Part 8 (1/2)
”My clients are hoping for a heroic rescue and a percentage of the adjusted gross,” said Ian Whitestone of the William Morris Agency, who is representing the self-trapped miners in their Hollywood dealings.
The stakes are high for the so-called ”copycat” miners, who are trying to land not only a movie deal but also seven-figure paydays for trapped-miner video games, action figures, and a possible sitcom or Broadway musical.
But with several Hollywood studios and broadcast networks taking ”pitches” from the trapped miners via conference calls yesterday, the initial results were somewhat less than encouraging.
”I heard their whole story, and I thought they needed a new ending,” said Stacy Conant, a production vice president at Paramount Pictures. ”Right now, all that happens is they get rescued. I was like, So what? It seemed a little tired to me.”
Bob Littlesmith, a programming executive at ABC, agreed: ”Their whole pitch kind of fell off at the end. It definitely needs a twist. Maybe they could eat each other or something.”
For his part, William Morris' Whitestone said his clients would do whatever it takes to score a deal based on their self-inflicted ordeal.
”My clients are completely open to the idea of not being rescued, and are currently exploring the idea of eating each other,” Mr. Whitestone said.
Hollywood executives called the stories pitched by copycat miners ”derivative.”
BUSH: SADDAM BOUGHT GERANIUMS, NOT URANIUM.
White House Defends War Decision Based on Typo In an extraordinary retraction of key elements in his last State of the Union address, President George W. Bush revealed today that Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein did not attempt to buy uranium in Africa, as earlier alleged, but merely geraniums.
”As I was reading the speech to the nation, I should have caught that typo,” the President told reporters today. ”My bad.”
While the news about the uranium/geranium goof stunned diplomatic circles, Mr. Bush remained resolute about his decision to go to war, arguing that buying geraniums, while not as potentially dangerous as buying uranium, still represented a ”suspicious” activity on the part of the Iraqi madman.
Saddam may have sought deadly geraniums (pictured) in Africa.
”The question we have to ask is, who was he buying these geraniums for?” Mr. Bush said. ”Was he buying them for Osama bin Laden or Kim Jong II or some other evildoer? Luckily, we'll never find out.”
Mr. Bush said that, thanks to Operation Iraqi Freedom, ”Saddam Hussein is no longer free to terrorize the world with his evil flower-buying sprees.”
While the President may have been trying to quell international criticism, his comments instead sparked more controversy, as French President Jacques Chirac challenged the U.S. to find evidence of geraniums anywhere in Iraq.
In response, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld said that while the U.S. had yet to turn up any concrete evidence of geraniums, U.S. forces had uncovered several ”suspicious” empty flowerpots outside of Basra.
Asked by reporters about the flowerpots, Mr. Bush gave a thumbs-up gesture and said, ”Mission accomplished.”
QWEST SELLS YELLOW PAGES FOR $7 BILLION; HIGHEST PRICE EVER PAID FOR FREE ITEM FOUND IN DRIVEWAY.
Phone Book's Price Tag Surprises Many at Company's Yard Sale Embattled telecom giant Qwest Communications sold the Yellow Pages yesterday for $7.05 billion, believed to be the highest price ever paid for a free item found in the driveway.
The surprising ten-figure sale occurred at a company yard sale held to avert a bankruptcy filing, said Roy Helton, a Qwest employee who helped run the yard sale.
”We were just throwing stuff in the back of our Explorer to bring it to the yard sale, and my wife said, 'Hey, how about those Yellow Pages?'” Mr. Helton said, referring to a phone directory that had just been delivered and was still sitting in the driveway.
”So I said, 'Sure, what the hey,' but I never thought in a million years that anyone would buy it,” Mr. Helton said. ”n.o.body ever pays for the Yellow Pages-they're free.”
Contrary to his expectations, Mr. Helton said, the Yellow Pages were snapped up at the yard sale by the Carlyle Group and Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe.
”To say I was surprised that they paid several billion for a phone book is putting it mildly,” he said. ”There were perfectly good copying machines and printers sitting right next to it on the table.”
Qwest stunned a.n.a.lysts with the $7 billion it received for a phone book it sold at a company yard sale.
On Wall Street, telecom a.n.a.lyst Carla Bollinger of Credit Suisse First Boston said that the $7 billion price tag garnered by the Yellow Pages may inspire troubled companies to sell other free items found in driveways, such as supermarket circulars and Chinese takeout menus.
U.S. SENDS UDAY AND QUSAY'S HEADS ON 21-CITY TOUR
”Not Gloating,” Cautions Rumsfeld In an extraordinary attempt to convince the Iraqi people that fallen madmen Uday and Qusay Hussein are dead, the U.S. today announced plans to send the heads of the evil brothers on a twenty-one-city tour of Iraq later this week.
The despised heads are scheduled to make stops in Mosul, Basra, Tikrit and the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, returning to Baghdad at the end of August.
At the Pentagon, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld denied that the extensive showings of the Hussein brothers' heads const.i.tuted gloating on the part of the U.S., and said that T-s.h.i.+rts, b.u.mper stickers and beverage cups bearing the images of the two evildoers would be ”tasteful.”
Dismissing charges of gloating, Mr. Rumsfeld said, ”It would be gloating if I danced a jig around the heads while stark naked, and there are no plans at the present time for me to do that.”
The upcoming tour must convince a highly skeptical Iraqi populace that the two Hussein brothers are in fact dead, as a recent poll finds that 94 percent of all Iraqis believe that the heads shown on TV were not those of Uday and Qusay, but were instead part of a really bad makeover show.
In other dismemberment news, the right hand of Senator Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) fell off today after a three-hour book signing of her bestseller, Living History, at a San Francis...o...b..rnes & n.o.ble bookstore.
In Baghdad, an Iraqi citizen responded to the news that Uday and Qusay Hussein's heads would go on a twenty-one-city tour.
Ms. Clinton was rushed to an area hospital for treatment while her hand remained at the store and signed books for another forty-five minutes.
BASEBALL TAKES BOLD STEPS TO ALIENATE REMAINING FANS.