Tom Hanks Buys Deep Throat

Tom Hanks is leaving World War II and NASA behind to thrust himself into Deep Throat.

From the Washington Post:

Deep Throat Family Cuts Publishing, Film Pacts

Tom Hanks to Develop Movie About Secret Watergate Source

By Bob Thompson

Deep Throat has a book deal and a movie deal, and he could end up being played by Tom Hanks.

The family of 91-year-old W. Mark Felt, who revealed his role as The Washington Post's key Watergate source two weeks ago, has chosen PublicAffairs Books to publish a combination of autobiography and biography, publisher and CEO Peter Osnos said last night. Osnos said that Universal Pictures has optioned Felt's life story and the book for a movie to be developed by Hanks's production company, Playtone.

He said the book will blend Felt's own writing about his life, including his out-of-print 1979 memoir, "The FBI Pyramid: From the Inside," and some unpublished material, with contributions from Felt's family and from lawyer John D. O'Connor, who has been advising the Felts. O'Connor wrote the Vanity Fair article that named Felt as Deep Throat after the secret had been kept for 33 years.

The book is to be published next spring. Its working title is "A G-Man's Life: The FBI, Being 'Deep Throat' and the Struggle for Honor in Washington."

David Kuhn, the New York-based agent who has been representing the family in conjunction with Beverly Hills-based Creative Artists Agency, said last night that "Hanks's company was interested in the rights to the story within a day or two" of the revelation of Deep Throat's identity. He said the movie deal was concluded Tuesday night.

Kuhn would not comment on the sums paid in either the book or the movie deal, except to say that the family's decision on the book "was not based on money" but rather on the vision for its publication put forth by Osnos, a former Washington Post reporter and editor who helped cover the Senate Watergate hearings.

...During the two weeks the Felt project was being shopped, it met with considerable skepticism from publishers. The two reasons usually cited were the health of the elderly Felt, whose physical and mental deterioration appeared to preclude new contributions from him, and the presence of a competing book from Woodward, who had already written his own version of the Deep Throat story.

...But publishing executives agreed that the real money was on the Hollywood end.

In the Vanity Fair article, Mark Felt's daughter Joan is quoted as saying to her father, "Bob Woodward's gonna get all the glory for this, but we could make at least some money to pay some bills, like the debt I've run up for the kids' education. Let's do it for the family."

FOLLOW THE MONEY!

Joan Felt's statement is difficult to reconcile with this. Supposedly, "the family's decision on the book 'was not based on money' but rather on the vision for its publication put forth by Osnos."

Yeah, right.

Suddenly, Joan Felt is concerned about "vision" rather than money. Considering Warner Books and Little, Brown passed on the project, I think it was a matter of looking for a publisher willing to accept it. "Vision." That's funny!

On the movie end of things, I picture Hanks giving Mark Felt a very heroic treatment, which will be unfortunate. Felt is a shadow of a man compared to the men of D-Day and the Apollo astronauts.

I imagine a Titanic type format for the movie. An old man Felt will tell the story, while the middle-aged Hanks plays the hero, a brave man of principle. Vain Joan Felt is most likely fantasizing about the actress who will play her.

It looks like the Felt family got what they wanted--a ride on the gravy train. I wonder if Mark Felt can comprehend any of this.