Journalists love to talk about themselves -- better still, they love to talk on punditry shows. The solipsistic hype helped the book move 1.2 million copies; sit on The New York Times best-seller list for 25 weeks; sell to 21 foreign publishers; reportedly earn Anonymous $6 million; and become hands-down the most read, most discussed piece of recent political writing. The hubbub caused Mike Nichols to start reading the book again. The director, who made a movie out of Heartburn -- Nora Ephron's roman a clef that seemed to portray her husband, Carl Bernstein, as a philanderer -- felt compelled to explore this newest titillating roman a clef set in the biggest arena of them all. Halfway through the novel, Stanton convinces a disgruntled Lithuanian campaign driver to prevent a scandalous story from getting into the press by promising not to mention the plight of Lithuanians in his next speech. When Nichols reached that point, he quickly got Bookman on the phone. Here was the making of bona fide movie.
"We're about to sell the rights because we didn't hear from you," Bookman told him.
"Well, you can't sell it," Nichols declared. "I have to have it."
"It's very late," Bookman said. "There are three or four studios interested."
"I don't care," yelled Nichols, who still hadn't finished the novel. "I'm buying it."
While Nichols could have bought the manuscript for a pittance when it was first offered, he now had to pay for the sizzle. Backed by Columbia pictures, Irwin Winkler, who produced Rocky and directed the Hollywood blacklist story Guilty By Suspicion, had called CAA's Bookman the day the novel was shipped to offer $250,000 up front and an additional $750,000 if the film was made. A few days after Winkler made his bid, with the novel's first printing nearly sold out, 20th Century-Fox and Universal decided that they, too wanted Primary Colors. "I heard that Rupert Murdoch [chairman of News Corp., which owns Fox] wanted the rights very badly because he saw it as a put-down of Clinton." Recalls Winkler, who kept bidding. "It became like an auction at Christie's."
