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BARRY LEVINSON ATTACHED TO DIRECT “BROTHER JACK,” LIFE STORY OF HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVIST JACK HEALEY, FOR COLUMBIA PICTURES AND MOSAIC

Posted Thursday, July 8th, 2010 - Comments Off on BARRY LEVINSON ATTACHED TO DIRECT “BROTHER JACK,” LIFE STORY OF HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVIST JACK HEALEY, FOR COLUMBIA PICTURES AND MOSAIC
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CULVER CITY, Calif., July 8, 2010 – Academy Award®-winning director Barry Levinson is attached to helm the film Brother Jack for Columbia Pictures, it was announced today by Doug Belgrad and Matt Tolmach, presidents of Columbia Pictures.
Brother Jack, based on the life of human rights activist Jack Healey, is the coming of age story of an idealist who leaves the priesthood for a life on the streets and successfully wages a one man war to elevate the issue of human rights. The screenplay is being written by Harley Peyton, with a current rewrite by Kelly Masterson. The film will be produced by Mosaic and Jack Healey.
Levinson most recently directed and executive produced “You Don’t Know Jack,” a biopic of Dr. Jack Kevorkian, for HBO, which earned 15 Emmy nominations this morning, including Outstanding Made for Television Movie.


Commenting on the announcement, Belgrad said, “Barry Levinson is one of the industry’s most thoughtful, accomplished and acclaimed directors. His work chronicling the life of Dr. Jack Kevorkian was brilliant and we think his take on how one social activist can influence a nation will be equally engaging and compelling.”
Healey is the world-renowned human rights activist and pioneer. An effective and innovative leader in the human rights movement for over 25 years, Healey helped move the topic of human rights from closed-door diplomatic negotiations to widespread awareness, public debate, and direct citizen action. Colleagues credit him with making human rights a major focus of governments, advocacy organization, and individuals around the world.
Called “Mr. Human Rights” by U.S. News and World Report, Healey brought human rights to the global stage by his creative use of media and enlistment of world-class musical talent as advocates and spokespersons as Executive Director of Amnesty International USA for 12 years.
He currently heads the Human Rights Action Network, a non-profit based out of Washington, D.C. Using the arts and new technologies, the organization works creatively to develop new strategies to stop human rights abuses. Healey’s goals include spreading awareness of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, restoring Aung San Suu Kyi to power in Burma, creating innovative, forceful, effective solutions to assist victims in protecting themselves, supporting growing human rights groups all over the world, and creating a fund to get people out of harm’s way in exceptional human rights abuse cases.
Brother Jack will be overseen at Columbia by Belgrad and Jonathan Kadin. David Householter will oversee on behalf of Mosaic along with George Gatins. Levinson and Masterson are represented by ICM.
About Sony Pictures Entertainment
Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE) is a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America (SCA), a subsidiary of Tokyo-based Sony Corporation. SPE’s global operations encompass motion picture production and distribution; television production and distribution; digital content creation and distribution; worldwide channel investments; home entertainment acquisition and distribution; operation of studio facilities; development of new entertainment products, services and technologies; and distribution of filmed entertainment in more than 130 countries. Sony Pictures Entertainment can be found on the World Wide Web at www.sonypictures.com.

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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon