A Beautiful Mind, Sylvia Nasar's biography of mathematical genius and Nobel laureate John Nash, was doing very nicely, thank you, on its own merit. Published in 1998, it received a slew of rave notices and went on to win the National Book Critics Circle Award for biography. Touchstone published the trade paperback in 1999; the two versions together have 110,000 copies in print. Then along came Hollywood.... The film, which opened to high praise at the end of December, has been nominated for six Golden Globe awards; the Oscar pundits are abuzz over both the movie and Russell Crowe's stunning turn as Nash. The film finished eighth at the box office for 2001's final weekend, which is exceptionally impressive considering it was playing at only 525 locations. (At $13,785, its per-screen average was by far the highest of the top 10 flicks.) Touchstone reports 270,000 copies in print of its movie tie-in, with a return trip to press anticipated this week.
With reporting by Dick Donahue.
