Butler's Script Sale of the Week...
February 11th, 2002
Still more fantasy sales this week: the trilogy of Phil Pullman novels going under the name HIS DARK MATERIALS and MR. MYSTERIOUS in which Vin Diesel may star (also known as HARRY POTTER ON STEROIDS). I'm not saying that these won't turn out to be great flicks, but producers do realize that HARRY POTTER and LORD OF THE RINGS had huge built in audiences before they became films, don't they?
Any Steven Soderbergh project in development gets the nod from me, and so it goes for the conspiracy drama THE INFORMANT.
Is is possible that BRAD PITT WANTS MY GIRLFRIEND could be as excellent a script as BEING
JOHN MALKOVICH? No, I didn't thinks so.
I'm happy to see crime writer Michael Connelly has sold the film rights to his latest novel CHASING THE DIME. Connelly is the best crime fiction scribe out there as far as I'm concerned. I can't wait to read the book and I'm really curious to see how his stuff translates to the screen.
In fact, CHASING THE DIME would have been my Sale of The Week if I hadn't read about the UNTITLED LAWRENCE WRIGHT project in development.
We knew it had to happen eventually. There's no way the tragic event of our time would never be retold on celluloid, but the news that Industry Entertainment has optioned Wright's New Yorker article about John O'Neill, the head of security at the World Trade Center who was killed along with thousands of others on September 11th, just left a
really bad taste in my mouth.
Remember when the towers fell and Hollywood scrambled to rearrange its release and production slates so as not to offend a scarred nation? It was a knee jerk reaction, spurred on more by a potential loss of dollars than any heightened sensitivity. It's the bottom line that matters in Tinsletown - always has, always will. It's why the release of BLACKHAWK DOWN was pushed forward to take advantage of the post Afghan ass-kicking
patriotic fervor sweeping America. It's also why the initially delayed Arnie terrorist-bashing flick COLLATERAL DAMAGE is now being released.
But there's an important difference that sets apart the fact based military events of BLACKHAWK DOWN and the cathartic thrills of a Schwarzenegger revenge actioner from a film recounting the events of 9/11. That difference is distance. In the case of BLACKHAWK DOWN, the distance is 8 years and a military confrontation that took place in a far-away land
that, let's face it, the majority of movie-goers probably wouldn't recall too clearly. In the case of COLLATERAL DAMAGE, that distance is fiction.
The UNTITLED WRIGHT PROJECT is just too close. Even though the tale of former FBI head of Counter-Terrorism John O'Neill, who, after years of futile preaching about the dangers of Osama bin Laden, takes a job as head of security for the World Trade Center on September 10th sounds interesting, it's still barely 5 months since that tragic day.
Stories like O'Neills and all the other heroes of 9/11 do not belong in the hands of filmmakers, not yet anyway. For now and for the foreseeable future they belong to the journalists - the people who can spend the time doing the research and producing the articles and books that try to get to the heart of that day with both sensitivity and professionalism. We are all still trying to understand.
Movies, by their vary nature, distort the truth. The cinematic tale must be properly crafted to take full advantage of the narrative form. This requires leaving things out and making other things up (see A BEAUTIFUL MIND). In twenty years we will need to see the Hollywood version, to remind ourselves and future generations of the consequences of a world gone awry. In the meantime, however, the events of 9/11 and all those affected by them deserve much much more.
It's just too damn soon.
--Edward Butler
Any Steven Soderbergh project in development gets the nod from me, and so it goes for the conspiracy drama THE INFORMANT.
Is is possible that BRAD PITT WANTS MY GIRLFRIEND could be as excellent a script as BEING
JOHN MALKOVICH? No, I didn't thinks so.
I'm happy to see crime writer Michael Connelly has sold the film rights to his latest novel CHASING THE DIME. Connelly is the best crime fiction scribe out there as far as I'm concerned. I can't wait to read the book and I'm really curious to see how his stuff translates to the screen.
In fact, CHASING THE DIME would have been my Sale of The Week if I hadn't read about the UNTITLED LAWRENCE WRIGHT project in development.
We knew it had to happen eventually. There's no way the tragic event of our time would never be retold on celluloid, but the news that Industry Entertainment has optioned Wright's New Yorker article about John O'Neill, the head of security at the World Trade Center who was killed along with thousands of others on September 11th, just left a
really bad taste in my mouth.
Remember when the towers fell and Hollywood scrambled to rearrange its release and production slates so as not to offend a scarred nation? It was a knee jerk reaction, spurred on more by a potential loss of dollars than any heightened sensitivity. It's the bottom line that matters in Tinsletown - always has, always will. It's why the release of BLACKHAWK DOWN was pushed forward to take advantage of the post Afghan ass-kicking
patriotic fervor sweeping America. It's also why the initially delayed Arnie terrorist-bashing flick COLLATERAL DAMAGE is now being released.
But there's an important difference that sets apart the fact based military events of BLACKHAWK DOWN and the cathartic thrills of a Schwarzenegger revenge actioner from a film recounting the events of 9/11. That difference is distance. In the case of BLACKHAWK DOWN, the distance is 8 years and a military confrontation that took place in a far-away land
that, let's face it, the majority of movie-goers probably wouldn't recall too clearly. In the case of COLLATERAL DAMAGE, that distance is fiction.
The UNTITLED WRIGHT PROJECT is just too close. Even though the tale of former FBI head of Counter-Terrorism John O'Neill, who, after years of futile preaching about the dangers of Osama bin Laden, takes a job as head of security for the World Trade Center on September 10th sounds interesting, it's still barely 5 months since that tragic day.
Stories like O'Neills and all the other heroes of 9/11 do not belong in the hands of filmmakers, not yet anyway. For now and for the foreseeable future they belong to the journalists - the people who can spend the time doing the research and producing the articles and books that try to get to the heart of that day with both sensitivity and professionalism. We are all still trying to understand.
Movies, by their vary nature, distort the truth. The cinematic tale must be properly crafted to take full advantage of the narrative form. This requires leaving things out and making other things up (see A BEAUTIFUL MIND). In twenty years we will need to see the Hollywood version, to remind ourselves and future generations of the consequences of a world gone awry. In the meantime, however, the events of 9/11 and all those affected by them deserve much much more.
It's just too damn soon.
--Edward Butler
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