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Time Traveler:
A Spike Lee Film
Press Release - June 16, 2008
PAUL BRESNICK LITERARY AGENCY, LLC
115 West 29th Street, Third Floor
New York, NY 10001
Tel. 212 239 3166
Fax. 212 239 3165
paul@bresnickagency.co
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 16, 2008
SPIKE LEE ACQUIRES
FILM RIGHTS TO
TIME TRAVELER
by Dr. Ronald Mallett with Bruce
Henderson
New York, NY - Film rights to TIME TRAVELER by Dr. Ronald Mallett with Bruce Henderson --the
inspiring memoir by one of America's
first African American Ph.D.'s in theoretical physics
who has discovered the basic equations for a working time
machine -- have been acquired by director Spike Lee's production
company, Forty Acres & A Mule Filmworks, Inc. The
Emmy-winning and Academy Award-nominated Lee will co-write
the script and direct.
TIME TRAVELER: A Scientist's Personal Mission
to Make Time Travel a Reality (Basic Books)
is the compelling and touching story of a man whose
deep childhood trauma -- at age ten the sudden death
of his father -- drove him on a quest to build a time
machine in an attempt to go back in time to save his
father. In telling his story, Mallett explains in "easy-to-read"
(Publishers Weekly) language and elegant metaphors the physics that
makes time travel possible --
based on Einstein's theories of relativity -- and offers
what New Scientist's editor Michael
Brooks calls an "actual blueprint for a time machine."
The title has been reprinted in Korea, Taiwan and the
United Kingdom.
Kirkus Reviews found
TIME TRAVELER an "inspiring blend of personal
narrative and scientific exploration," and the
London Daily Mail said of Mallett: "In pursuit
of his seemingly impossible goal, he has overcome poverty
and prejudice to become one of only a handful of top-flight
black physicists in the United States."
Lee recently finished filming Miracle at St. Anna,
based on the novel that follows members of the U.S.
Army's 92nd Division of all-black buffalo
soldiers during World War II as they become trapped
between forces beyond their control and between different
worlds. Regarding TIME TRAVELER, Lee says:
"I'm elated to have acquired the rights to a fantastic
story on many levels, but also a father-and-son saga of loss
and love."
Mallett received his B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. in physics from
Pennsylvania State University. He worked for United Technologies
from 1973-5, and in 1975 joined the physics faculty at the
University of Connecticut in Storrs, where he has been a professor
of theoretical physics ever since. Mallett has published numerous
papers on black holes and cosmology in professional journals.
His breakthrough research on time travel has been featured
extensively in the media around the world, including
NPR's This American Life, and the
History Channel, Science Channel and Learning Channel. Mallett resides in East Hartford, Connecticut.
Henderson is the author
or co-author of more than twenty nonfiction books, including Down to the Sea (Smithsonian/Collins) and
True North (W. W. Norton). His previous
titles include a #1 New York Times
hardcover bestseller, And the Sea Will Tell. He teaches writing
at Stanford University, and lives in Menlo Park, California.
Mallett and Henderson are represented by Paul Bresnick
Literary Agency, LLC, New York, and for film by United Talent Agency.
Variety.com - June 17, 2008
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117987632.html
Posted: Tue., Jun. 17, 2008, 9:00pm PT
Spike Lee takes on 'Time Traveler'
Touchstone to release film in the fall
Spike Lee will co-write and direct "Time Traveler," a feature adaptation of a memoir by Ronald Mallett,
one of the nation's first African-Americans to earn a Ph.D in theoretical physics.
Lee acquired "Time Traveler: A Scientist's Personal Mission to Make Time Travel a Reality" with his own money
and has set up the project through his Forty Acres & A Mule Filmworks banner. Mallett, who wrote the book with
Bruce Henderson, recounts his rise from poverty to a distinguished academic and scientific career, and it lays out
the technical specs for what Mallett envisions as a workable time machine. Developing a time machine became
an obsession for Mallett from the age of 10 after his father's death. His goal was to travel back in time to save his father.
Lee called "Time Traveler" a "fantastic story on many levels (and) also a father and son saga of loss and love."
The filmmaker has been intrigued by the subject and flirted with the Fox drama "Selling Time," about a man
who sells a part of his life expectancy for the chance to go back and relive the worst day of his life. Lee is no longer
involved in that project. The helmer recently completed "Miracle at St. Anna," based on a novel about members
of the U.S. Army's 92nd Division of all-black buffalo soldiers who become trapped in Italy during WWII.
The pic will be released by Touchstone Pictures in the fall.
UTA and Paul Bresnick Literary Agency brokered the book deal.
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