Butler's Script Sale of the Week...
May 6th, 2001
Was that a collective sigh of relief I heard from southern California or was it just the power going out again? It'll be interesting to see if there's a slowdown in script sales over the next few weeks seeing as how most producers have built themselves a nice little stockpile over the past few months.
Cool sales this week: KILLING PABLO, LE PROFESSIONNEL, and TRUE BELIEVERS.
My pick this week is MGM's acquisition of the soon to be published Robert Crais novel HOSTAGE, which Bruce Willis is attached to star in and produce.
I pick it solely because I'm a Crais fan. I just finished reading his L.A. Requiem and it was great - a highly effective contemporary crime thriller that manages to transcend the genre. Crais writes like Raymond Chandler with a smirk on his face. Hard boiled and funny with plots that don't stop.
And who better to bring a Crais character to life than the smirkmeister himself, Bruce Willis? Willis has yet to make that Chandleresque crime flick that we all know he has inside him. THE LAST BOY SCOUT (1991) started out promising but quickly descended into cheesiness and unbelieveability. STRIKING DISTANCE (1993) was a cruel joke on the movie going public. And did anyone even bother to see LAST MAN STANDING (1996)?
My only fear is that HOSTAGE, about a police negotiator who blames himself for a hostage crisis that goes terribly wrong and is later forced into negotiating for the life of a mob accountant as the mob kidnaps his family may not be the right Crais novel for Willis to adapt. I think I'd much rather see Willis tackle the character of wise-cracking P.I. Elvis Cole from Crais' previous novels.
That being said I haven't read HOSTAGE and won't get the chance until it's published in August of this year. But somebody must think it's a good fit for Willis. Then again, somebody thought STRIKING DISTANCE was, too.
So for the time being I'll put my faith in Willis and Crais, a former scriptwriter for HILL STREET BLUES and CAGNEY AND LACEY who will be adapting his own book for the screen, and claim this as one of my most eagerly anticipated projects of next year.
-- Edward Butler
Cool sales this week: KILLING PABLO, LE PROFESSIONNEL, and TRUE BELIEVERS.
My pick this week is MGM's acquisition of the soon to be published Robert Crais novel HOSTAGE, which Bruce Willis is attached to star in and produce.
I pick it solely because I'm a Crais fan. I just finished reading his L.A. Requiem and it was great - a highly effective contemporary crime thriller that manages to transcend the genre. Crais writes like Raymond Chandler with a smirk on his face. Hard boiled and funny with plots that don't stop.
And who better to bring a Crais character to life than the smirkmeister himself, Bruce Willis? Willis has yet to make that Chandleresque crime flick that we all know he has inside him. THE LAST BOY SCOUT (1991) started out promising but quickly descended into cheesiness and unbelieveability. STRIKING DISTANCE (1993) was a cruel joke on the movie going public. And did anyone even bother to see LAST MAN STANDING (1996)?
My only fear is that HOSTAGE, about a police negotiator who blames himself for a hostage crisis that goes terribly wrong and is later forced into negotiating for the life of a mob accountant as the mob kidnaps his family may not be the right Crais novel for Willis to adapt. I think I'd much rather see Willis tackle the character of wise-cracking P.I. Elvis Cole from Crais' previous novels.
That being said I haven't read HOSTAGE and won't get the chance until it's published in August of this year. But somebody must think it's a good fit for Willis. Then again, somebody thought STRIKING DISTANCE was, too.
So for the time being I'll put my faith in Willis and Crais, a former scriptwriter for HILL STREET BLUES and CAGNEY AND LACEY who will be adapting his own book for the screen, and claim this as one of my most eagerly anticipated projects of next year.
-- Edward Butler
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