Deep Throat has a film deal. Universal Pictures and Playtone partners Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman have inked with W. Mark Felt, the retired FBI man who recently admitted he was the famous anonymous shadowy insider who aided Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein in exposing the Nixon administration's role in the Watergate and its cover-up.
Variety reports that in a deal completed Wednesday, Universal bought the life rights of Felt and his family, as well as those of John O'Connor, the San Francisco attorney whose article reveals Felt's secret in the July issue of Vanity Fair. The studio bought the VF article as well as Felt's 1979 memoir and another book that Felt and O'Connor plan to write.
Hanks and Goetzman will produce the film. Meanwhile, a book deal was closed with Public Affairs for "A G-Man's Life: The FBI, Being Deep Throat and the Struggle for Honor in Washington." That is the working title of a book Felt and O'Connor will write with ex-Newsweek senior editor Steve Strasser that will use the 1979 memoir as its basis and add in recent events. The book will be published next spring.
