The Hollywood Hunt for Clancy’s Techno Thrillers

Real-life warriors sometimes grumble that Tom Clancy, master of the techno-thriller, doesn’t understand “friction.”

It is, according to military theory, a mysterious force that clogs tank engines, scrambles radar images and generally screws things up on the field of battle.

Oddly enough, a similar gremlin also seems to have kept Hollywood from translating Clancy’s vastly popular novels to the screen, despite the best efforts of some powerful players.

According to several sources, Paramount Pictures is almost ready to green-light a movie version of “The Hunt for Red October”--fully four years after that first novel, about a defecting Soviet submarine captain, shot to the top of the best-seller lists.

But what about “Red Storm Rising,” “Patriot Games” and “The Cardinal of the Kremlin,” Clancy’s next three best sellers?

All have obvious movie or miniseries potential. But none of the books is even close to the screen, because of “friction” in the form of an unexpected rights dispute--not to mention the writers’ strike, a shift in global politics and nagging doubts about how well Clancy’s technically precise vision of modern electronic warfare will translate on film.

“Yeah, it frustrates me,” says the ex-insurance agent, whose passion for military hardware led to an unlikely literary career. “I write in a very visual style. I just want to see what I’ve done.”

He isn’t the only one.

Back in 1984--before most people had ever heard of Tom Clancy--veteran producer Mace Neufeld also thought the author’s style and subject matter made him a screen natural.

Neufeld optioned the film rights to “The Hunt for Red October” when the book was still in galleys at Naval Institute Press of Annapolis, Md. (which mostly publishes technical materials but has dabbled in fiction). “I thought it would be an easy movie,” says the producer, who was struck by the grace with which Clancy choreographed the dance between two opposing navies, both in search of the Soviet defector’s super-secret submarine.

On submitting the project to MGM, where he had a first-look deal, however, Neufeld was “stunned.” The studio dismissed it with a reader’s report calling the book “just another submarine story.”

Never mind that submarine movies such as “Das Boot” and “Run Silent, Run Deep” had traditionally done well. Elsewhere in Hollywood, the response was the same. Neufeld claims to have been turned down by virtually every major studio. His best reaction, he says, came from Orion, which offered to buy the project--but only if he agreed to offset its cost, if “things didn’t work out,” against money he was owed for producing “Cagney & Lacey.” He declined.

Meanwhile, “Hunt” picked up a cult following among readers as prominent as Ronald Reagan and Lee Iacocca. Yet another chief executive who read it was then-MGM/UA chairman Frank Rothman, who insisted that his picture-pickers take a second look. But there was no immediate response--possibly, Neufeld theorizes, because studio executives were relying on readers’ reports rather than reading the book for themselves.

Neufeld was still waiting for MGM, and about to solicit production backing from defense-oriented companies such as Chrysler or United Technologies, when Paramount motion picture group chairman Ned Tanen agreed to read the novel on a transatlantic plane flight.

Tanen was ready to make a deal by the time he landed in Europe--and the all-too-familiar grind of script revisions soon began.

Clancy worked closely with screenwriter Donald E. Stewart (“Missing”) on the first version, while Neufeld secured crucial promises of cooperation from the Navy, which was initially skittish about the danger of revealing secrets of the submarine service but came around, largely thanks to the success of “Top Gun.” Inevitably, “Hunt” became known as “Bottom Gun.”

Clancy claims to have liked the first screenplay even though it skipped his favorite scene, in which Navy A-10 attack planes use flares to “rattle the cage” of a Soviet cruiser. “I can still read that and laugh,” Clancy says.

Paramount was less happy with the script, however. So the studio brought in writer Robert Garland, fresh from his work on “No Way Out,” which turned into a surprise hit for Orion after co-producer Neufeld spent 11 years trying to get studio backing for the story of a Soviet mole in the U.S. Navy’s intelligence service.

Garland jazzed up the action in “Hunt,” but apparently not enough. Paramount next turned to Larry Ferguson, who worked on “Beverly Hills Cop II” and “Presidio” for the studio.

But the writers’ strike intervened--more “friction”--and work stopped for 5 1/2 months.

By the time Ferguson delivered, it was late summer of 1988. Clancy had four books on the best-seller lists at one time, possibly an unprecedented feat. And he was caught in a dispute between the Naval Institute and his new publisher, G. P. Putnam’s Sons--courtesy of Hollywood.

It all started when ABC and Viacom started assembling a 3-hour TV movie based on “Patriot Games,” the third book, which deals with a global terrorist conspiracy.

Studios and networks had passed altogether on “Red Storm Rising,” the second novel, which deals with war in Europe. Executives seemed to find it too complicated for anything but a huge-budget miniseries. But at least one movie executive suggests that companies had become wary of Clancy’s anti-Soviet themes in the face of improving relations with the U.S.S.R. “The arrival of detente made some bonehead studio people think they shouldn’t disturb things,” maintains the executive.

Before launching “Patriot Games,” at any rate, ABC insisted that Clancy get a release from his old publisher covering Jack Ryan, the CIA officer-hero of both “Patriot” and “Hunt.” The Naval Institute Press, which copyrighted “Hunt” in its own name, demanded compensation. But the press couldn’t reach an agreement with Clancy, and the whole issue is now

scheduled for a hearing, possibly in the next month or so, before the American Arbitration Assn.

If the Naval Institute wins, does it get the lucrative movie and TV rights to Jack Ryan?

Not if you listen to Paramount. According to Clancy’s attorney, Robert Youdelman, the studio has posted notice that its contract for “Hunt,” for which it paid $450,000 plus a percentage of profits, gives it rights over any sequel involving Ryan. According to one source familiar with the movie, Paramount is particularly concerned that a TV network might beat it to the screen with a Jack Ryan that doesn’t match the studio’s image, which runs toward big-name actors such as Harrison Ford and Kevin Costner.

Of Paramount’s claim to the character, Youdelman says: “I don’t buy it for a minute.” But he says the dispute appears to have killed the ABC deal and to have stalled any film rights sale to “Cardinal,” a spy story that also features Ryan (though “Red Storm” does not).

Paramount has declined to comment. But one executive says the studio remains very high on “Hunt” and is close to an agreement under which John McTiernan (“Predator,” “Die Hard”) would direct it as early as next spring.

According to the executive, Paramount isn’t concerned about one obvious drawback to “Hunt”--the lack of a strong female role. But the film’s budget is still a nagging question. The company hopes to make the film for “a little above” the $18 million or so that an average studio film costs, but can do so only if the Navy delivers substantial access to ships and personnel.

(“This one is much tougher than ‘Top Gun,’ ” notes Naval Institute Press director Tom Epley. “It has ship-to-ship action, ship-to-air action, a British carrier. You’ve even got to come up with a Russian submarine.”)

Viacom development vice president David Auerbach says his company is still eager to produce “Patriot Games” if the rights problem can be cleared up. “It’s a great piece of material,” says Auerbach.

Neufeld, for his part, dreams of completing “The Hunt for Red October” in time for release next October, allowing for a neat play on the title.

Meanwhile, according to Youdelman, Clancy is steaming over Hollywood’s delay in translating his books’ “strong feelings” for the Navy and for America. “The inability to get these movies made holds back his ability to get that message across.”

The author, in any case, concedes that he underestimated the hazards of show-business battle. “I just didn’t know what the process is like. My expectations were probably unrealistic,” he says.