Posted on 06/16/2005 10:40:32 AM PDT by Howlin
Tom Hanks' production company has bought the film rights to the life story of Mark Felt, the former FBI official recently revealed to have been Deep Throat, it was reported today. Universal Pictures is understood to have secured the rights for development by Playtone, the company co-owned by Hanks and Gary Goetzman, the New York Times reported today.
The rights, along with those for a book to be published by respected non-fiction house PublicAffairs, are believed to have been sold for almost $1 million (£550,000).
Peter Osnos, the chief executive of PublicAffairs, said the book is expected to be published in spring next year.
It will combine Mr Felt's memoirs and his meetings with Bob Woodward, the Washington Post reporter he gave secret information to during the Watergate investigation, with material written by John O'Connor, the lawyer who wrote the Vanity Fair article revealing Deep Throat's identity.
Contracts are expected to be announced today.
The movie rights should form the bulk of the payment to Mr Felt, but the full sum will depend on whether a film is eventually produced.
He has said he decided to unmask himself as Deep Throat to raise money for his grandchildren's education.
Meanwhile, the Nation magazine will reveal that he twice led FBI probes into finding the source of the leaks.
Writers David Corn and Jeff Goldberg found documents in once-confidential FBI files now available to the public that showed Mr Felt in charge of finding the source of Woodward and Carl Bernstein's Washington Post scoops that helped bring down President Richard Nixon.
"How Deep Throat Fooled the FBI", which shows how Mr Felt cleverly threw the federal agency off his trail, was posted will be published on June 23 and is already available on the magazine's website.
"He was much more than a secret sharer. He was an operator," says the story, adding he "was able to watch his own back and protect his ability to guide the two reporters".
At one stage, Mr Felt officially met with Woodward in what appears to have been a move to cover himself, the story said.
He agreed to see the reporter in the presence of his assistant, a 25-year FBI veteran, but did not confirm any details presented to him by Woodward. "That was obviously a staged event," Corn said. "Felt needed cover."
Well, I'm glad to read the link and find out that Tom Hanks isn't going to remake a porn movie.
The original Deep Throat had more integrity than this one.
:-)
Wasn't this movie done already?
I guess like a local sports network re-running the home team's championship game, I guess the leftists will never get enough of Watergate...it is, quite simply, their SuperBowl.
Tom Hanks??? I would have though Oliver Stone would have gotten to it first.
Just follow the money in Feltgate!
NEW YORK “Deep Throat” has finally cashed in -- his family's main reason for going public now -- with a book and movie deal, reportedly for $1 million.
Most of the money will come from a movie deal, with the rights snapped up by Universal and Tom Hanks' Playtone production company. Hanks could end up playing W. Mark Felt, a.k.a. Deep Throat, a kind of “Castaway” for the past 30 years.
According to published reports today, the family of Felt, 91, has
picked PublicAffairs Books to publish a memoir/as told to next year with Universal Pictures optioning his life story for Hanks.
Political porn is often nastier than the fleshy kind.
The family admitted that it was all about money. The book and film weren't far behind. I smell a loser book and film.
Precisely.
I wonder if Hanks while portraying Felt will show what Felt did to be arrested, found guilty and eventually pardoned by President Reagan.
Heh.
If he does, I'm sure it will be sympathetically.
I predict that any movie about "Deep Throat" will be a major-league flop. The overwhelming majority of normal people in this country moved on from Watergate years and years ago; only a tiny little segment of America is still obsessed with kicking Richard Nixon's corpse around one more time.
Leni
They will never touch that part of Felt's slimey path and reality.
You are Dead-on-Balls
I wonder if Felt's daughter will be protrayed as the moonbat she actually is....guess not.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.