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James D. Stern’s Endgame Entertainment, plus “This American Life” producer-writer-host Ira Glass and his producing partner Alissa Shipp, announced today they are teaming with Marc Forster and Bradford Simpson’s Apparatus to produce a film. It’s titled Heretics, based on the “This American Life” episode of the same name. Marcus Hinchey (All Good Things) is writing the screenplay as a potential directing vehicle for Forster, with Endgame financing.
Endgame recently partnered with Glass and Shipp to produce the Phillip Noyce-directed spy thriller Wenceslas Square, which is currently being fast-tracked for production. Heretics tells the true story of Carlton Pearson, a rising star in the evangelical movement who was ostracized by his own Church after he started preaching that there is no Hell.
“This film lets us tell a story about evangelical Christians from their perspective, not from the outside,” said Glass. “And at its heart, it’s a classic old-fashioned movie plot: a man who stands up for what he believes and loses everything because of it.”
“This American Life” is a weekly public radio show produced by WBEZ Radio and distributed by Public Radio International.
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Fantastic!! “This American Life” is my Sunday Church session. I hope the feature tugs my heart strings as much as the radio program does.
It’s a great episode!
Alissa Shipp is by far the best executive I had ever encountered when she was at WB in NYC. She was meeting with writers she liked to potentially adapt some of the This American Life stories in features for WB at the time.
I walked out of that meeting and told my agent and manager that I wanted to work with her on something. I didn’t care on what. Let’s just find something. I had met enough execs in LA to know that she was a rarity in the business.
And of course she left her post at WB shortly after our meeting to work on projects like this one for This American Life.
If a studio head had a brain in their heads, they’d give her what she wants to come in and shepherd in some films for them. She wasn’t just looking for intelligent too cool for school writers. She was looking for writers who could connect with a large audience. She had taste. Real taste. Not your typical “what the town is buzzing about” taste.
I think anything she produces will be fantastic.
And no, I’m not related to her.
As great as Miss Shipp is Ira Glass is a condescending prig. He is lucky to have her as he doesn’t understand film one bit.
Nor does he seem to appreciate it as a medium. He’s quite a snob.
Look how long it has taken to get a project up and running from those wonderful stories with her tremendous enthusiasm. He’s lucky to have her as an exec.
I’m an enormous fan of the show but I was really disappointed with the outcome of Unaccompanied Minors and less-so with their Showtime series. Here’s hoping they’ve learned valuable lessons from those experiences. I still think the radio show is on a level with The New Yorker, Pixar, and HBO in the 90′s, consistently producing amazing storytelling.
Thanks, Dad.
I’m happy they’ve got a deal for something that will likely be neither in 3-D nor have a car chase, but does this mean that the stories on “This American Life” are real? Because they always sound like Albert Brooks movies, only whinier and not funny.