First the rescue, then marketing of the miners

Third-generation Pennsylvania coal miners. First-generation celebrities.

Up to their necks one minute in 50-degree water. Up to their eyeballs the next in pitches from lawyers, agents, producers, networks, studios and marketers eager to cash in. A nine-man cottage industry from the moment they were hoisted from 20 stories underground before dawn on July 28 after a 77-hour rescue ordeal that captivated worldwide television audiences.

How the nine workers trapped in the Quecreek No. 1 Mine went from anonymous swing shift workers -- guys nicknamed “Moe,” “Flathead,” “Harpo,” “Boogie” and “Hound Dog” -- to VIP celebrities and marketing commodities says a lot about the way Hollywood’s rapid response teams operate to bag stories fresh off their news cycles.

The “Pennsylvania Miners’ Story” TV movie airing tonight on ABC was the cornerstone of Miners Inc.

So frenetic was the pace to lock in that deal that an agent from International Creative Management enlisted an operator to break into the middle of a miner’s home telephone conversation. Inundated with 160 calls in the two days after he returned home, the man had been unreachable, frustrating agents, producers and Hollywood executives encamped in western Pennsylvania.

“These things happen quickly, and very quickly,” said the agent, ICM’s Robert Lazar.

With backing that reached all the way to chief executive Michael Eisner, Walt Disney Co. raced to lock up the rights, seeing it as an uplifting, Disneyesque tale that could give the company’s struggling ABC network a ratings boost during the critical November sweeps. “It’s one part ‘Apollo 13,’ one part ‘The Perfect Storm,’ ” says Quinn Taylor, ABC’s executive vice president for TV movies.

The company quickly discovered that Lazar and a colleague from ICM were a step ahead in Pennsylvania, dealing with a Pittsburgh lawyer hired by the miners to field offers. Lazar had already obtained the rights to the story of rescue worker Bob Long, dubbed “the man behind the miracle” by TV newscasters for pinpointing where the miners had likely fled the rising waters.

The lawyer, Thomas Crawford, had started the bidding at $450,000. Faced with the possibility of a competing project stemming from Long’s rights, Disney made a preemptive $1.5-million strike to wrap up all the rights in one package. CBS was a distant second.

The miners in the Disney deal alone saw as much money as they would typically make in three to four years, $150,000 for each one and a 10th share for Long. Crew boss Randy Fogle, who among the nine has emerged as the point man, said he doesn’t see it as a chance to get rich.

“I was hoping that it would give everybody -- including me, but the other guys mainly -- a chance to make some money and then to go into a different type of job instead of staying in the mines if they wanted out. Just to give them a choice,” Fogle said. He says he plans to return to mining after Jan. 1.

ABC made the TV movie for $8.5 million. That’s a near record for a two-hour broadcast TV film, which means it will take solid ratings, a good run in foreign countries and strong sales on DVD and video to recoup the investment. Disney’s deal with the miners also includes a book, “Our Story,” an account from the miners and their families published by the company’s Hyperion unit.

For the miners, that’s only the start. A Pepsi endorsement fell through in the days after the rescue. But the miners did retain Stephen Reich, a Pittsburgh marketing executive whose clients include hockey superstar Mario Lemieux, to field calls and scope out potential offers.

Reich recently cut a licensing deal for T-shirts reading “Quecreek 9 for 9,” hoping to ride the coattails of the TV movie, book release and wave of fresh publicity, which included an “Oprah” appearance by all nine miners.

NASCAR hosted the miners at one of its races, where drivers greeted them as if they were the celebrities. All nine appeared on the field before a Pittsburgh Steelers football game, wearing Steelers jerseys numbered 1 through 9.

To send a message to its managers about the importance of teamwork, Microsoft had two of the miners appear at a regional meeting at a Pennsylvania resort. Wal-Mart plans to fly all nine to Houston for an appearance in February before its Sam’s Club managers. The miners are getting top billing at the sold-out Pennsylvania Credit Union annual meeting in Harrisburg. Reich won’t say how much they are earning. People in the speakers business estimate the miners would cost about $15,000.

Most of the miners never used a lawyer before. Now they have an intellectual property attorney, who secured trademarks on four slogans for merchandise possibilities: “Quecreek 9 for 9,” “Quecreek 9,” “Quecreek Survivors” and “Quecreek Miracle 9.”

The miners have experienced their own bumps in their road to fame. They had a falling-out with lawyer Crawford, with some of them taking him to court when they felt he was too slow to forward the Disney money to them. Some members of miner families have complained because Long is sharing in the proceeds when he wasn’t a miner.

There’s also resentment of projects not sanctioned by the miners themselves, notably “Nine for Nine” by British author Andrew Morton, famous for his bestselling biographies of Princess Diana and Monica Lewinsky. Morton defends his book as a comprehensive account of the entire rescue effort. He said he even had conversations with some of the miners before Disney locked up their story exclusively, boasting that he beat Hollywood to Somerset, Pa., to talk to them. “They hadn’t taken the Disney dollar when I got there,” Morton said.

In an interview in a nondescript office park in Valencia, where ABC re-created the flooded mine on a makeshift soundstage in an industrial building, miners Randy Fogle and Mark “Moe” Popernack are at once giddy and uneasy with their instant celebrity.

“It’s almost incomprehensible,” says Fogle. “You’re sitting at home one day, and the next day you’re doing this. You never think you’re going to get a movie made about you.” Fogle is dressed in a green Mountain Dew T-shirt, a tribute to the drink that sustained the miners underground, and a cap from Black Wolf Coal Co., where they work.

“With this much attention, you kind of learn in hurry who you want to talk to and who you don’t,” Popernack says. “Then you start to not trust anyone. You don’t know who to trust.”

Popernack is still undecided if he will return to the mines where he worked for 21 years.

ABC wanted him to promote the TV movie before the media at Disney’s California Adventure. He passed because one of his children was selling a pig at a 4-H auction. Another miner had a celebrity skeet shooting event to attend.

Popernack tells of venturing a few days earlier to a Hallmark store near the Valencia set to buy a gift to ship to his wife. A conversation with the clerk led to the discovery that he was one of the nine miners. “She went nuts,” he said of the woman’s reacting almost as if a movie star had walked into the store.

“I want a normal life back, if possible,” Popernack said.