The first thing I felt when I read this was dread. Reading dispassionately and with that cynical movie makers hat on, the first thing I thought about was an incredibly cheesy disaster movie, you know the ones, and this positively cannot become that. Yet I can see the minds of the execs right now, ticking over and comparing. Oh, I’m shaking my head in disbelief and hoping beyond all hopes. Coming Soon get the scoop from Variety on another great story:
Columbia Pictures is in advanced talks to acquire screen rights to 102 Minutes, a newly published book about 9/11 by New York Times reporters Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn featuring tales of heroism and incompetence, with the added element of a ticking clock. The New York Times is a participant in the Henry Holt-published book and the movie project. Henry Holt describes the book as follows:
The dramatic and moving account of the struggle for life inside the World Trade Center on the morning of September 11, when every minute counted.
At 8:46 am on September 11, 2001, 14,000 people were inside the twin towers-reading e-mails, making trades, eating croissants at Windows on the World. Over the next 102 minutes, each would become part of a drama for the ages, one witnessed only by the people who lived it-until now.
I won’t quote on, save that it starts to read pretty badly for me, and you can hear that voiceover man as you work your way through the hype filled blurb.
This is just as worrying as hearing about the FX Networks TV drama series being developed about Soldiers in Iraq. There’s just so much potential to treat it in extremely poor taste or to totally misrepresent the events and people, then end up hurting those who have been affected by the tragedy. It’s a very small window that the Studio has here to make it right, so it will be interesting to see who gets pulled onto the project should the rights be bought.
