EXCLUSIVE: Screenwriters Eric Johnson and Paul Tamasy have picked up feature rights to Boston Strong, I’ve learned. The forthcoming book by Casey Sherman and Boston Herald reporter Dave Wedge examines the city’s reaction to the fatal April 15 Patriots’ Day attacks at the Boston Marathon finsh line and the hunt for the siblings suspecting of carrying out the bombings. Surviving brother Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was captured on April 19 after a massive manhunt, much of which played out on TV. The book is being written and is scheduled to be published next year by University Press of New England. Michael Prevett of the Gotham Group, Adam Levine of Verve Talent and John Ivey of Altus Marketing & Management negotiated the Boston Strong deal between the respective writers.
Johnson, Tamasy and producer Dorothy Aufiero have developed a professional relationship with Sherman in recent years. This is the second book of his that the Oscar-nominated The Fighter writers and Aufiero have worked on; the writing duo penned the screenplay for Sherman and Michael J. Tougias’ 2009 book The Finest Hours. Disney picked up the story, about a 1952 Coast Guard oil tanker rescue, in 2011, and Robert Schwentke will direct with Jim Whitaker and Aufiero producing.
Johnson and Tamasy are repped by Verve Talent & Literary Agency.
Tasteless.
Hollywood’s middle name.
who’s at the center of this STINK? Somebody will need to take a very serious blame here. This is just a bad idea. Hands, please? Unlikely that any money will ever be exchanged on this PR nightmare. Lawyer fees, maybe.
Who’ll read this trash? Everyone knows what happened. So, what’s the point?
Welcome to capitalism fellas.
Appalling as you may find it, you can’t have it both ways.
Disgusting. 3 months and let’s profit! We don’t need this.
Wow… Can’t even let the dead lie cold in their graves before trying to spin a profit. How sad.
No one will be in line to see this. Good luck guys.
Too soon?
Not only tasteless, but events likely to be highly inaccurate as well.
Even sooner than I thought. I doubt you will, but never change Hollywood.
As someone from that area who loves even the crappiest of Boston-based movies, I wouldn’t pay a dime to see this. Most of the nation saw this tragedy unfold live on TV. Let it rest.
I agree 100%. Thanks for putting this so aptly. I’m a Bostonian who loves me some Boston movies, but I will never see this.
Must Hollywood make a movie about every single dramatic incident no matter how tragic? Not only do the victims have to watch and hear about it over and over on the news… they now have to deal with a Hollywood dramatization of what happened.
Who’s surprised? I was on this board the very next day calling this one. Only question was Affleck directing or does Whalberg make his directorial debut?
This film could star both Afflecks, both Wahlbetgs, Dennis Leary, Matt Damon, Steven Tyler and Minnie Driver.
If you tell me that NO ONE is making a penny, and all profits go to the victims, that’s one thing, but if ONE person is making a profit (agents, publishers, writers…anyone)then this is revolting. Absolutely revolting.
I dont know what’s worse… the general tastelessness of all this or the fact that one of the writer’s only other claim to fame (cause we all know the Fighter got multiple, uncredited rewrites in addition to Silver’s work) is the Air Bud movies and the other has no other credits.
They are idiots for optioning this book all the news is in the public domain already. There is nothing in the book that has not already been reported and is available for anyone to adapt into a script for no money. This won’t ever get made as a feature nor as a TV movie because any network that wants ratings can simply re-package their existing news footage for the one year anniversary which they will all do as normal programming procedure. So they are worse than idiots they are morons.
Having lived thru this only a few short months ago, I think it is extremely inappropriate. I hope that no one sees this movie and the filmmakers end up in the red.
Wow, this is in bad taste.
This is so tacky. I sure as hell won’t watch it.
Absolutely DISGUSTING. Shame on you writers for making profits ON MY FRIENDS! They are the ones in pain right now. They are suffering and their lives have changed forever. Don’t take advantage of my people that is not being BOSTON STRONG.
Dave Wedge is a cutting edge journalist who will be sure to get it right. I think it will be great.
Does anyone believe that both shoes have dropped here? How about the friend of the older brother basically executed without any witnesses by the F.B.I. (even though state troopers from Mass. were in another room?) Just before he was going to sign a highly dramatic confession about another murder and without a lawyer? He pulled a knife on the F.B.I. agent and the F.B.I. agent Trayvon’d him. (Must be the state.) That story has completely disappeared from the news. Some out-of-control renegade faction of the government wants this stuff to be done as it takes open-ended questions and presents them as definitive conclusion taking the heat off both the official events and law enforcement by embodying in the public’s mind the final exclamation point of the whole tragic series of events. This permits any off-the-record cooperating authorities to construct the apocryphal for the delectation and edification of those in the attention-divided masses who like their episodic endings thriller-tidy and with all loose ends tied up in a visibly persuasive narrative knot. “I’ll believe it when I see the movie” in other words. Everybody knows the movie version of the truth usually takes on a life of its own.
I’m sorry. What is your point?
Calm down people. This one won’t get past script stage. Thank you.
I’m from boston. I’m a successful screenwriter. I loved “The Fighter”. And this is the stupidest fucking idea ever. Reminder, Hollywood people – NOT EVERYTHING IS A MOVIE. Hey, I just took a really good shit. It was big and nicely shaped and even had some corn in there for texture (I ate a lot of it over the holiday weekend). SOmeone want to make it into a movie? Have some decency. Have some class. Lives were shattered. A community torn. No one wants to see your version of it. We remember our own. The one that happened mere months ago. Douchebags.
FEMA’s Serino desperately needs Hollywood Help
This potential Boston bombing project doesn’t exactly excite me. It does seem a little crass, perhaps too soon. And yet, I do not remember a hue and cry when Oliver Stone decided to do “World Trade Center.” So, maybe, given a little time, people might embrace this idea as a possible feature length movie. Dunno for sure, but if a bit of distance from a big tragedy worked for Mr. Stone, it might work for these filmmakers as well, right? I am totally in lockstep with the poster who said why oh why did they option the right to material so readily available in the public domain of news and information. That’s the real head scratcher here.
Virtually all movie plots are drawn from public domain material. Isn’t that obvious? Or have you not noticed that? War films? Films based on novels? Films based on real life tragedies? What else leaves you scratching your head?
Just ask Craft International what happened. They already have a script and the actors.