"My friend mentioned the number 23 enigma, which led me to read authors such as futurist Robert Anton Wilson, who wrote things like The Illuminatus Trilogy," recalls Phillips, who earned his first screenplay sale with "The Number 23". "I began to open up to the numerical phenomena, as well as memory repression, hypnosis and the power of suggestion. I decided to incorporate all these subjects into a story."
Phillips’ first instinct was to incorporate these ideas and the number 23 into a political thriller. "But I am not by nature political. I enjoy real events, real people," he says. "I came up with an idea that concerns a man who reads a book that mirrors his life and reminds him of distant images and events. I needed a title for that book, and decided to bring the ‘number 23’ into the story. I wanted audiences to start thinking for themselves about how something like this enigma could find meaning in their own lives."
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