About a year ago my editor at PM Press asked me to write up a Hollywood pitch for Pike. She had a bead on an independent crime movie director who was looking for new material. He’s a pretty well known guy, and somebody whose movies I like quite a bit, so I drank some wine with my wife and we banged something out.
One of the things I learned in the process was that you’ve got to cast everyone in the book. For most of my characters that was pretty difficult, but for the lead character, Douglas Pike, it was a no-brainer: “Mel Gibson, with a beard, hopped up on cocaine, booze, and self-hatred, with strict instructions to tap into his inner Nazi.”
This doesn’t change my mind even a little bit.
Update: The director liked the pitch well enough that he requested a copy of the book, but, as of yet, he hasn’t read it. He’s on a pretty grueling directorial schedule, I hear. Which, as I told my editor, is just how I want it. As long as he doesn’t read it, he can’t reject it, and I get to brag on ever barstool in town that my first novel’s being considered for a Hollywood film.
http://www.radaronline.com/exclusives/2010/07/world-exclusive-mel-gibsons-racist-rant-caught-tape-tells-oksana-she-would-get
Shit, I didn’t know there was tape.
Don’t worry, Ben. If Mel plays the lead then it will make the movie believable.
This just in: Mel’s agent dumped him.
http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/risky-business-wme-drops-mel-gibson.html
He’ll have to go the way of the rest of fallen celebrities and join a counseling group in order to redeem himself so that he no longer appears to be the anti-semitic,sexist, religious nutter that he is.
Think that’s possible, Daisy? My only hope is that I outlive him so I can write a novel with him as the tragically flawed, insane, addicted, racist protagonist.
He’ll have to break down in tears while he publicly repents for all those he has hurt as he promises to give up the booze and heal his inner child.