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Saturday, April 05, 2003

By Rob Owen and Barbara Vancheri, Post-Gazette Staff Writers

Inevitably and predictably, Hollywood is ready to glom onto the story of Jessica Lynch, the American prisoner of war rescued earlier this week in Iraq.

	The rescue of Pfc. Jessica Lynch is shown in an image from video shown during a news conference Wednesday at Camp As Sayliyah, Central Command Center, Doha, Qatar. (U.S. Central Command via AP)

She's this month's "it" story, a television network spokeswoman said, following last month's round of pitches for television movies based on the kidnapping of Salt Lake City's Elizabeth Smart.

"I can assure you it's being pitched all over town," said Beth Polson, a Pasadena, Calif.-based journalist turned TV movie producer. "I could sit here and outline a movie for you and have a [script] treatment in a couple hours. I can see the TV movie. I'm sure they're going to get a lot of interest."

Larry Sanitsky, executive producer of ABC's TV movie about the rescue of the nine Quecreek miners, said there's more trepidation on the networks' parts about the Lynch story.

"So far, no one has said they want to do it and no one has said they don't want to do it," Sanitsky said, which is different from the miners' story, which every network chased immediately. "I think it's probably tempered by the war."

A network spokeswoman said producers and network executives are waiting to hear the story of Lynch's ordeal from Lynch herself.

Sanitsky, who hadn't decided as of late Thursday whether he will pitch a Lynch movie, said it shares common traits with "The Pennsylvania Miners' Story."

"Acts of American heroism, ordinary people caught up in extraordinary circumstances, a very happy ending -- it certainly feels like it could fall into that category," he said. "I know some [producers] have tried to call the family, but I don't know if anyone has gotten through."

Dawn Keezer, director of the Pittsburgh Film Office, has one salient suggestion for Lynch's family: They need to find a good, experienced entertainment attorney who can wade through the offers, credible and otherwise. "This is a whole new arena for most people."

Producer Polson, who has not pursued the rights to Lynch's story, agreed.

"Unfortunately, the way our business works, there are a lot of people who come out of the woodwork when there is a story like this, most of whom have no credentials at all," she said.

Polson suggests anyone approached by a producer for the rights to his or her story should ask for a list of credits to see if the producer has experience making fact-based movies. Then talk to the subject of one of those films to see how that person felt about the process and final product.

"Most people get treated horribly, so if you do those things, you won't have a lot of people left to deal with and it will be an easy decision after that."

Just sifting through the offers will be a full-time job, said Steve Reich, president of Pittsburgh-based Reich Publishing and Marketing. Reich is sports agent to Mario Lemieux and represents the Quecreek miners for their marketing and promotional appearances.

"The biggest mistake the miners made is they didn't take time to sort things through and shop it," Reich said.

At Randy Fogle's house, the pace of incoming phone calls was so furious "you couldn't even hang up long enough to call out," Fogle remembers.

Down at Blaine Mayhugh's place, a tapped-out Mayhugh fought exhaustion to give interview after interview as his wife acted as gatekeeper to the growing queue of reporters settling in on the family's deck.

"Caller ID," Foy said, "is the best thing you can get."

Reich, who started working with the miners several months after they signed with Disney/ABC for book and movie rights that netted them $149,000 each, said the miners have no complaints about their deal. But in making a deal quickly, "they lost the opportunity to find out what else was out there, to make sure they got the very best deal."

Whatever offers come to Lynch -- one producer speculated the story could fetch as much as $300,000 -- Reich said it's likely to encompass both literary and film rights. "They'll want to make sure it's a coordinated effort done in lockstep."

Keezer assumes the story of the 19-year-old supply clerk, who reportedly fought almost to the death, will make a gripping TV movie, which would take far less time to produce than a theatrical release.

Sanitsky said he doesn't expect a Lynch film to be fast-tracked the way the miners' movie was.

"I think the timing for this movie will be sensitive," he said. "I don't know if the movie would be broadcast if the war is still going on."

Whether it's the rescue of baby Jessica McClure from a Texas well or the story of a cancer-stricken physician at the South Pole who treated her own illness (CBS's "Ice Bound: A Woman's Survival at the South Pole," starring Susan Sarandon as Dr. Jerri Nielsen, airs April 20), turning harrowing tales of survival into triumphant movies is the television industry's specialty.

But there's a danger in trying to dramatize a story that America just watched -- in real time -- on its TV sets. Will people still be interested?

"It's got to be a TV movie, not because it wouldn't make a great feature, but the American attention span is very short," Polson said. "Feature films take forever to get made. No disrespect to Jessica or any of the courage and suffering we see in this young woman, but by the time a feature got made, people would be, 'Who is that again?' The immediacy of television makes it a better television story."

Casting an actress to play the attractive, blond Lynch in a TV movie shouldn't prove difficult. Entertainment junkies on Internet newsgroups have already weighed in with suggestions: Reese Witherspoon ("Legally Blonde"), Kirsten Dunst ("Spider-Man"), Elisha Cuthbert ("24") or Meredith Monroe ("Dawson's Creek").

Post-Gazette staff writer Tom Gibb contributed to this article.

Rob Owen can be reached at rowen@post-gazette.com or 412-263-2582. Barbara Vancheri can be reached at bvancheri@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1632.