Normally I wouldn’t consider this the most newsworthy item in the world, but for some reason I just couldn’t resist that headline. Anyway, according to the Hollywood Reporter, “Producers Steven Siebert and Christian Taylor have optioned the best-selling novel Hick by first-time author Andrea Portes.” It’s a coming-of-age story that “was recently named among the best adult books for high school students by the School Library Journal.” The most curious part of this story is the note that the producers “hope to mold the project with a lead character in the vein of Addie Loggins of Paper Moon and Iris Steensma in Taxi Driver. " Whoa, whoa, time out here. That’s a mold? Addie Loggins, as we recall, was a scrappy little Depression-era con gal. Iris Steensma was a Times Square hooker who blew Harvey Keitel. Might want to narrow down that casting call, folks.
While we’re here, let’s take a look at some other recent script sales of note:
-- Columbia has picked up Battle: Los Angeles, “a huge event movie that can be done at a modest scale,” according to producer Neal Moritz. It focuses on one Marine platoon in the midst of an alien invasion.
-- Fanboys screenwriter and personal friend of the Screengrab Ernie Cline, who has certainly suffered enough, got a bit of good news. He’s sold his script Thundercade to Lake Shore Entertainment. It’s another idea right in Cline’s pop culture wheelhouse, concerning “a video game junkie facing a midlife crisis who learns that a young punk had broken a record he set as a teen. He and two lifelong friends embark on a quest to reclaim his place in video game history and win the world's ultimate gaming championship, Thundercade.” Lest you suspect Cline of ripping of The King of Kong, be advised that Thundercade actually predates the documentary (and with any luck will torpedo the ill-advised fictional remake).
-- And finally one that really hits us where we live. MGM picked up Bobism, “in which a shy college kid learns that his blog will be the basis for a utopian society in 1,000 years. He also finds out that aliens from the future want to kill him and prevent that utopia from happening.” You laugh, but this actually happened to us.