Movies

[Here is an email I sent recently to the producer of the—someday, I hope—Operation Bullpen movie. A script based on my book has been finished and it is now being peddled around Hollywood although there are, as yet, no takers. I thought ‘The Social Network,’ the (relatively) new movie about the founding of Facebook by Mark Zuckerberg, has some parallels with the Bullpen story, as I say here…]

Hi L-

Saw "The Social Network" last night. I liked it and it spurred some thoughts on "Operation Bullpen," the movie. Give me just a minute or two to share them with you. "The Social Network" opened with a $24 million weekend box office and there's not a car crash or any violence to be found anywhere in it. That's reassuring, since I know that's one of the things you've heard from people about the Bullpen script: Not enough sex and violence.

Actually, "The Social Network" doesn't have much sex either, does it? No actual sex scenes, just party scenes and the suggestion of sex, but that's all. God knows the Bullpen story has lots more sex than that, with hookers and Vegas strippers and sex and drug parties on the Bada Bing boat. And it's got the criminal element to boot—the fact that all these formerly law-abiding guys are committing widespread fraud while being hunted down by the FBI. "The Social Network" has no big stars in it, unless you count Justin Timberlake, who's very good. Of course, it has a script by Aaron Sorkin, who's a superstar screenwriter and superb, and a hot director whose name I can't recall but who is clearly a hot property too. Interestingly, Kevin Spacey is one of the producers—isn't he Trigger Street Productions?—and clearly Kevin has a sharp eye for material, because he also produced "21." [ more ]

Remember "21"? I know you do. We talked about that one before. It was a sleeper hit that was No. 1 for two weeks in a row when it opened a couple or three years ago. It's based on the book, "Bringing Down the House," written by Ben Mezrich, who also wrote "The Accidental Billionaire," which was the book Sorkin used to write "The Social Network." Mezrich also clearly has an eye for stuff that Hollywood is looking for.

 So both "The Social Network" and "21" were youth movies about gifted (and pampered and rich) Ivy League kids with some allusions to sex, very little violence (none in "The Social Network"), and lots of money. And of course "The Social Network has the glamour associated with being about the Facebook billionaire. But the story itself? It's basically about some legal proceedings and the makings of a Silicon Valley startup, founded by Mark Zuckerberg, the Charles Kane of his generation. The genius of Sorkin and the director is that they could make an entertaining movie of such thin material.

Okay, so hang with me, I'm coming to my point. The Bullpen story has many of the same elements as "21" and "The Social Network," except, of course, it's not about privileged rich kids. It's a working class story. But it is about young people, and it is potentially a youth movie. I've never seen the script for "Bullpen" (and I'm sure that's not the working title), but there is a clear potential story line in the character of Nate, the naïve young guy who starts as Wayne’s friend in the book. Wayne, the mastermind of the operation, takes him under his wing and basically teaches him to be a crook, brings him into the life, corrupts him, shows him how to rip people off. Nate makes millions of dollars selling fake memorabilia, buys houses, gets girls that he could never get before (just like Mark Zuckerberg), and basically achieves his corrupted version of the American Dream. And then, in the twist that makes the Bullpen story so powerful, Wayne ultimately betrays Nate and all his other friends and flips and goes to the FBI and turns in Nate and all the rest of his fellow crooks to save his skin.

 So, again, I'm not trying to stick my nose where it doesn't belong, but if you tell the story from Nate's point of view—with Wayne as his slightly older Machiavellian mentor, along with the Marinos and all the other characters and stuff that are there—you have a youth-themed movie that teens and early twenties young people would really get into. You could potentially attract a bankable young star, as well as a late twenties, early thirties actor like Justin Timberlake who is playing the Wayne character. And the thing is, it's all in the story. You're not making any of it up. It's all there. That's what happened in real life. Thanks for listening-

 Best, K