Ray Morton is a writer, film historian, and script consultant.
He has written seven books including KING KONG: THE HISTORY OF A MOVIE ICON and CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND: THE MAKING OF STEVEN SPIELBERG’S CLASSIC FILM. Morton has also written for numerous publications, was a columnist for Script Magazine and Scriptmag.com, and works as a screenplay consultant.
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Ray is one of the primary on-camera contributors to this exciting 6-part television series from Nacelle that chronicles the making of the first six Star Wars movies. Currently streaming on Amazon Prime.
The commentary track Ray recorded for Shout Factory's 2021 Collector's Edition blu-ray of King Kong (1976) has been included (along with many of that disc's other special features) on this brand new 2022 4K restoration of the film from Studio Canal.
Ray is a contributor to this epic new oral history of Superman by Edward Gross
"Superman...connects directly with one of the most basic of human desires: to know that there is more to us than what appears to be on the surface -- that beneath our seemingly ordinay exteriors lies something great and powerful and wonderful. No other superhero character addresses this dream more exactly or directly."
Ray was a guest on the Movie Geeks United podcast discussing the 40th anniversary of Superman III with host Adam Long
"(The producers)...saw Richard Pryor ...on Johnny Carson saying he'd love to be in a Superman movie..."
Ray joined podcast host Erik Martin and fellow guests Phil Tippet and Rich Correll to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the original 1933 King Kong
Ray is a primary contributor to this exciting new survey of the John Wick franchise.
There have been iconic moments in the action movie genre over the years, but nothing has come close to matching the kinetic, balletic gun-fu of the John Wick films.Bestselling authors Mark A. Altman and Edward Gross take you behind the scenes of (the) franchise...while exploring the action classics that led to John Wick as well as the films it inspired.
Ray has conributed a chapter on the 1976 version of King Kong to this new collection of essays on the work of the great Franco-British director John Guillermin, edited by John's widow Mary Guillermin.
“Yeah, I know what to do with the monkey”
With those words, John Guillermin undertook what became the highest profile——as well as one of the most challenging—films of his career: the 1976 remake of King Kong. That Guillermin would helm the redo may have been inevitable, since Kong `76’s producer Dino De Laurentiis was initially inspired to update the 1933 RKO-Radio Pictures classic by the success of Guillermin’s The Towering Inferno.
Ray is a primary contributor to this comprehensive history by Edward Gross and Mark A. Altman.
For the first time ever...telling the entire story of this blockbuster franchise from...the original film through the latest sequels and the new televisions series.
Ray was a guest on the Movie Geeks United podcast, discussing the 1976 version of King Kong.
“The 1976 King Kong was film that did what everyone thinks the original 1933 film did but acutally didn't -- add the Beauty and the Beast element to the Kong legend...”
For twenty years, Ray wrote the “Meet The Reader” column for Scriptmag.com, in which he reflected on the art, craft, and business of screenwriting.
Here's one of his classic columns: "Where the Script Takes You"
