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 Author  Topic: News about possible PT109 Movie (Not again!)
  Jerry Gilmartin

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message     View Profile of Jerry Gilmartin   Send Email To Jerry Gilmartin Posted on: Oct 22, 2015 - 12:31pm
Hello board,
I just thought this may interest you. I found it online at the Sun Times website. http://national.suntimes.com/national-entertainment/7/72/1967400/john-f-kennedy-pt-boat-wwii-movie Let the arguing commence! I also found it funny how they got the name of the IJN Amagiri wrong.

John F. Kennedy's PT boat exploits in WWII to become movie

…T Written By Rob Samuelson Posted: 10/20/2015, 03:51pm

JFK PHOTO IN THIS SPOT ON ORIGINAL WEBSITE POSTING

President John F. Kennedy will get the "Brief moment in time" biopic treatment in a new film from the producers of movie titles "San Andreas" and "Sicario"

Deadline reports that the film, "Mayday 109" will depict the eventual president¡¦s World War II exploits as his PT boat was sunk by the Japanese navy.

The film, produced by Beau Flynn and Basil Iwanyk is still in the early stages of development, though, with only a script by relative newcomers Samuel Franco and Evan Kilgore. The movie has yet to find a director or lead to play Kennedy.

More story details from "Deadline"

"Kennedy was the commander of a patrol torpedo boat on the prowl for Japanese destroyers in August, 1943. After a battle with several Japanese ships, PT 109 was inadvertently rammed by the Japanese destroyer Amagin, and that was the beginning of a harrowing week for the future president. Two died in the explosion, and Kennedy gathered the rest of the men¡Vsome were burned, others had swallowed fuel soaked seawater, and two others couldn¡¦t swim¡Vand tried to salvage the ship but could not send rescue flares for fear of drawing the enemy."

Given the ongoing fascination with the life of the former president and the recent successes of things like Angelina Jolie¡¦s ¡§Unbroken,¡¨ the World War II story could get going quickly.

Thanks for reading!
Jerry



Jerry Gilmartin
PT658 Crewman
Portland OR

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Drew Cook

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message     View Profile of Drew Cook  Posted on: Oct 22, 2015 - 1:23pm
Interesting, Jerry -- thanks, although I think "Mayday 109" is a poor choice for a title. It just doesn't sound right to me.

Hopefully, if the thing does get made, it will feature the boat, people, and events much better than the last (very lame) attempt at doing so -- 1993's made-for-TV-movie "JFK: Reckless Youth," which was terrible.

Don't know what boat they used for the 109 ("PT 728?") in that TV movie, but it was pretty odd-looking...

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David Waples

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message     View Profile of David Waples  Posted on: Oct 22, 2015 - 7:20pm
You know I never did see that "Reckless Youth" movie. I'll believe this when I see it.
Dave

David Waples

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  TED WALTHER

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message     View Profile of TED WALTHER   Send Email To TED WALTHER Posted on: Oct 23, 2015 - 6:18am
Oh brother!!
Two movies that should never be remade are They Were Expendable and PT 109, if they are going to make a PT Boat movie they should expand on the story lines like Guadalcanal, New Guinea, The Med, D-Day, Surigao Strait. Not another Hollywood rehash of a Good Movie. Has creativity died in Hollywood???
Hollywood has always been famous for "replacing" or "reinventing" stars with newer/younger versions, for example when Errol Flynn came along he looked like a young Robert Donat (and inherited the swashbuckler roles from Douglas Fairbanks Sr.). When Flynn became too much to handle, they found John Derek as his "New" replacement, then he became another Flynn, too independent for Hollywood, Next came Lee Horsley(from the TV series Matt Huston in the 1980's), who again became too independent, as all he wanted to work on was western themed stories, so he faded away, working sporadically, All four look so much alike, decades and nationalities aside, they could be quadruplets.

