Last week it was announced that Johnny Depp and Warner Bros. were prepping to make a film based on former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko, who was poisoned in late November by polonium-210. Well, that plan is taking a bit of a turn as Variety writes up an article saying Columbia Pictures and Michael Mann are set to make a film of their own based on Litvinenko.
Word is that Columbia Pictures paid $500,000 against $1.5 million early Friday for the screen rights to “Death of a Dissident,” a book Alex Goldfarb and the subject’s widow, Marina Litvinenko, are co-writing. Simon & Schuster subsidiary Free Press will publish the book in late May.
Mann is attached to direct the project, which WB apparently made a bid at as well considering they already own the rights to “Sasha’s Story: The Life and Death of a Russian Spy” being written by New York Times London bureau chief Alan Cowell. Universal and Paramount also bid on “Dissident” but Columbia chased after it hard, which is obvious based on the numbers mentioned above, and won out even though Warner offered to match their bid which would have given them a stronghold on the story. Instead, we have dueling studios with similar stories.
Columbia is already mounting a fast track for production with both “Death of a Dissident” and the life rights of Litvinenko’s widow.
“Dissident” will explore the collision between the Russian power structure enforced by the KGB and its successor, the FSB, and the new wave of Wild West capitalism that came on the heels of glasnost; Litvinenko got caught between those two colossal forces. From his deathbed, he blamed Russian President Vladimir Putin and his regime for the poisoning from polonium-210.
Variety reports they have seen an early proposal and…
…the book will contain first-hand information from Marina Litvinenko and Goldfarb. A four-page proposal laid out their intention to describe Litvinenko’s career as he went from insider to outcast in the political epicenter of post-communist Russia. Goldfarb’s close relationship with the ex-KGB agent is made clear in a 22-page sample first chapter that was part of the auction.
It doesn’t seem like this is the end of the sought after story as other books are out ther including one by Litvinenko himself called “Blowing Up Russia: The Secret Plan to Bring Back KGB Terror,” with rights for that one currently held by U.K.-based producer Braun Media.
Last time Mann faced such a conundrum was with The Aviator as Christopher Nolan and Jim Carrey were putting together a similar pic, but Mann got Scorsese on board and his flick won out, and we all saw (or didn’t see) how Baz Luhrmann‘s Alexander the Great feature with DiCaprio and Kidman turned out after Oliver Stone beat him into production with Alexander.
The good news in all this is that we may see Michael Mann back to work sooner than we expected. Yay!
