The Studios are Taking Hostages

Hollywood is fighting for hostages -- or at least for the rights to potential films about those who were recently freed in Colombia. Variety reports that studio bigwigs and filmmakers are hot to get their hands on stories about the fifteen hostages released just last week. According to the report, "several potential projects are already taking shape and producers have begun tracking down almost everyone involved to make rights deals." Never let it be said that Hollywood is slow to act on a story. Slow to make an Indiana Jones sequel, perhaps, but not this. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that producers had stowed away on the commando helicopters that landed in the jungle.

Ingrid Betancourt, a woman captured six years ago during a run for the Colombian presidency, was the highest-profile hostage. [She was already the subject of the 2003 documentary The Kidnapping of Ingrid Betancourt. - Zach] "Rumors are rife that Ingrid Betancourt...will sign with French lit agent Susannah Lea and seek a major book and movie deal." As the rest of the world wonders what the rescue means for Colombia's FARC rebels, the entertainment world wonders who will be cast as Betancourt in the inevitable movie version. "Several agents and producers felt that hers is a strong vehicle for a top actress," says Variety, also noting that Julia Roberts' production company has "long been interested" in a story about her. Hopefully, Roberts has zero aspirations to play the part herself, because Roberts as a French-Colombian politician? No, thanks. I'd even rather see her make a Mary Reilly sequel.

Betancourt isn't the only one with suitors waiting at the door, though. The three American contractors who were freed in the same undercover operation "are back in Texas and mulling their potential rights-deal paydays." After five years in the jungle, I'd be mulling a long swim in an Olympic-sized pool filled with medicated bubble bath, but that's just me. Even the government is being wooed, as producers Scott Steindorff and Phil Maloof negotiate "to get the rights to the Colombian government's story of how it pulled off the bloodless liberations." I just hope they include the part where a guerrilla with a full bladder came close to inadvertently foiling the whole operation.

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