The producers of the Gosnell movie raised the $2.1 million they needed to make the Hollywood-style film that will tell the story of the gruesome abortion practitioner. Now, they’ve hired a screenwriter to produce the script to tell the story.
“We have some great news that we are excited to share with you,” the producers Ann McElhinney and Phelim McAleer told LifeNews today in an email. “We’ve just signed up the best-selling author and screenwriter Andrew Klavan to write the script for the Gosnell Movie.”
Klavan, whose books have been made into movies directed and starring Clint Eastwood and Michael Douglas, said he had wanted to write the Gosnell screenplay “from the moment I heard it was underway.” He said the Gosnell project was “a great story” but also an important tale to tell.
Klavan said: “This is so much more than a job of work for me. As I’ve begun to get into the research materials, it’s started to come home to me that we’ve all taken on a huge responsibility. The women who were brutalized by this Gosnell monster — they can tell their stories. But all his victims, all those babies — we’ve got to figure out a way to speak for them somehow.”
The producers continue:
Andrew has written a number of internationally bestselling crime novels such as True Crime, later adapted for a film directed and starring Clint Eastwood and Don’t Say A Word which starred Michael Douglas. As a screenwriter, Klavan wrote A Shock to the System, which starred Michael Caine, and One Missed Call, starring Ed Burns and Shannyn Sossamon. He was also the screenwriter for 2013’s bestselling and Appy Award- winning iOS movie app Haunting Melisssa, and its sequel Haunting Melissa 2: Dark Hearts, due out later this year.
Click here to sign up for daily pro-life news alerts from LifeNews.com
Andrew said Gosnell’s story was a great material for a compelling true crime drama. “I’ve been a crime writer all my life and I know a great crime story when I hear one. What really grabbed me about this is that, here you have the worst serial killer in American history — the banality of evil made flesh — and yet there’s this powerful bureaucratic inertia that provides him cover… Even when he’s been discovered, there’s this real reluctance to bring the truth to the public. The Gosnell murders were an inconvenient truth that no one wanted to tell it. So while on the one hand, you have that evil… you also have the quiet, dogged courage of the investigators and journalists who were not afraid to get the story, who wouldn’t let it go. That’s the stuff great stories are made of.”
In a lengthy writing career Klavan has been nominated for the Mystery Writers of America’s Edgar Award five times and has won twice. He has recently published a bestselling series of thriller novels for young adults, The Homelanders, and his YA novel If We Survive was nominated for an International Thriller Writers Award. His latest novel for adults, Werewolf Cop, is due out next spring.
His essays and op-eds on politics, religion, movies and literature have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The LA Times, and elsewhere. His 2008 WSJ op-ed “What Bush and Batman Have in Common,” topped the Technorati list as the most-read online piece of the day. He has also produced several popular political satire video series, including “Klavan on the Culture,” for PJTV.com, “A Very Serious Commentary,” for Glenn Beck’s TheBlaze.com and his current series “The Revolting Truth,” for TruthRevolt.org.
We are delighted that Andrew had agreed to write the screenplay. He is unafraid of the darkest parts of this story and sees, despite all the horror perpetrated by Gosnell, hope and light in the many real heroic characters that finally ensured justice was done. He also understands that the story needs to be told in an entertaining and accessible way to reach the widest audience possible.
Kermit Gosnell is America’s least known serial killer. We want to change that and almost 27,000 of you have donated to make this happen. Andrew won’t let you down.
