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Although What Makes Sammy
Run? was a hugely successful novel when it was published in the
Spring of 1941, there was little chance that the Hollywood moguls, so
devastatingly lampooned in the novel, would be anxious to bring the
character of Sammy Glick to the screen. Even though he insisted
that Glick was a composite character, not based on any one studio head,
Budd Schulberg managed to make himself personae non grata
throughout Hollywood at the youthful age of 27. Even his father,
B. P. Schulberg, the former head of Paramount Pictures, wrote to him with
concern: "You'll never work in this town again. How
will you live?" Schulberg
later wrote two of the best films ever made -- On the Waterfront
and A Face in the Crowd-- but both were New York-based
productions. Dramatic adaptations of What Makes Sammy Run?
were presented on television in 1949 and 1959, and the musical
version played a long run on Broadway during the 1964-65 season, but
Hollywood has steadfastly ignored the book.
Since the mid-90s, actor Ben Stiller has been talking about directing
and starring in a movie version of What
Makes Sammy Run? In August of 1998, The New York Times
published an article declaring the film "pretty close," and
Stiller occasionally spoke
about Sammy being his "next" project, but Warner Bros
(which then owned the movie rights) never gave a green light to the
project. In November of 2001, as part of a three-year pact with
Stiller, DreamWorks paid
Warner Bros $2.6 million to make the film under their own banner with Stiller
starring and directing. (Here's a link
to the news announcement.) The
pact was extended in 2004, but there's still no sign of a green light
and Stiller's slate seems pretty full for the next few years. So
if you want to see the story dramatized, catch the
musical version. |