All I can say is.......Here we go again!!!
Take care,
TED


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Frank Andruss

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message     View Profile of Frank Andruss   Send Email To Frank Andruss Posted on: Oct 23, 2015 - 7:52am
My way of thinking is I am pleased that once again the PT BOATS will be in the public eye. With that being said, I would feel more comfortable to have a few of us here make contact so that they do get it right. I would love to know what they plan on doing in using PT BOATS. It's not like making the movie Memphis Belle where you had several operating B-17's, I mean at the moment the only one running is the 658, and that's a HIGGINS. Wouldn't be great if they could redo the 486 to running condition, but I doubt that much money would be spent. I think it's a great idea, as long as they get it right. As most of our beloved PT BOAT VETS are no longer with us, the technical assistance would have to come from some of us younger guys. I love the idea but have plenty of concerns. I can understand Ted's point of view, but remember not too many even know what a PT BOAT is, but they do know JOHN F KENNEDY and that he was on PT-109.


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  Jerry Gilmartin

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message     View Profile of Jerry Gilmartin   Send Email To Jerry Gilmartin Posted on: Oct 23, 2015 - 5:03pm
Good point Frank! In terms of what avenue to take in keeping PT Boats more visible to the general public, I think that using this one most famous hook (JFK connection) is probably the most likely to succeed. Although I agree with Ted as well, why not show something about all those other NON PT109 veterans and their stories. But, In a world full of the drive-by media and low information voters, and an education system that places more emphasis on teaching the 5 truths of Islam than it does on US History, gives us a general public who does not even know who were the participants on each side during WW2. It pains me to admit the truth, that being, PT109 and JFK are probably our best hope of spreading the story about all PT Boats. How did we get to this point?
Jerry

Jerry Gilmartin
PT658 Crewman
Portland OR

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David Waples

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message     View Profile of David Waples  Posted on: Oct 23, 2015 - 8:30pm
Sounds to me like a good excuse to get that PT back in New York restored. But that's not how Hollywood works.

There are a number of people on this site who could add a great deal to a movie like this to keep the story straight and bring understanding to what the crews lived through. My fear is that if guys like we have here don't step up, a certain someone we know might and that's just frightening.

Dave

David Waples

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JimF

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message   Posted on: Oct 24, 2015 - 5:10am
I'll hazard a guess a lot of PT boats that may be seen in the movie might be GCI, much like a lot of the P-51 scenes in the movie "Red Tails", or other equipment in other war movies.

Just a guess, but most likely cheaper than restoring a existing boat, and easier to show more than one.

Jim F


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  Jerry Gilmartin

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message     View Profile of Jerry Gilmartin   Send Email To Jerry Gilmartin Posted on: Nov 1, 2015 - 3:11pm
Update Nov 1 2015

From Screenwriter Evan Kilgore's website www.evankilgore.com

OCTOBER 20, 2015
- Screenplay MAYDAY 109 [was] Acquired by Thunder Road & FlynnPictureCo.
As reported this morning by Deadline Hollywood and subsequently Variety, MAYDAY 109, a screenplay co-written by Evan Kilgore & Samuel Franco, has been set up with Basil Iwanyk's Thunder Road [Studios] (The Town, Sicario, John Wick) and Beau Flynn's FlynnPictureCo (San Andreas, Hercules, Gretel: Witch Hunter). Kent Kubena and Taylor Zea will be overseeing the project for Thunder Road and Scott Sheldon at Flynn Picutre Co. as they next attach a director and cast the film.

Check back for more updates on MAYDAY 109 and more new project announcements soon!


Also another update copied from Scriptshadow.net-Jerry

Screenplay Review – Mayday 109
Posted on August 17, 2015 | by admin
Genre: War/Period/Real-life story
Premise: The story of how a young World War 2 Navy commander saved a group of men after their ship was destroyed by the Japanese. That man? John F. Kennedy.
About: This script made a lot of noise a few months ago and will probably end up pretty high on this year’s Black List. Although the script went into just about every major production company in town, there hasn’t been any mention of a sale yet. Should it indeed finish high on the Black List though, expect that to change. Co-writer Evan Kilgore is a novelist with 4 books to his name and his writing partner, Samuel Franco, executive produced 2014’s small indie film, Affuenza. In other words, Hollywood had no idea who these guys were. Well, they know now!
Writers: Samuel Franco & Evan Kilgore
Details: 117 pages (5/4/15 draft)


I have to give it to Franco and Kilgore (that sounds strangely like a 1930s comedy duo). They may have discovered the most genius idea ever. First off, what are movies about? They’re about heroes. And what bigger hero is there than John F. Kennedy? So already, this writing team has tapped into an extremely marketable character.
But wait, there’s more!
The problem with JFK is that all his stories have been told. Or at least, THAT’S WHAT WE THOUGHT! Franco and Kilgore discovered this long forgotten heroic war story of JFK’s. And guess when that story takes place? World War 2. World War 2 is one of the easiest subject matters to market in the movie industry.

