John DeLorean's Life To Be Made Into (Family Approved) Movie

Alles rund um den DeLorean
Antworten
Benutzeravatar
SAM
Beiträge: 151
Registriert: 1. Jan 2005, 04:36
Wohnort: Berlin, Los Angeles, Meerbusch

John DeLorean's Life To Be Made Into (Family Approved) Movie

Beitrag von SAM »

Cars appear in most movies, but movies about cars often don't do well. Tucker: The Man and His Dream, for instance, Francis Ford Coppola's well-reviewed 1988 biography of Preston Tucker and his effort to start a car company, flopped at the box office.

Nonetheless, Time Inc Studios is pressing on with its plans for a movie on the "later life" of former General Motors executive and car company founder John DeLorean, father of the 1964 Pontiac GTO as well as the brushed stainless-steel sports car with gull-wing doors that bears his name.

DeLorean's life certainly has movie qualities to it. The executive, who posed shirtless and lifting weights for Fortune magazine in his 40s, got the UK government to subsidize his factory in Belfast, Northern Ireland, to the tune of tens of millions of pounds.

When the DeLorean Motor Company ran into financial troubles, he was arrested for drug trafficking by the FBI. Though he was ultimately acquitted on the grounds of entrapment, his reputation was ruined and the company collapsed into bankruptcy.

The producers of the film have secured rights from DeLorean's son Zachary, who is also the executor of his estate, as well as DeLorean's unpublished memoirs, various magazine articles about him, and the book Grand Delusions by author Hillel Levin.

The younger DeLorean has put his seal of approval on this effort, saying, "There are other producers out there trying to make a movie about my father but this is the only one I’m standing behind, and the only one the DeLorean estate is allowing.”

Perhaps the movie will tweak the car's image a bit, focusing on its safety features. Today, of course, the DeLorean DMC-12 is irretrievably linked in the public eye to John Lithgow's mad scientist in the Back to the Future film series.

DeLorean's dream of founding the first successful US car company in half a century, says the film's director Alex Holmes with a fair degree of hyperbole, "brought him head-to-head with both the British and American establishment and they destroyed him."

Holmes calls the story "a crime thriller with such a great tragic hero at its heart.” Hmmmmm. Yes, well, perhaps. Or perhaps not.
Being a collector is special - being able to drive your collection even more ;-)

Alles mit Öl!

EX#0789 - Der Brezelkäfer unter den deutschen DMC12 :-) Was heisst eigentlich -SOLD- ? :-(

Benutzeravatar
Mike
Beiträge: 102
Registriert: 3. Jan 2005, 13:23
Wohnort: Stadthagen

Re: John DeLorean's Life To Be Made Into (Family Approved) Movie

Beitrag von Mike »

SAM hat geschrieben:John Lithgow's mad scientist
Great Scott! I knew something was wrong! All of a sudden I'm living in a totalitarian state and Christopher Lloyd has never been born. This is an alternate 2009! So... who of you was it?

...Mike

Benutzeravatar
Elvis
Site Admin
Beiträge: 5460
Registriert: 30. Jun 2003, 15:37
Wohnort: Black Forest

Re: John DeLorean's Life To Be Made Into (Family Approved) Movie

Beitrag von Elvis »

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/05/movie ... ean&st=cse" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Hollywood Players Vie to Tell DeLorean’s Story
Published: September 4, 2009
LOS ANGELES — When it comes to developing film biographies, Hollywood has a rule: the more, the messier.


Having already witnessed collisions involving dueling biographical projects about Truman Capote, Jean Harlow, Pablo Escobar, Bugsy Siegel, Dian Fossey and even Alexander the Great, the movie industry is now eying an epic pileup of about a dozen producers and filmmakers over three separate projects featuring a somewhat unlikely new film hero: the renegade automotive entrepreneur John Z. DeLorean.

The chase involves players as seasoned as the director Brett Ratner, the producer Robert Evans and the writer James Toback. Their DeLorean project is pitted against a competitor being quickly pulled together by another film veteran, the producer David Permut. Both are squared off against yet another project from a young producing team — Nick Spicer, Nate Bolotin, Aram Tertzakian and Tamir Ardon — who are working with Time Inc. Studios; Mr. DeLorean’s son, Zachary; and Alex Holmes.

