The 20-Year Hitch

Will Francis Ford Coppola’s screenplay of Budd Schulberg’s novel “The Disenchanted” (1950) finally get produced--two decades after Coppola wrote the adaptation?

All the talk these days is about the current revival of Schulberg’s classic novel of Hollywood ambition, “What Makes Sammy Run?” (Schulberg has a number of other projects in the works, including an updated remake of the Schulberg/Elia Kazan film, “A Face in the Crowd” (1957), which the author is developing with producer Gene Kirkwood.)

But “The Disenchanted,” which has languished at Warner Bros. ever since it was commissioned by producer Ray Stark in the late ‘60s, could be revived, thanks to Hollywood’s renewed interest in Schulberg.

Gene Kirkwood, who’ll produce “Sammy” with Schulberg later in the year for Warners, reports that he’s now going to “try to light a fire” under “The Disenchanted.”

The plot thinly disguises the young Schulberg’s disastrous journey east with the hard-drinking F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1939 to the Dartmouth Winter Carnival to co-write a college musical, “Love on Ice,” for MGM. Jason Robards starred in the play on Broadway in 1958.

Later, says Schulberg, both John Huston and Julian Epstein (“Casablanca”) took turns adapting the novel.

But: “Coppola’s script is the best.”