The S4 Movie Update

New Line Cinema currently owns the motion picture rights to Bob Lazar's experiences at S4 / Area 51.

What's taking so long to make it? Here's the story:

Originally, Columbia Pictures came to Lazar and wanted to produce a feature film about his experiences. Columbia obtained the rights and proceeded to develop a script. About a year into development, Columbia Pictures broke up to form separate corporate entities and those who were in charge of development were now without jobs. The option period was coming up and Lazar did not like the way the script was going. They were turning it into a "James Bond" type of film. There were scenes with Lazar running across the tops of cars on the Las Vegas strip to get away from "the bad guys" at S4. As the option period expired, offers came in from other studios to take over production the film, some of them offering a great deal of money.

Lazar opted to go with a small studio (New Line Cinema) that was offering a tiny fraction of what the other studios had offered with the agreement that the film would be presented as it really happened, not "Hollywood style". Writers were hired and the movie machine was put into motion. After a short time though, the new screenplays began to look like the old ones, only this time they were turning it into more of a love story! Lazar would not budge, "either they present my story the way it happened, or I will not support the movie."

To complicate things, Turner Broadcasting bought New Line Cinema and now Warner Brothers it seems has bought them both. Rumor also has it that Polygram Records is now in the deal too.

Where does that leave things? Well, the option is up in June, they have until then to fix their screenplay so that it accurately depicts Lazar's story. If they do, the movie will be shot shortly after that. If not, there is another studio chomping at the bit to produce the movie, and they already have a script that Lazar likes...

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