DW inks
dog hit
to flick
Studio bones up
on Bruce’s book
Award-winning NSNC member W. Bruce Cameron, who last made headlines with the publication and quick rise to best-seller status of his first novel, A Dog’s Purpose, now is preparing its screenplay.
His is not work on spec, though, hoping to run into Steven Spielberg at a west L.A. deli and drop a draft across his onion bagel and shmear. The book has been signed by DreamWorks, Spielberg’s shop, for a live-action major motion picture. USA Today and film trade publications announced the deal Thursday, Oct. 21, 2010.
A Dog’s Purpose remains in the top 30 in the Hardcover Fiction list of The New York Times’ best-seller charts.
What’s the book about? Well, first, it’s Bruce’s debut published novel. He has several books out already, collections of his humor columns, most famously 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter, which was turned into a successful ABC sitcom.
The story is in told in “first-dog, limited.” Like the somewhat similar “first-person, limited,” the narrator is the protagonist, and we readers (and soon enough, viewers) don’t know anything the hero can’t know. Within pages we learn the hero is the spirit of a series of dogs. Their sex and their location change, but every time the spirit realizes it needs to learn its purpose. Each incarnation has adventures that have kept readers zipping through chapter after chapter all summer, giggling, gasping or tearing up.
Bruce is co-writing the script with his beloved, Cathryn Michon, herself an accomplished author and performer. Wasn’t it the 2003 Tucson conference when Cathryn gave the Columnists Society a stand-up comedy set?
Knowing these two and their professional discipline, they’re probably nearly done with an early draft. But perhaps columnists can help. In the comments section below, feel free to suggest scenes or casting ideas for the movie version. For fun — no royalties for the likes of columnists.com readers. Reading the book first would help, but maybe it’ll be a hindrance to your creativity. Just promise you’ll check out Bruce’s book soon.
I’ll start: Ellie the police dog is called with her keeper to investigate a 1 a.m. report of a disturbance at the hospitality suite of the annual columnists conference. Ellie (voice of Kathleen Turner) sees a colony of feral cats have jumped in through an open window. Turns out they crave cold pizza. The scribes who haven’t fled to their rooms are huddled in the bathroom. They’re either allergic to cats or have ailurophobia, fear of felines.
What, too unrealistic? My ginger shorthair tom, Tiki, begs for pizza toppings and my Mani, a Tibetan terrier, would eat the rest, if we let him.
Your turn:
