Teh_pantless_hero
16-09-2005, 13:17
"Scrushy movie in negotiations, his lawyers say"
Lights, camera - Scrushy!
Richard Scrushy lawyers Donald Watkins and Jim Parkman say they are in talks with Hollywood screenwriters and movie producers interested in turning their story into a feature-length film.
"We have met with directors and actors well known to the American public," Watkins said. "It is a David vs. Goliath story, and a tale of seemingly divergent personalities coming together to win the battle nobody said could be won."
About two weeks ago, the pair met in Hollywood with star actor James Woods and Todd Slater, executive producer of the 2004 film biography of musician Ray Charles, Watkins said. Also at the table were Rodney Stone, who produced the 1991 biography of basketball star "Pistol Pete" Maravich, and Harry Thomasson, a Bill Clinton confidante and co-creator of the 1980s television hit "Designing Women."
Meetings with potential screenwriters are scheduled later this month.
"Hollywood figures are gripped by this story that played out in Birmingham," Watkins said.
In June, Watkins, Parkman and a handful of other little-known lawyers persuaded a Birmingham jury to find former HealthSouth Chief Executive Scrushy not guilty on 36 counts of corporate fraud. They won their case despite guilty pleas from 15 former employees and the testimony of five ex-finance chiefs who said under oath Scrushy cooked the books.
"Anything dramatic is of potential interest to audiences," said Richard Walter, chairman of the screenwriting program at the UCLA school of theater, film and television. "Great dramatic art always has memorable characters."
The Scrushy tale might qualify.
The former CEO flew airplanes, played in bar bands and said he wanted to be the highest-paid executive in corporate America while running HealthSouth. Lawyers Watkins and Parkman also put their ample personalities on display during the trial. Walter, whose students include the screenwriters of "Sideways" and "War of The Worlds," said the corporate/courtroom thriller hasn't lost steam with film studios.
`A nice-lookin' fellow':
Scrushy has also had feelers about movies, the former CEO said.
"We've had people call us," he said. "We've been approached by various agents and people who have a relationship with that."
Scrushy added that he doesn't know who should portray him, but that it should "probably be a nice-lookin' fellow."
As for Watkins and Parkman, they plan to retain significant editorial control over any project they assent to, possibly as co-producers. That's because they want to tell the story of the relationships between the lawyers and their winning strategies, as well as the more oft-heard tales of corporate excess and greed the former finance chiefs described on the witness stand.
"The interesting thing is how we all came together from different legal backgrounds and won the case," Parkman said.
Parkman was a late addition to the case that began in March 2003, when the FBI raided the Birmingham headquarters of HealthSouth, which then fired co-founder Scrushy.
Parkman joined the legal team in the fall of 2004, about four months before the trial, replacing famed New York attorney Abbe Lowell. Watkins said that once assembled, the legal squad had a variety of background experience that contributed to the victory.
For example, Watkins, who managed the team of lawyers, comes from a family of prominent Southern blacks who included his late father, the former president of Alabama State University. After a successful law career, Watkins branched into business and politics, building on a statewide power base constructed by his father. He was busy trying to buy Major League Baseball teams when he took the Scrushy case, after having not practiced law for several years.
Parkman - a Dothan lawyer known for winning drug, assault and other criminal cases - was recruited to get the Main Street demeanor needed to counter the Justice Department's by-the-book litigators. Parkman made the most of his "aw-shucks" repertoire in front of the jury, invoking homilies such as, "My grandma always told me there are two sides to every pancake."
Other members of the team included Art Leach, a former government prosecutor who shut down a Mafia-connected strip club in Atlanta; Martin Adams, a former assistant district attorney in the Alabama Wiregrass region who is Scrushy's son-in-law; Montgomery civil rights attorney Lewis Gillis; and Les Moore, a former police officer and security executive at HealthSouth.
Neither Parkman nor Watkins plan to appear in the film, although Watkins said Denzel Washington "would be about the right fit" to play him.
Birmingham News
So, Scrushy is going to try and get a movie deal? I assume it will focus on how he is the only white man to be acquitted by being a black man, or at least how he duped the jury into thinking that.
