This Sallies grad helped craft new 'Robin Hood' film starring Jamie Foxx

After two decades writing scripts in Los Angeles, Salesianum graduate David James Kelly finally has his first major credit.

As co-writer of the new action-adventure remake "Robin Hood," he helped craft the lines coming out of the mouths of stars Taron Egerton and Jamie Foxx.

Even though the film has been savaged by critics, Kelly is proud of his work. And forgive him if he's not paying too much attention to their biting words. He's already hard at work on his newest project — and it's a doozy.

He's penning the script for a film adaptation of Ron Chernow's best-selling 2017 biography of Ulysses S. Grant entitled "Grant."

And there are some Hollywood heavy-hitters attached: Steven Spielberg is slated to direct with Leonardo DiCaprio expected to play the 18th U.S. president.

It will be a full-circle moment for Kelly, who became hooked on films as a kid living in New Castle's Penn Acres neighborhood.

Ryan Phillippe's neighbor

It was there where he first saw Spielberg's "Jaws" and became infatuated with movies, eventually acting and directing both in Salesianum's theater program and at the Wilmington Drama League.

"'Jaws' changed my life. Everything kind of flows from there," Kelly says. "It had a very understandable conflict and narrative to it. Even as a little kid you can understand a giant shark eating people. I was just mugged by it. That was it."

Growing up, the film world seemed so far away from his working-class neighborhood.

But when he was 14, he watched as his neighbor from two blocks away, actor Ryan Phillippe, broke into television before making the leap into film a few years later.

All of a sudden, landing in Hollywood wasn't a laughable dream, but rather an attainable goal.

"Being in Delaware, as I would imagine it might be in Iowa or something, it seemed so far-flung," says Kelly, 41. He went on to graduate from Rutgers University's Mason Gross School of the Arts, majoring in acting. "Hollywood and Los Angeles to me was something I only saw in movies like everybody else.

"So it was a thrill seeing someone local achieve on that level. I remember my folks and I following stories about Ryan in The News Journal and stories like his do inspire. If someone just a few blocks from you can do it, it gets demystified."

Since Phillippe is three years older, they hung in different crowds in their childhood days and while he did spot Phillippe at a party once in California, they still never have met.

More: After a social media plea, actor Ryan Phillippe falls silent about Delaware truck hunt

Welcome to Los Angeles. Sleep on the floor

After graduating college, Kelly immediately moved to Los Angeles, literally sleeping on the floor of the only person he knew in town for six months before making enough money bagging groceries at a Ralphs supermarket to get a bed of his own.

For the next 20 years or so, he toiled in the City of Angels writing spec scripts and short films while doing rewrites and other odd writing jobs.

"I'm one of those guys that has been writing and working a lot, but have not had a produced screenplay. It wasn't until 2008 when I was writing consistently as a screenwriter," he says. "It was a long and winding path, but all of those experiences were invaluable. Sometimes you can't see it at the time. But I never had a prolonged period of doubt."

From The Black List to working for Leo

The regular writing jobs came in 2008 because the year before his screenplay "Cold City" landed on The Black List, an annual insiders list of the best screenplays that were not produced.

Kelly soon got representation and his work was beginning to make it to the major studios, including the "Robin Hood" production company Appian Way Productions, founded by DiCaprio in 2004.

After another decade of work, he finally got his first credit when he was brought on to work on the "Robin Hood" script, which had already been penned by screenwriter Ben Chandler for Appian Way and Lionsgate, the film's distribution studio.

The president of production for Appian, producer Jennifer Davisson ("The Revenant"), had worked with Kelly on a few films that never made it, such as "Akira" and "The Deep Blue Good-by."

Kelly spent more than a full year working on "Robin Hood," starting in December 2016.

By the time shooting started on "Robin Hood" a year later, Davisson and director Otto Bathurst invited Kelly to travel with the production team to Hungary, Croatia and France, penning some lines and scenes on the fly as needed.

An interrogation scene between Foxx, who plays Little John, and Ben Mendelsohn, who portrays the Sheriff of Nottingham, is one of those scenes Kelly wrote on set.

Foxx had come to them with an idea of having his character have a face-to-face scene of dialogue with his archnemesis instead of only leaning on battles for their encounters. The result is a complex scene with four pages of dialogue, shot in a dungeon in an old fort about 1-1/2 hours outside Budapest.

"There was real electricity on the set that day because it was the first time those two actors and characters were together," Kelly reveals. 

More:Bradley Cooper wrote 'A Star is Born' with this Delawarean

Walking the red carpet for the first time

It was Kelly's first up-close-and-personal experience making a big-budget film — "Robin Hood" reportedly cost just under $100 million. And last month, he had another first.

After all those ink-stained nights working on projects that never broke big, he and his wife Evangeline went in front of the cameras for the first time, walking the "Robin Hood" red carpet at the film's glitzy New York City premiere in Lincoln Square.

While it was a big moment for Kelly, he saw it as more of an occasion for his wife, who had been by his side during the ups and downs that many in Hollywood experience.

"It was very special and to be able to share that night with my wife — my rock, my muse," Kelly says. "It was the result of all those 16-hour days at the desk and many months overseas away from her, with her holding down the fort. It was more a gift I wanted to give to her than it was for me.

"As for me, I wake up humble and go to sleep grateful."

His parents, David and Barbara, still live in Delaware. David worked as a pipe insulator and private contractor and Barbara was a hairdresser and homemaker. They now enjoy their retirement in their Hockessin home.

Video:'Robin Hood' gets a reboot and awesome sidekick

Goodbye 'Robin,' hello, 'Grant' 

It was while working on "Robin Hood" that Kelly first caught wind of the "Grant" project. 

He was riding with Davisson to the set in Hungary when he overheard her mention the project to another Appian executive.

He saw a golden opportunity and jumped.

"I did something I rarely, honestly, do," Kelly says. "I said, 'If at all possible, I'd like to throw my hat into the ring for that,' because I've always had a layman's interest in Grant and he's popped up in other things I had written."

She agreed to send him a galley proof of "Grant" before its release, and Kelly read it at night after spending his days working on the "Robin Hood" set. 

He got the job.

And he's since met with both Spielberg and DiCaprio about what would be his second credit in Hollywood.

That's if he can control himself while talking to Spielberg and keep his questions about "Jaws" to a minimum.

"When we met, I wanted to ask about everything  — 'Jaws' and 'Raiders [of the Lost Ark]' and 'Saving Private Ryan,'" he says with a laugh. He didn't do it, he adds.

When will he get that opportunity? It's unclear. Details on a "Grant" timetable have not yet been revealed.

Either way, Kelly promises he'll be prepared: "I'm definitely keeping track of all those questions for when the moment presents itself."

Contact Ryan Cormier of The News Journal at rcormier@delawareonline.com or (302) 324-2863. Follow him on Facebook (@ryancormier), Twitter (@ryancormier) and Instagram (@ryancormier).