Let’s Put on a Show!

Ever since they were published, my books The Devil's Chessboard and Season of the Witch have been optioned by various studios, producers and directors in Hollywood as dramas and documentaries, for TV and movies. But they have never made it to the screen. Write it off to business as usual in Hollywood. Or, in some cases, to political controversy and "catch and kill."

In any case, my patience has worn thin. Fuck the Hollywood gatekeepers. They're cheap and timid and ignorant. They never think big. That's why the current entertainment industry fare is so banal, so forgettable.

But maybe you have a John Cassavetes or Francis Coppola or Dorothy Arzner or Stanley Kubrick in you… Or yes, an Oliver Stone. Maybe you're willing to challenge the system or to go outside of it.

If you have a track record as a movie or TV maker and you have the money, I now own the the screen rights to all of my books. If you are serious about these stories and have a compelling way to translate them for an audience -- and frankly the money -- let's talk. You can reach me at: david@talbotplayers.com. Please don't waste my time unless you're a serious player.

As many readers know, The Devil's Chessboard (a New York Times bestseller, despite the NYT blackout) is the greatest spy story never told. One reviewer wrote John le Carre or Graham Greene could do no better. A son of Hollywood, I wrote the book cinematically. It cries out to be a movie or limited TV series.

Season of the Witch (a national bestseller) is also a grabber -- the story of how a unique American city was liberated in the 1960s, '70s and '80s. As I wrote, San Francisco was not born with flowers in its hair, but howling in blood and strife. The action in those years was wild and nonstop, the characters leapt off the page. The book wrote itself.

Dramatists of the world, you have nothing to lose but your chains! Contact me.