Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Non-Tech : The Enron Scandal - Unmoderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mephisto who wrote (1900)	3/14/2002 12:23:14 AM
From: Glenn Petersen	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 3602

Coming soon to a screen near you: Wednesday March 13, 8:57 AM Hollywood pumps energy into Enron projects By Jonathan Bing NEW YORK (Variety) - The rise and fall of Enron is a spectacle to rival any Hollywood disaster movie and the town is taking notice. The last few weeks have seen scores of book deals on the corporate debacle, and a handful of producers are in a race to mount their own versions of the Enron mess on the small and bigscreen. Paramount-based producer Scott Rudin has optioned Marie Brenner's Enron expose, ``The Enron Wars,'' from the April issue of Vanity Fair. Brenner also wrote the Vanity Fair story that was the basis for Michael Mann's ``The Insider.'' CBS has thrown its hat in the ring via producer Robert Greenwald (``Blonde,'' ``My Dark Places''), who is fast-tracking a two-hour original movie based on ``Anatomy of Greed,'' a book that Avalon will publish in spring. The CBS movie, which will likely be titled, ``The Crooked E,'' is based on the memoir of a young Enron employee, Brian Cruver, who witnessed the firm's collapse. ICM, which brokered the Brenner deal, is shopping film rights to one of the more prominent forthcoming books on the topic, Mimi Swartz's ``Power Failure,'' about Enron whistleblower Sherron Watkins. Doubleday recently bought the book for $500,000. Like Brenner's Vanity Fair story, Swartz's article focuses on a woman navigating Enron's male-dominated upper ranks. And Artisan Television and FX Networks have already enlisted former ``60 Minutes'' producer Lowell Bergman, whom Al Pacino played in ``The Insider,'' to develop an original TV movie about Enron. ``The Insider,'' a muckraking melodrama about Bergman's relationship with big-tobacco whistleblower Jeffrey Wigand, may serve as inspiration for the wave of Enron projects. That doesn't necessarily augur well for them. Stories of corporate malfeasance are among the most difficult genres to dramatize effectively for a mass audience. ``The Insider,'' which garnered seven Oscar nominations two years ago, is one of the more acclaimed adult dramas to emerge recently from an industry increasingly given to franchise movies for kids. But it was also a commercial failure that proved difficult to market, and questions were raised about its fidelity to the truth. There's also the challenge of injecting sex appeal into a story of investment fraud, sham partnerships and the influence of big business on beltway politics. Must a producer cast Sherron Watkins in a pushup bra, a la Erin Brockovich? The flood of Enron books and potential development deals may nevertheless signal a shift in Hollywood's approach to corporate America. At Warner Bros., Steven Soderbergh recently began developing an adaptation of ``The Informant,'' New York Times reporter Kurt Eichenwald's account of the price-fixing scandal at Archer Daniels Midland. And ``John Q,'' which offers a ringing indictment of the national health care system, appears to have struck a nerve among filmgoers, if not critics. And producers of Enron TV and theatrical films can rest assured that the myriad Enron books recently put under contract by publishers guarantees that we'll be reading about Enron for years to come. <cut> Reuters/Variety REUTERS