As it happens, Mr. Holmes, a young British filmmaker, was about to start what would have been a fourth DeLorean project when he instead signed onto the Time Inc. version.

Don’t look for logic here.

Studios have been running the other way from serious biopics since last year, when “Frost/Nixon” and “Milk,” both from units of NBC Universal, burned up cash in the Oscar contest without getting a matching return at the box office. Sony Pictures Entertainment further tarnished the genre in June by halting its “Moneyball,” about the Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane, on the eve of production, though Brad Pitt was set to star and Steven Soderbergh was directing.

Car industry movies do not have much of a track record, either. “Tucker: The Man and His Dream” had only $20 million in ticket sales in 1988, and “Flash of Genius,” released in 2008, in which Greg Kinnear played an engineer who invented the intermittent windshield wiper, stopped short at $4.4 million.

“It’s about people wanting something they can’t have,” David Friendly, a film producer who is not in the DeLorean race, suggested of the perennial biographical matchups. As a journalist, Mr. Friendly in 1986 wrote about a face-off between Warner Brothers and Universal Pictures over competing projects about Ms. Fossey, the slain gorilla expert. The studios wound up sharing “Gorillas in the Mist.”

Filmmakers have been chasing the DeLorean story at least since 1984. That year Mr. DeLorean — famous as a high-living executive who left General Motors and started making sporty stainless-steel cars named after himself, with doors that opened upward like wings — was acquitted after being tried on charges of selling cocaine to prop up his failing company.

“John was really reluctant to make an endorsement” of any film project, said Mr. Ardon, 29, who bought a vintage DeLorean car and then became acquainted with the carmaker himself, who died in 2005 at age 80. Mr. Ardon spent years making a still-unfinished documentary about Mr. DeLorean before becoming involved with Mr. Spicer, Mr. Bolotin and Mr. Tertzakian, who are partners in XYZ Films.

With Mr. DeLorean’s death, his life rights were no longer an issue for would-be filmmakers. More recently, the troubles of America’s car companies have kindled new interest in a man whose struggle against the system was inherently cinematic.

“What makes it prescient, his story, just look at GM and the auto companies, where they are today,” said Mr. Permut, who got hooked on the DeLorean project while shooting “Prayers for Bobby,” a television movie, and “Youth in Revolt,” a theatrical film, in Michigan last year.

More precisely, Mr. Permut met one of Michigan’s best-known citizens, Dr. Jack Kevorkian, who introduced him to one of the state’s best-known lawyers, Mayer Morganroth, who had represented Mr. DeLorean in many of his legal tangles.

Interviewed by telephone this week, Mr. Morganroth said he is now an executive producer of Mr. Permut’s project, which he said would be based in no small part on himself. “It’s my life rights, regarding John, over 10 ½ years,” Mr. Morganroth said of his contribution to the planned film.

At the same time, Mr. Morganroth said, he has warned Time Inc. Studios, XYZ Films, Mr. Ratner and the DeLorean estate to be careful of his position: he is still owed about $7 million by the estate and would expect to collect the money from any rights it might sell, including those to an unpublished DeLorean memoir.

William Courtney, a lawyer who represents the DeLorean estate, said the estate had not become involved with any of the projects. But, he said, he has talked to various would-be moviemakers on behalf of Mr. DeLorean’s last wife, Sally, who wants any film to reflect “the great things John has done.”

In much the same spirit, Mr. Spicer said, Zachary DeLorean has become “an exclusive consultant” to his project, which he said was based on a wide range of sources, including Hillel Levin’s book “Grand Delusions: The Cosmic Career of John DeLorean,” and articles in the various Time Inc. magazines over the years.

None of this is likely to mean much until a major star and either a studio or an independent financier become connected with one or another of the films. According to Mr. Morganroth, that is about to happen with the Permut project. Mr. Morganroth declined to identify the star, and Mr. Permut declined to discuss the matter.

