Hollywood production companies, Anonymous Content and Rocklin/Faust Productions, are developing a movie that will follow the Boston Globe's "Spotlight Team" during its year-long investigation into allegations of clergy sex abuse in the Boston archdiocese in 2002.
According to the entertainment business Web site, Deadline.com, the producers hope to make the film in the mode of "All the President's Men," the 1976 Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman film that re-created Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward's and Carl Bernstein's investigation of the Nixon White House.
"One of the planned film's hooks is that some of the journalists are themselves Catholic and were conflicted as they researched and wrote their stories," Deadline.com reported.
"The producers acquired the life rights of the Boston Globe "Spotlight Team" of reporters and editors who were part of the team that shared the Pulitzer Prize in 2003 for meritorious public service for their reporting," Deadline.com reported.
"Journalists including Ben Bradlee Jr., Michael Rezendes, Walter Robinson, Sacha Pfeiffer, Matt Carroll and Globe editor Marty Baron will cooperate with the film," according to Deadline.com.
Anonymous Content has produced "Babel" (Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett) and "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" (Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet), according to information on its Web site. And according to The Hollywood Reporter, Nicole Rocklin and Blye Faust are producing a romantic comedy, "Wedding Banned" starring Robin Williams.
In an interesting twist, the Globe's investigative team was headed by Bradlee, the son of the Washington Post editor who stood behind Woodward and Bernstein.
Could they name the film "All the Pope's Men"? That is the title of a 2006 book by NCR senior correspondent John L. Allen Jr. Allen's book is subtitled: "The Inside Story of How the Vatican Really Thinks."
