Movies based on magazine and newspaper articles aren’t exactly a new thing. After all, that’s where Michael Mann’s **The Insider **and, erm, Denzel’s Remember The Titans first sprung to life. But Columbia Pictures have taken one step further by snapping up the movie rights to… an ongoing column.
Modern Love, which runs in the New York Times’ Sunday Style supplement, plays host to a different true-life tale of love and relationships every week, penned by different writers. The Columbia deal, struck by producers Gail Berman and Lloyd Braun, gives the studio the first pick of the column, which it hopes to mine for a string of romantic comedies.
Berman and Braun had already made a deal with the New York Times for a TV show based on Modern Love, but they will also get to produce any films that come from the movie deal.
On one hand, this development gives us hope that Hollywood will finally see sense and pay us big bucks for our ongoing regulars - Pint Of Milk, My Movie Mastermind or even, fingers hugely crossed, the much-maligned Pimp My Death Star.
On the other, it also makes a world in which we have movies based on columns by numbnuts like Liz Jones and Richard Littlejohn a terrifying reality. Somebody, please, make it stop!