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Disney Acquires Coast Guard Rescue Saga ‘The Finest Hours’

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Friday August 12, 2011 @ 10:06am PDTTags: David Arata, Peter Hedges
Mike Fleming

EXCLUSIVE: While the summer dealmaking has tapered off in the dog days of August, a big one went down yesterday. In a deal worth high-six against seven-figures, Walt Disney Pictures acquired a package to make a movie out of the bestselling book The Finest Hours, with Oscar-nominated The Fighter scribes Paul Tamasy and Eric Johnson to write the story of a daring Coast Guard rescue off Cape Cod in 1952. The project was set up through Jim Whitaker’s Entertainment and he will produce with Dorothy Aufiero, who worked with the writers as the original producer of The Fighter.

Published in 2009 by Scribner, the Casey Sherman and Michael J. Tougias-authored book tells the story of a Coast Guard rescue undertaken after two oil tankers were torn in half by treacherous waves during a deadly nor’easter blizzard. There were four rescue efforts, including two undertaken by a handful of men on two old, wooden, motorized 36-foot lifeboats. The men understood they had no business fighting frozen gale winds and seas but went anyway in an attempt to rescue the 84 men who were floating on halves of the cracked and sinking oil tankers. READ MORE »

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Alternative Thinker Malcolm Gladwell Smartens Up Disney Drama ‘Hexum’

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Monday March 28, 2011 @ 7:58am PDTTags: David Arata, Disney, Malcolm Gladwell
Mike Fleming

Who said that there was no deep thinking in Hollywood studio films? Disney has hired Malcolm Gladwell to smarten up Hexum, a drama script from David Arata, whose credits include Spy Games and Children of Men. The Hexum protagonist is … Read More »

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