BASED ON TRUE EVENTS

Given Hollywood’s recent passion for films “based on true events” (because “true story” opens you up to lawsuits) I thought I would give some ideas to the many studio bosses who I know read this blog for some untapped sources 1. Harry Houdini’s life - This one has a bit of bias in it ,as a huge fan of magic and illusion , despite not even being able to shuffle a deck of cards myself, I find Houdini one of the most fascinating figures in entertainment in general. There has only been one big studio film and many more details on the man, his life and his beliefs have come to light since then. 2. Byzantium, An entire era ignored. The Byzantium Empire was the Greek half of the Roman Empire that continued on long after its parent empire fell. It contained just as much war, murder, scandal and sex as the Roman Empire and yet has been entirely skipped over by Hollywood - do they honestly think that an audience can’t cope with an unfamiliar time period? They cope with entirely made up civilisations and species all the time, I think they could get on board with this. 3. James Bond WW2 style – There are of course numerous stories of courage and valour from the battlefield of the Second World War. Less well represented on screen however are the exploits of the intelligence services that came up with some incredible plans and deceptions to fool the Nazi war machine. To my mind you could get at least ten or twelve films from these operations, the only problem might be that an audience would throw up its hands and say “oh come on that’s clearly made up”. 4. Walt Disney’, the man not the mouse – Walt Disney’s life story is one of struggles; struggle not just to see his ideas come to fruition but to keep legal ownership of those ideas. His life is fertile ground for a movie biopic. There is just one rather ironic problem, Disney-the -company is very unlikely to entrust Disney-the-man to any other studio or writers. Any Disney project that does come to then screen then will have been ..well Disneyfied 5. The Iranian embassy siege The most famous part of this story, the dramatic rescue operation by the SAS is only part of the story. The rest involved careful planning nerve racking tension and bloodshed. What you don’t want to do is turn this into your average run of the mill action movie; personally I’d like to see Paul Greengrass helm this one. If he brought even half the tension he put into Capitan Philips it would be great. These are some of my picks, what you would like to see brought to the big screen. Answers in the comments or on twiter