Lying Eyes, The Movie?Hardly, writes Donald Clarke
Hollywood wants to turn my personal struggle into a blockbuster movie.
Sources close to me have confirmed that the events of last Wednesday - Screenwriter sits on arse, watches TV, plays Civilisation IV, goes to shop - have attracted the interest of a major American director. Some very famous bald actor is, as we speak, getting into character by taking long naps and eating sardines straight from the tin. Which very famous bald actor? Erm . . . How about Jason Statham? Yeah, that sounds about right.
Now, this story may or may not be true, but I can guarantee that as much research has gone into it as goes into most similar pieces in the media.
For decades, virtually every notable scandal, triumph and catastrophe has inspired a news report stating that some (always unnamed) Hollywood producer wants to turn the event into a "blockbuster".
The latest sighting of a mysterious Hollywood producer with a restless chequebook occurred in the vicinity of the notorious Sharon Collins.
According to one prominent newspaper, Lying Eyes, as Collins is known to her co-conspirators on the internet, has been approached by "US film production companies" with offers of a "multi-million" deal. Ms Eyes, you may recall, was convicted of plotting to murder her partner and sons. The story involved a Las Vegas hitman, some nifty detective work and, noting the odd constancy of Collins's companion, the most bafflingly indestructible of romances. Hollywood could, surely, make something compelling out of that.
Unhappily, Lying Eyes has reportedly declined all offers to sell her sordid little story. The Eagles must be livid. Don Henley could have paid the gas bill for a whole month with the licensing fees from that little package.
Of course, from time to time these stories do turn out to have a basis in fact. The life and demise of Veronica Guerin inspired two films, and the unhappy adventures of Martin Cahill launched as many as three dramas. When stories emerged that the activities of the Yorkshire Women's Institute - the ladies who posed naked for charity - were to inspire a film, most veterans of this sort of media filler scoffed. Yet Calendar Girlsexists.
Usually, however, these pieces owe more to long ponderings in the saloon bar than to briefings from Warner Bros or Twentieth Century Fox. Remember, if you feel able, the furore that surrounded the success of Michelle Smith in the Olympic swimming pool 12 years ago.
Some months before Smith was designated the Republic's own Leon Trotsky - an airbrushed non-person whose only official monument remains a fading photograph in Dublin airport - reports emerged that Nicole Kidman (then still human) was "in talks" to star in a film version of the athlete's life. Why? Because they both had curly hair. Because they are about the same age. Because deadlines were looming.
Which reminds me. Did I mention that Jason Statham is to play Screenwriter in a Hollywood blockbuster?
