New Stories From Brian Helgeland, Larry Moskowitz And Alicia Gifford On Popcorn Fiction

By Peter ScirettaSept. 23, 2010 1:00 pm EST

In late 2009, screenwriter Derek Haas (Wanted, 3:10 to Yuma, The A-Team) created a website called Popcorn Fiction, which he described as "a place where new popular short fiction could flourish, and Hollywood could have a new resource for cultivating great ideas."

Haas commissioned some very talented screenwriters to pen stories for the site, including Scott Frank (Minority Report, Out of Sight, Get Shorty), Jeff Lowell (John Tucker Must Die), Eric Heisserer (A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Thing), Les Bohem (A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Child, Dante's Peak, Daylight), Patton Oswalt, Brian Helgeland (L.A. Confidential, Mystic River, A Knight's Tale), Andrea Berloff (World Trade Center), Michael Brandt (Wanted), Mark Bomback (Live Free or Die Hard, Race to Witch Mountain) and others.

And some of these stories have picked up traction in Hollywood, and have been optioned for the big screen. For example, Derek Haas' short story Shake sold to Jerry Bruckheimer in a deal reportedly in the seven-figure range, Todd Stein's Tipping Point supossedly saw offers from Kurtzman/Orci at Dreamworks, Scott Rudin at Disney and Universal, Kevin McCormick at Warner Bros, Paramount, Fox, New Line.

The site has recently added a couple new short stories from Brian Helgeland (the Academy Award-winning screenwriter of L.A. Confidential, Mystic River, Green Zone, Robin Hood), Larry Moskowitz (television vetren who worked on Picket Fences, New York Undercover, JAG and Lincoln Hights), and fiction writer Alicia Gifford.

Brian Helgeland's "Veronica Majeure" is descibed as a "smart little crime piece" about "a contract killer gets stuck in Dublin after a job".

Alicia Gifford's "After the Fire" is descibed as an "excellent character study" about "a childhood mistake looms heavy over a man."

Larry Moskowitz "hardboiled" short story "Willie the Kid" is described as being about a "librarian who helps solve people's problems"

It might be worth checking these stories out. And who knows if they might even be adapted for the big or small screens...