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Deep Throat seals movie deal
16/06/2005 21:06 - (SA)
Los Angeles - Hollywood star Tom Hanks' production firm has signed a deal with former FBI agent Mark Felt, who last month revealed he was Deep Throat, to turn his story into a movie, industry press said Thursday.
Universal Pictures on Wednesday inked the deal on behalf of Hanks' Playtone company to bring the story of the shadowy insider who helped reporters expose US president Richard Nixon's role in the Watergate scandal, to the silver screen.
One million dollars
The rights, along with those to a book, were sold for around one million dollars, according to The New York Times.
Entertainment industry bible Daily Variety said the deal included rights to the stories of the 91-year-old Felt and his family and that double Oscar-winning actor Hanks and partner Gary Goetzman would produce the film.
Under the deal, Universal also sewed up the story rights of lawyer John O'Connor, who revealed the 30-year-old secret of Deep Throat's identity in a Vanity Fair article last month, on behalf of its partners Playtone.
Included in the deal are the rights to the Vanity Fair article as well as Felt's 1979 memoir and another book that Felt and O'Connor plan to write.
The New York Times on Thursday quoted people involved in the deal as saying Independent publisher Public Affairs would combine Felt's recollections about his life and his relationship with Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward with material written by O'Connor.
All the president's men
Based in part on Felt's inside information, Woodward, along with fellow Post reporter Carl Bernstein, wrote the articles about the involvement of Nixon administration officials in the June 17, 1972 burglary of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington.
The scandal and the White House's attempted cover-up ultimately led to Richard Nixon becoming the first US president to resign in disgrace, in August 1974.
Public Affairs publisher and chief executive Peter Osnos said the book would be published early next year.
The full amount of the movie and book deals will not be known for some time and depends on whether a film is actually made, as the lion's share of the cash would come from movie rights, the sources said.
Woodward's book on "Deep Throat" will be published in July, publisher Simon Schuster said earlier this month.
- AFP
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South Africa