[Photo of Jeremy Irvine]
Jeremy Irvine to play a young JFK?

The cool thing about writing a true story is that everything’s all plotted out for you. Sure, you need to cut some things and move other things around, and maybe even get creative with the order in which the story is told. But if you’ve found a good real-life story, you have what all screenwriters dream of – a defacto outline ready to go.
Mayday 109 has that. After the crash, you’ve got that strong goal (get to safety). The stakes are high (Japanese boats heavily patrol the area), the urgency is there (they have no food, no water. If they don’t find a solution soon, they die). And yet something’s missing. What it is, I’m not sure.
My initial instinct is that the story’s too chaotic. It doesn’t have the proper structure in place to take advantage of the dramatic problem. I’m reminded of another boat wreck movie, Titanic. One of the reasons James Cameron’s movie worked so well was because he designed his story to milk the tension, to milk the suspense.
The Titanic doesn’t just hit an iceberg and go down 2 minutes later. That would’ve been chaotic and crazy, but it would’ve been over within 2 minutes! Instead, they hit the iceberg and there’s this realization that the ship is going down, but it’s going to take a couple of hours. This means that everything that happens from that point on, even basic conversations, are going to have an undercurrent of suspense to them. Because we know the end is coming. And everyone’s running out of options as far as what to do.
Here in Mayday, it doesn’t feel like that kind of thought – the kind that maximizes the suspense – has been put into this. There’s more of a “moment-to-moment” approach, where we’re simply trying to solve immediate problems (Should we swim to the next island? Yes or no?). And while that kind of storytelling is perfectly valid, it can become exhausting.
And repetitive too. The script is pretty much about Kennedy swimming. A lot. If I’m being honest, I got sick of that. And that’s supposed to be the core of where the story’s excitement comes from.
Finally, I feel like the character stuff was a bit on the nose, specifically JFK’s relationship with his father. We never go beyond the basic, “Dad doesn’t believe in me” stuff, and it kept the script from really resonating on a deeper level. For example, we get lines like JFK saying to his dad, “Just once believe in me the way you believe in Joe.” That line can work if the rest of the dialogue is deftly written. But if the rest of the dialogue feels surface-level and on-the-nose, lines like this stick out as a problem.
As I’ve said to you guys before, the key to making a script really resonate with the reader is to do so on the character front. You can have a wild captivating story like this one. But if you don’t create a couple of fascinating relationships within the chaos that need to be resolved, each which strike to the core of who your characters are and what their problems are, the story will sink.
Not to get all James Cameron on you. But Rose from Titanic is the perfect example of this. She was trapped in a life that prevented her from being who she wanted to be. Her relationship with her fiancé represented this. So when she finally broke away from that, it was emotionally cathartic for the audience. There’s an attempt to do something similar here with JFK and an ensign who doesn’t like him, but again, it happens mostly on the surface.
And I don’t want to be too down on the script. It’s not a bad screenplay. I think there’s just an element to the story that hasn’t been realized yet. I hope the writers figure out what that is, because if they do, I could easily see someone like Robert Zemeckis coming on and directing this. It seems like it’s right up his current wheelhouse.

What I learned: I am hereby limiting ALL SCREENWRITERS to only THIRTY DASHES (outside of sluglines) in each screenplay they write. NOT A DASH MORE! The overuse of this inorganic-looking character can quickly make a screenplay look like a technical document. Remember, the uglified formatting of a screenplay ALREADY makes it look too technical. You don’t want to add anything that’s going to accentuate that. If I were to estimate how many times the dash was used in Mayday 109, I’d say easily in the neighborhood of 1500 times. It really killed the look and flow of the script.

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David Waples

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message     View Profile of David Waples  Posted on: Nov 1, 2015 - 10:50pm
Jerry, thanks for the post. I strongly believe that you, Ted, some of our authors, Jeff and his 103 web site, and more importantly our vets should be involved in this movie, if they're able to get it together. I hope I'm successful in throwing you guys under the bus! :-)
Dave

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