This week: The town bunks down with a camp counselor. Is J. Lo the next E.T.? Plus, one way to beat the Vegas odds.
Hollywood knows
ready-made feel-good comedy when it sees one. Spending nine weeks in a crowded cabin with 10 teenage boys and no bathroom would strike few grown men as the perfect way to spend a summer (although a certain embattled '80s pop icon might feel otherwise), but that's what it took to knock Entertainment Weekly staff reporter Josh Wolk into the world of adult responsibility. Wolk recounts his stint as a 34-year-old camp counselor in Cabin Pressure, a funny and reflective memoir about a guy who revisits the summer camp of his youth and lets go of his childhood ("I learned that it's easy to maintain that rappers should be allowed to sing about bitches and hos when you're not watching 14-year-olds sing along with CDs about bitches and hos"). Three days after Hyperion acquired the 29-page proposal, Disney bagged the film rights with a six-figure offer. Paradigm's Rich Freeman negotiated the film deal.
J. Lo may be no mo'
(she's back to plain old Jennifer Lopez), but don't tell that to a certain fugitive alien. The improbably named intergalactic sidekick (see below) makes his debut in The True Meaning of Smekday, a middle-grade novel from first-time author Adam Rex (illustrator of the Lucy Rose books by Katy Kelly, among others); Hyperion's Donna Bray outbid five other publishers in a six-figure deal and will release the title in 2007. The story centers around an 11-year-old earth girl named Gratuity Tucci, who must fend for herself after the United States. is colonized by aliens and her mother is abducted. Gratuity enlists the benevolent extraterrestrial on an action-packed cross-country road trip to reclaim her missing mom. A few producers who've seen the partial have expressed interest; perhaps they're salivating at the prospect of the outer-borough diva playing her (albeit male) outer-space namesake—in what could be the greatest bit of stunt casting since Malkovich played Malkovich in Being John Malkovich.
Steven Malk of Writers House represents Rex for lit and film.
The amazing true
account of a Cuban-born, Russian-trained ex—Red Army lieutenant turned criminal, Storming Las Vegas (forthcoming from Villard) by John Huddy, will be handled by CAA's Martin Spencer. Starting in 1998, JoseVigoa and his crew pulled off a string of Vegas heists, hitting five casinos, a department store and a few armored cars—plus the fatal shooting of two guards. A huge task force broke the case in 2000. Spencer has assembled an unbeatable package—Rush Hour's Brett Ratner is attached to direct and Election's Jim Burke will produce—but the big question is why such a cinematic story took so long to hit Hollywood. A quick Google search pulls up only a few local articles about the case and zero national coverage. Guess that's what they mean by "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas."
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