Posted on 03/17/2003 9:21:09 AM PST by areafiftyone
SALT LAKE CITY - Hollywood loves a gripping saga, especially one with a happy — and astonishing — ending like the Elizabeth Smart kidnapping. So it's no surprise that in the five days since the kidnapped teen returned home, the family's spokesman has fielded more than 3,000 media calls and received nearly 100 film, book or made-for-TV-movie proposals.
The potential audience for a real-life drama is enormous, if hits to the Smart family Web site are any indication. In the first hours after Elizabeth was found alive and returned home Wednesday, more than 3 million people had visited the site.
Her story, outlined by investigators, is a screenwriter's dream: Kidnapped at knifepoint — allegedly by homeless drifter Brian David Mitchell — Elizabeth lived with the self-proclaimed prophet and his wife Wanda Barzee for nine months.
Family members say she was so brainwashed she didn't try to escape, even when she had the chance.
Sharp-eyed witnesses recognized Mitchell and called police Wednesday. The suspects were arrested, Elizabeth was returned home, and people across the country rejoiced.
Mitchell and Barzee remained in jail Sunday awaiting charges, which could come as early as Monday.
Chris Thomas, a spokesman for parents Ed and Lois Smart, said they will begin to review production offers in the next few weeks.
"It's something that they're going to deal with soon. They're trying to figure this all out — it comes down to let someone else tell the story, or tell it themselves," Thomas said.
USA, ABC, NBC, CBS and Lifetime are all reportedly interested in obtaining rights to the story.
"It really covers the broad spectrum. I haven't looked at all of them, and I don't want to disclose specific names and studios or other entities, but we've been contacted by some really big names," said Thomas.
Rumors that John Walsh, host of the television show "America's Most Wanted," has been pushing Ed Smart for a production deal are false, said Thomas. Walsh has interviewed the father for his show and the two became close after Elizabeth's disappearance.
"It came up in a discussion between Ed and John, when Ed was asking John for advice on a number of things. John said, 'I'm not even going to go there. I've read rumors that I've got the inside source on this. I do have a production company and if you're interested you can talk to me, but I'm not pitching you. That would be a really tacky thing to do in my capacity,'" Thomas said.
Thomas said the family has not begun to consider a price, because they haven't decided yet whether to go along with any production, movie or book.
"Right now, their main focus is on Elizabeth and books and movies and exterior things are secondary," he said. "The family is being very calculated in every action, and weighing the pros and cons of everything with the predominant priority being Elizabeth's well-being."
Ok - so to get this straight in my mind. The description that the younger sister gave in the beginning did not contain a beard. The drawing they issued was done shortly (couple of months) after the abduction and was given by the parents. The beard he currently sports was grown in that 9 month period. I'll have to look at a picture again - I know there was one in a response to me.
And not to put too fine a point on it, Sensenbrenner is a good fine man, he is from your district, and you apparently know him or know of him. Perhaps now you can comprehend some of the feelings some of us have had the past nine months, sitting here and watching a family take that kind of heat from the media and from others, maligning their every move and motive. Again, I do not agree with Ed Smart's timing on what he said to Sensenbrenner. It does take time to get bills through Congress, and get the conferences to agree and compromise with each other.
Cherubic faces?? Millions of kids are cute! 42,000 aunts and uncles who all bear a startling resemblance to each other and can't wait to get their 15 minutes of face time on soporific Larry King?? They seek out and bring criminal vagrants to their home in an effort to pave their way to heaven?? The way they attack innocent politicians trying to help them who just aren't fast enough to please them??
The primary reason for the public's unending fascination with this case is quite simple. The vast majority of people who have observed the oddities of this investigation and the strangeness of the family,...are waiting for the other shoe to drop!
Now maybe there is no other shoe and they are waiting in vain. But the vibes from the very start told people that there was more to this story than was being told, and because of that feeling they are going to hang on to the bitter end because they believe something is just not right in this family.
Wonderful?? Perhaps to some. Fishy to others!
Red
oh is that the "Tom" who failed his LDT and is that the same Tom that called this story of ES "an amazing story" and a "beautiful" thing....
the way that some of you are bending over backwards to defend every silly, stupid, arrogant thing that the elder Smarts do is very, very telling about your objectivity....I don't think you actually care about ELizabeth...I think some of you just want to defend some rich people in SLC for some reason...I wonder why?..
I for one don't think ES ran away....she was kidnapped...I don't know why she didn't run...there were several days down in SanDiego where both Mitchell and Wanda were gone....>
Ed Smart is something else, and so is Lois if she allows this exploitation of their dtr to go on.....
bad enought that to save on wages and SS taxes, they hire these bums....btw..it is estimated that up to 75% of homeless people come from mental hospitals or have mental conditions...but the Smarts just had to go out and hire these people..upwards of 50 differant bums at one time or another....
they exposed ES to these people and now they won't even let her live her nightmare down, and find some peace....I am sure that ES will not protest because that is what she has been taught to do....to not protest anything adults tell her....
I will add this....if Elizabeth was from some working class family or poor family, and the parents let drug users or alcoholics hand around, or people that have been in prison, and something bad happened because of those people to Elizabeth....Child protection would be on them in a New York minute...
and after something bad, something evil, had happened to her and the parents even considered putting her story out as an entertainment feature....they would be castigated and demonized here on Free Republic and the entire media...
but apparently, these Smarts can do no wrong...
Sigh....Ug, perhaps if posting words could also provide voice inflection, you would not get so defensive. I certainly meant nothing by saying what I did.That being that I thought we both agreed on the point I made. That's all.
Perhaps now you can comprehend some of the feelings some of us have had the past nine months, sitting here and watching a family take that kind of heat from the media and from others, maligning their every move and motive.
Ug...there is one difference between my admiring Congressman Sensenbrenner and your admiring Ed Smart. The Congrssman has not given me any pause, nor has he been questioned by media and others. I am real sorry that this story from the beginning has warrented all this "maligning". Somehow tho, no matter if it is Ed Smart or some other story about people, when people all over the country are saying the same thing, along with talk show hosts, tv personalities, etc. I think there is a question about credibility. Not that all these people in media or on message boards are making it up, but out of the mouth of(in this case, the Smart family) THEY have provided the questions to the "maligning" media and public.
No one wants it that way, there is no joy in it, but most will tell you it was there from the start, and only got worse. No one made it up, it came from their own mouth. That is very sad.
What I find ironic is that a police investigator castigated Lois Smart for hiring a homeless person, went home, and found his wife had done the exact same thing, she had hired some guy off the street to paint their house.
I am guessing that both kidnappings and panhandlers are not common in the Smarts' community (and SLC and UTAH in general). In light of that, wouldn't the police bust the chops of ANY suspicious person in the immediate aftermath of a child's disappearance there? Wouldn't the Smart aunt, upon seeing a vagrant beggar in the wake of her niece's apparent kidnapping, demand that the cops check him out? Or are beggars common there? It seems like you'd check out everyone who didn't look totally legit (sorry---I realize this is profiling, but in my safe town of 30,000, if you look like you don't belong here, the cops pull you over, and consequently we have close to zero crime, as that dragnet catches the would-be burglars, criminals with outstanding warrants, illegal immigrants, etc.)
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