Barry Watson, who played big brother Matt Camden on The CW’s 7th Heaven, has joined Bad Survivor as an executive producer, The Hollywood Reporter has learned. The Gossip Girl actor is late to the party, but comes with a purpose: Watson’s here to help Alex Dvorak’s short film secure distribution, and hopefully, to adapt Bad Survivor for television.
Bad Survivor, a film about a teen overcoming cancer, is currently on the festival circuit. Inspired by Dvorak’s experiences on her first day of remission at 19 years old, Bad Survivor premiered at the Slamdance Film Festival in Los Angeles and went on to screen at the Washington D.C. International Film Festival and the Big Apple Film Festival, among others. It next heads to the Anchorage Film Fest; Bad Survivor is still seeking an Oscar-qualifying win.
Watson is a Hodgkin’s Lymphoma survivor, and he and Dvorak are both Teen Cancer America ambassadors. Teen Cancer America creates and advocates for more authentic media representation of adolescent and young adult patients.
“It’s no surprise this film’s been a hit on the festival circuit,” Watson told THR. “Bad Survivor takes the cancer story we think we know and burns it to the ground in the best, darkest, funniest way. It nails the strange, isolating ride of survivorship as a young person with biting humor and brutal honesty. It’s a story for every bad survivor out there, and I’m thrilled to join this project as an EP.”
“Barry Watson joining Bad Survivor is a dream,” Dvorak said. “As a survivor, he’s putting a huge stamp of approval on our mission. His vast experience and creative instincts have launched us into an exciting new chapter for Bad Survivor, and we’re just getting started.”
Dvorak stars in, wrote, executive produced and co-directed Bad Survivor (with Katie North), which is billed asa “bold, honest, and defiantly non-conformist look at the life of a teenager who can’t get herself to play the part of the inspirational cancer survivor.”
The film follows Alex (the character), who, after being “broken up with” by her oncologists, is “ripped out of the hospital life she finds cozy and sent home to her multicultural family,” the synopsis continues. “But Alex doesn’t ring a bell to celebrate or organize a multi-million dollar fundraiser. Instead, she begs for her morphine drip, clings to her radiation mask as a safety blanket, and plays heart monitor beeps in her headphones to fall asleep. She’s a bad survivor, and everybody knows it.”
