Butler's Script Sale of the Week...
July 7th, 2001
Hollywood took it easy this week when it came to script acquisitions. But now that the strike fears have abated and the 4th of July festivities have ceased I'm sure we'll see things pick up a bit next week.
Out of the few sales reported this week DNA Film's acquisition of the action/comedy spec LEONARDO SECRET AGENT is definitely the strangest. The script by short film director Jonny Kurzman (TIGERS!!, 1998) offers the premise that in addition to being a reknowned scholar and painter, Leonardo Da Vinci was also a secret agent! Kurzman's script "Night Of Light" won the top prize at the 2000 Rhode Island Film Fest, which is a good sign that the guy can write. And I certainly can't fault LEONARDO SECRET AGENT for being unoriginal. Let's hope DNA can pull it off.
The other sale of note this week was the Goodman/Rosen Prods. acquisition of the rights to the popular Sega video game CRAZY TAXI to which director Richard Donner (LETHAL WEAPON 1 - 4) is attached.
How they are going to build a story around the game in which a Russian taxi driver in NYC must deliver passengers as fast as he can by any means possible is a bit beyond me. At least with Donner at the helm, we have a chance of a story emerging. Unlike the new breed of action hacks (Bay, West, Sena) at least Donner knows what a story is and has the ability to infuse a flick with some sense of personality. And he's not too bad at the ol' action sequences, either.
At any rate, the makers of CRAZY TAXI can rest easy knowing that it'd be quite hard for them to make a worse video game adaptation than TOMB RAIDER (2001). We can all thank Simon West for lowering the bar in that emerging genre.
-- Edward Butler
Out of the few sales reported this week DNA Film's acquisition of the action/comedy spec LEONARDO SECRET AGENT is definitely the strangest. The script by short film director Jonny Kurzman (TIGERS!!, 1998) offers the premise that in addition to being a reknowned scholar and painter, Leonardo Da Vinci was also a secret agent! Kurzman's script "Night Of Light" won the top prize at the 2000 Rhode Island Film Fest, which is a good sign that the guy can write. And I certainly can't fault LEONARDO SECRET AGENT for being unoriginal. Let's hope DNA can pull it off.
The other sale of note this week was the Goodman/Rosen Prods. acquisition of the rights to the popular Sega video game CRAZY TAXI to which director Richard Donner (LETHAL WEAPON 1 - 4) is attached.
How they are going to build a story around the game in which a Russian taxi driver in NYC must deliver passengers as fast as he can by any means possible is a bit beyond me. At least with Donner at the helm, we have a chance of a story emerging. Unlike the new breed of action hacks (Bay, West, Sena) at least Donner knows what a story is and has the ability to infuse a flick with some sense of personality. And he's not too bad at the ol' action sequences, either.
At any rate, the makers of CRAZY TAXI can rest easy knowing that it'd be quite hard for them to make a worse video game adaptation than TOMB RAIDER (2001). We can all thank Simon West for lowering the bar in that emerging genre.
-- Edward Butler
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