Movie rights also available
The Guardian Unlimited has the follow-up for those of you who have been waiting with bated breath to see what happened to the Harry Potter thief.
A man was jailed for four-and-a-half years today after stealing pre-release copies of a Harry Potter novel and shooting a blank-firing pistol at a journalist when he failed to negotiate a sale.
Aaron Lambert, 20, stole two copies of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince from a secure distribution centre on June 2 last year, six weeks before the JK Rowling novel’s much awaited publication.
On the one hand, this story has everything a made-for-TV movie needs. It has obsession, darkness of the human soul, blackmail, theft, and final blatant stupidity that proves that crime does not pay. It is a script that begs to be written.
On the other hand, any script you could write from it would be automatically dismissed as wholly unrealistic. A 20-year-old bodybuilder becomes obsessed with his hobby, diving deep into the world of steroids and performance-enhancing drugs. He gets a job as a security guard and uses that job to steal copies of the new Harry Potter book before its release. He then tries to steal the book and winds up in a newspaper-operated sting, during which he fires a blank pistol at the reporter posing as a prospective buyer. And to top it all off, after being arrested he made phone calls threatening to expose pivotal plot points of the book if the publisher didn’t pay him hush money.
It’s ridiculous. It’s absurd.
He’s been found guilty.
Which means that since he cannot profit from his crimes, he has no control over any adaptations that are written.
Which is why I am pleased to announce my latest work-in-progress – Potted! A Musical Based on A Series of Unlikely Events. Production rights are tentatively schedule for availability in January 2007.