The Lost Boys - Production

Production

The majority of the film was shot in the city of Santa Cruz, California, and the surrounding Santa Cruz Mountains (although, the name of the fictional town is an anagram of Santa Clara). The amusement park scenes were filmed at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. The same park appeared in Brotherhood of Justice (also starring Kiefer Sutherland). The Boardwalk also was seen in the Dirty Harry sequel Sudden Impact, Harold and Maude and Dangerous Minds. The inside of the cave and house were filmed on Stages 12 and 15 at Warner Brothers.

The first screenplay written by Janice Fischer and James Jeremias, was about "a bunch of Goonies-type 5th-6th grade kid vampires", with the Frog Brothers as "chubby 8-year-old Cub Scouts", and Star appearing as a boy instead of a love interest. The original inspiration came from James Jeremias, who caught upon the notion that Peter Pan could fly, visited Wendy and her brothers at night, and never grew old. The simple notion that Peter Pan was a vampire was the genesis for the story. In the first draft of the script, the character of David, later played by Kiefer Sutherland, was originally named Peter, other characters also had names from the Peter Pan story. In the final draft, many name changes were made, but originally - the two brothers were Michael and John (which was later changed to Sam) and the mother's name was Wendy. The most quintessential nod to the Pan story is the dog, Nanook - inspired by the character Nana the dog. The Grandfather character was never a part of the original story - but later created in the draft by Jeffrey Boam, who was hired to do the final rewrite of The Lost Boys. The Frog Brothers Edgar and Alan are named after the Gothic author, Edgar Allan Poe.

Executive producer Richard Donner originally intended to direct the movie himself, but as production languished, he moved on to Lethal Weapon (1987) — and eventually hired Joel Schumacher, crediting his wife, producer Lauren Shuler Donner for the idea. Joel Schumacher hated the material and averred that he would only sign on if he could change the characters to teenagers, believing this would be sexier and more interesting.

Schumacher later remembered his experience making the film:

We really didn't know what we were doing then! (laughs) We made it up as we went along. The studio was incredibly patient and supportive considering they'd never heard of Kiefer Sutherland, or Jason Patric, or Jamie Gertz, or Corey Haim... it was another big chance taken by a studio. We were very lucky. A lot of people at the studio didn't think you could mix horror and humor.