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| Movie Poster for the short film, "The Hero in 9B" |
In the same way that Whiplash made noise as a short film before rising to a hit feature
length film, and Oscar nominated American Factory is based off the short film “The Last
Truck”, filmmakers Michael Horwitz and Fran Harvey are aspiring to make an impact
following that same formula with their newly acquired IP, the dramatic real life story of
dot com era tech giant Danny Lewin. The project will be based on the book-to-film
option deal for the rights to the 2013 “No Better Time:The Brief, Remarkable Life of
Danny Lewin, the Genius Who Transformed the Internet" by author Molly Knight Raskin.
According to Harvey, the film’s creative producer, shortly after the book was published
in 2013, several attempts made by Hollywood to option the book and tell the story fell
short because the story was being retold in an inauthentic style not true to the legacy of
Danny Lewin. In 2019, after lengthy negotiations and a promise to tell the story the
right way, Horwitz and Harvey were awarded the option.
The story which is still in early development chronicles the life of Danny Lewin, a tech
giant of the dot com boom on par with Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, and compared to the
likes of Mark Zuckerberg today, must deal with the fallout of the dot com bubble burst to
save his company while balancing career aspirations and family relationships. After
arriving at Boston Logan airport on a clear Tuesday morning, he took his seat in
business class - 9B. Only moments later he became the first victim in a major terrorist
attack on the US. It was American Airlines flight 11, and it was the morning of
September 11, 2001.
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| Cambridge, Mass |
History has shown that Danny and his team at MIT were the geniuses who transformed
the internet
and co founded Akamai Technologies in Cambridge, Massachusetts. They
didn't invent the internet, but they made it faster which opened the door for streaming,
online banking, travel, social media and more.
Horwitz was the director and creator of the 2017 award winning short Tzeva Adom (
Color Red; Arabic/Hebrew), and was selected by NBC Universal as one of the top 16
rising directors in 2018. A decade earlier, his work debuted at the iconic Sundance Film
Festival where he won the editing prize for the feature eco - doc FUEL. Harvey is head
of partnerships at an LA based production company. They are repped by entertainment
firm Contes Law Corporation of Los Angeles, CA.
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| Author, Molly Knight Raskin |
About the Author Molly Knight Raskin is an acclaimed writer, journalist and television
producer. She has been a contributing author for outlets including PBS Newshour, MSNBC, A&E, The Baltimore Sun,
Scientific American Mind, Global Post, Psychology Today, The Washington Post and
Capitol File. Molly is currently a producer at the award winning NYC based
Left/Right TV where she's working on a series for Netflix.
For more information, go to
www.hero9bfilm.com
would like to get more info on this for distribution internationally who would we speak to ?
ReplyDeleteCool movie idea. There are more conspiracy theories about 9/11 and the planes hitting than you can shake a stick at. Odd that this story was never told but would be interesting to see on Netflix.
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