Crisis in the Hot Zone

Crisis in the Hot Zone was the title of a 1992 non-fiction article by Richard Preston in The New Yorker. It chronicles the story of how the U.S. government believed a deadly virus had entered the United States.

The article was later expanded into the 1995 book The Hot Zone, also by Preston.

Movie of Crisis in the Hot Zone

The article created a bidding war between rival movie studios for the film rights. The rights were sold to 20th Century Fox and producer Lynda Obst on the understanding that as a woman she would be able to treat the lead character – a female government scientist – with respect. Having paid a seven-figure sum for the rights, Obst in turn paid screenwriter James V. Hart US$500,000 to adapt it to the screen. Ridley Scott was hired to direct for US$4 million plus 5% of the gross revenue. Jodie Foster was chosen for the lead role and was to be paid US$4 million plus another 5% of the gross.

Meanwhile, one of the losers in the auction, producer Arnold Kopelson, announced that he would make his own virus movie, to be based on a spec script by Laurence Dworet and Robert Roy Pool, writers of the unproduced screenplay The Ultimatum. The script was purchased for US$250,000, after which Ted Tally – Academy Award-winning screenwriter of The Silence of the Lambs – was paid an additional US$500,000 to give the script a "thriller edge." Kopelson even offered Scott the chance to direct his virus movie, an offer Scott angrily rejected.

Fox became concerned with the rising cost of Hot Zone; they wanted a strong male lead to play opposite Foster. The part of an environmentalist was rewritten as a star role for actor Robert Redford, who would be paid US$7 million plus 7% of the gross. Foster complained that her part had now been diminished and the script was again rewritten. Redford complained that now his part had been diminished. Unable to reach a compromise, Redford and Foster both left the now-US$45 million project.

Kopelson released Outbreak in 1995 starring Dustin Hoffman (in a role originally intended for Harrison Ford) and directed by Wolfgang Petersen. Preston criticised the producers for turning the virus into Jaws, but the US$50 million film was a solid international success.

Obst tried to restart Hot Zone with Robin Wright-Penn – hot from her Golden Globe nomination for Forrest Gump – and then with Emma Thompson, but the idea had lost its edge after Outbreak.

See also

• The Hot Zone.

References

• Premiere Magazine, June 1994
• Hello, He Lied by Lynda Obst (ISBN 0-7679-0041-3)