up, make a change. Fall down, get up, make a change, and then you learn the trick  But that’s where I connected through ‘Chuck’–I’ve spent my life chasing all these things, but what are the ones that mean the most?”

Scott