Lights, camera - Scrushy!
Richard Scrushy lawyers Donald Watkins and Jim Parkman say they are in talks with Hollywood screenwriters and movie producers interested in turning their story into a feature-length film.
"We have met with directors and actors well known to the American public," Watkins said. "It is a David vs. Goliath story, and a tale of seemingly divergent personalities coming together to win the battle nobody said could be won."
About two weeks ago, the pair met in Hollywood with star actor James Woods and Todd Slater, executive producer of the 2004 film biography of musician Ray Charles, Watkins said. Also at the table were Rodney Stone, who produced the 1991 biography of basketball star "Pistol Pete" Maravich, and Harry Thomasson, a Bill Clinton confidante and co-creator of the 1980s television hit "Designing Women."
Meetings with potential screenwriters are scheduled later this month.
"Hollywood figures are gripped by this story that played out in Birmingham," Watkins said.
In June, Watkins, Parkman and a handful of other little-known lawyers persuaded a Birmingham jury to find former HealthSouth Chief Executive Scrushy not guilty on 36 counts of corporate fraud. They won their case despite guilty pleas from 15 former employees and the testimony of five ex-finance chiefs who said under oath Scrushy cooked the books.
"Anything dramatic is of potential interest to audiences," said Richard Walter, chairman of the screenwriting program at the UCLA school of theater, film and television. "Great dramatic art always has memorable characters."
The Scrushy tale might qualify.
The former CEO flew airplanes, played in bar bands and said he wanted to be the highest-paid executive in corporate America while running HealthSouth. Lawyers Watkins and Parkman also put their ample personalities on display during the trial. Walter, whose students include the screenwriters of "Sideways" and "War of The Worlds," said the corporate/courtroom thriller hasn't lost steam with film studios.
`A nice-lookin' fellow':
Scrushy has also had feelers about movies, the former CEO said.
"We've had people call us," he said. "We've been approached by various agents and people who have a relationship with that."
Scrushy added that he doesn't know who should portray him, but that it should "probably be a nice-lookin' fellow."
As for Watkins and Parkman, they plan to retain significant editorial control over any project they assent to, possibly as co-producers. That's because they want to tell the story of the relationships between the lawyers and their winning strategies, as well as the more oft-heard tales of corporate excess and greed the former finance chiefs described on the witness stand.
"The interesting thing is how we all came together from different legal backgrounds and won the case," Parkman said.
Parkman was a late addition to the case that began in March 2003, when the FBI raided the Birmingham headquarters of HealthSouth, which then fired co-founder Scrushy.
Parkman joined the legal team in the fall of 2004, about four months before the trial, replacing famed New York attorney Abbe Lowell. Watkins said that once assembled, the legal squad had a variety of background experience that contributed to the victory.
For example, Watkins, who managed the team of lawyers, comes from a family of prominent Southern blacks who included his late father, the former president of Alabama State University. After a successful law career, Watkins branched into business and politics, building on a statewide power base constructed by his father. He was busy trying to buy Major League Baseball teams when he took the Scrushy case, after having not practiced law for several years.
Parkman - a Dothan lawyer known for winning drug, assault and other criminal cases - was recruited to get the Main Street demeanor needed to counter the Justice Department's by-the-book litigators. Parkman made the most of his "aw-shucks" repertoire in front of the jury, invoking homilies such as, "My grandma always told me there are two sides to every pancake."
Other members of the team included Art Leach, a former government prosecutor who shut down a Mafia-connected strip club in Atlanta; Martin Adams, a former assistant district attorney in the Alabama Wiregrass region who is Scrushy's son-in-law; Montgomery civil rights attorney Lewis Gillis; and Les Moore, a former police officer and security executive at HealthSouth.
Neither Parkman nor Watkins plan to appear in the film, although Watkins said Denzel Washington "would be about the right fit" to play him.
Birmingham News
So, Scrushy is going to try and get a movie deal? I assume it will focus on how he is the only white man to be acquitted by being a black man, or at least how he duped the jury into thinking that.