But persistent Hollywood table talk has said that George Clooney may become involved as the lead actor and perhaps the director, which would clearly give Mr. Permut an edge in the race. “There have been conversations, and that’s all there have been,” said Mr. Clooney’s publicist, Stan Rosenfield. “There’s no deal in place.”

Meanwhile, Mr. Toback said he was close to finishing his own DeLorean script, based largely on another book, “Dream Maker: The Rise and Fall of John Z. DeLorean” by Ivan Fallon and James Srodes.

No stranger to filmic collisions, Mr. Toback recalled having been flogged by a nervous star, Warren Beatty, to finish his script for what became the 1991 film “Bugsy,” about Mr. Siegel. At the time a pair of star writers, Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne, were hard at work on another Siegel script.

Competitors notwithstanding, Mr. Toback said he intended to deliver his version of the DeLorean story, which is being financed under an arrangement between Mr. Ratner and Reliance Big, the Indian media company that is now supporting DreamWorks.

As for Mr. Ratner, he said that he had heard the talk about Mr. Clooney — Mr. Permut mentioned the possibility to him months ago at a premiere — and that he was not worried.

“I’m not even thinking about the other projects,” he said. His plan, he said, is to join Mr. Evans in pushing Paramount Pictures, where both are based, to start the film soon, with or without a major star.

“I just don’t think there is a more opportune time to make this movie,” Mr. Ratner said, echoing Mr. Permut. “Just because of what’s going on with the auto companies, the economy and the world.”
KEIN ALU !

Benutzeravatar
Elias
Beiträge: 98
Registriert: 7. Dez 2003, 15:25
Kontaktdaten:

Re: John DeLorean's Life To Be Made Into (Family Approved) Movie

Beitrag von Elias »

Elvis hat geschrieben: Interviewed by telephone this week, Mr. Morganroth said he is now an executive producer of Mr. Permut’s project, which he said would be based in no small part on himself. “It’s my life rights, regarding John, over 10 ½ years,” Mr. Morganroth said of his contribution to the planned film.
Morganroth war es, der DeLorean am Ende ruiniert hat. Glaube nicht, dass JZD Gefallen daran hätte, dass Morganroth einen Film über ihn produziert.

siehe auch: http://deloreancarshow.com/jzd/index.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Benutzeravatar
Elvis
Site Admin
Beiträge: 5460
Registriert: 30. Jun 2003, 15:37
Wohnort: Black Forest

Re: John DeLorean's Life To Be Made Into (Family Approved) Movie

Beitrag von Elvis »

Hier geht's um JZD's Wohnung in der 5th Avenue:

"arepb" auf DMCTALK:
This art gallery claims these were commissioned by JZD for his 834 Fifth Avenue #9a apartment in NYC. True? If so,
it's possible the new owner of this apartment is doing a remodel.

http://d-vers.com/john-delorean-commiss ... p-760.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

BTW, a snippet about the apartment from a recent NY Observer piece:

"9 and 10a: Loida Lewis

The 15-room apartment is on the market with Mr. Kaiser for $39.5 million. Ms. Lewis is the widow of the late Reginald,
billionaire C.E.O. of Beatrice Foods: According to reporter Steven Gaines, the African-American mogul and his Filipino-born
wife were two of “the few people of color to own an apartment in a ‘Good Building’ on Fifth Avenue.”

Disgraced winged-door sports-car man John De Lorean sold the place to the Lewis couple in 1992; the equally scandalous
blonde Gregg Dodge Moran (who married a different car man) had lived there earlier. It boasts a 640-square-foot living
room and master bedroom, both overlooking Central Park"
Maybe DMCkid can tell us for sure.


Actually it looks like there is an entire battery of these
http://d-vers.com/index.php?main_page=a ... an&x=0&y=0" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


DMCKid:
We did live at 834 5th ave, I don't remember the apartment number but 9a sounds correct. I don't have recollection of
these sculptures but they would have hung up high I suppose. The only place I can think they could have been is our living
room because we never went in there. The rest of the apartment I can see like it was yesterday. I will ask my mom next
time I talk to her though.
KEIN ALU !

Antworten