Bruce Feiler - Where God Was Born, Abraham, Walking The Bible

Your Life Would Make a Great Movie
Monday, February 26, 2007

Final results are not in yet (my sister wasn't watching live...) but I seem to have come out on top, along with several others in our annual, high-stakes Oscar pool. We heavily weighted Best Picture, and you had to nail that to win.

With that in mind, I thought I would link to this story I saw a few weeks back that has special echo. Maybe it's because I've been spending a lot of time talking with folks in the entertainment business about turning some of my books into film or television projects, but this story struck me as hilarious. My first experience came in 1991, the month that LEARNING TO BOW was published, about the year I spent teaching English in Japan. Japan, you must recall, was hot at the time, as was DOOGIE HOWSER, M.D., and the person they wanted to play me was Neil Patrick Harris. Sixteen years later he's turned into quite the star, but at the time he seemed like half my age. As to what happened, this reporter's story rings very true:

I recall with embarrassment the first call of this sort I received, not long after that novel came out in '71. It came from a person who represented an outfit I'd never heard of, but he was in Los Angeles, or said he was, anyway, and that was mighty close to Hollywood, wasn't it? That fellow actually came to my house and drank my beer and talked two hours about our movie, and everything he said sounded delicious. He left saying that I would soon receive a firm offer from his group.

So I celebrated. I told the neighbors. I called friends. I wrote letters to the family. I told the mail carrier when he came by, and anybody else who'd listen, that my book would soon be a movie.

The fellow from Los Angeles? I never heard from him again.

Even that was not my worst mistake. My worst one was, one day when I was feeling especially needy I sold the film rights to that novel. I wouldn't mind telling you how much I got, but this story is already sad enough. Anybody with an ounce of business sense would have sold only an option, but selling the rights was a mistake I hadn't made yet, so I added it to my list.

Since then the rights to my story, over which I have no control, have been resold three or four times, and every new owner has had a script and made plans to start filming in the spring. If I ever hear that they really have started, I probably won't believe it.

My observation over 35 years is that the closer to the West Coast you get, the harder it is to hear the truth about turning books into films.

Labels: Books

Posted by B Feiler at 7:01 AM
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