Crazy Town: The Rob Ford Story set to hit the screen

By: Tim Alamenciak News reporter

Two major movie producers have picked up the rights to Robyn Doolittle’s best-selling book,Crazy Town: The Rob Ford Story, promising a dramatic treatment of the man and machinations behind the scenes of the city’s political turmoil.

Producers Daniel Iron and Lance Samuels, who worked together on the 2010 film The Bang Bang Club, a story of journalists in South Africa during the transition from apartheid, are taking the reins on the project.

Iron, who grew up in Toronto, said he wants to bring it to the screen as an “emotive” feature rife with drama.

“It's not our intention to do a salacious farce — this is a serious story… Part of it is a story about the city, so I think it's important to see the city, to see downtown, to see the suburbs… The story has great drama in it,” said Iron, who compared his vision for the book to Game Change, a 2012 HBO political drama about the rise and fall of Sarah Palin.

Iron also previously worked as executive producer on Watermark, a 2013 documentary directed by Jennifer Baichwal and legendary Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky. Samuels worked as executive producer on a mini-series based on the award-winning Canadian novel The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill. The pair are with the Toronto-based company Blue Ice Pictures.

Iron and Samuels’ flare for serious drama was part of what made their shop stand out to Doolittle, who had “several” offers to buy film rights for the book.

“When I met Danny he seemed really interested in it, and he seemed interested in it beyond the comedy aspect of the whole thing,” said Doolittle. “There are, of course, elements of dark comedy that we have seen played out on YouTube, but there's a real seriousness to this story as well. He seemed interested in all aspects of it.”

Doolittle has been investigating the scandal surrounding the mayor for more than two years. Her book chronicles generations of his family and provides greater insight into Ford. She was one of three reporters who viewed a video in which Ford appears to be smoking crack cocaine and making homophobic and racist remarks.

The scandal has unfolded in waves, with more videos surfacing showing the mayor, apparently inebriated, making a range of controversial remarks from death threats to an unknown person tocursing in Jamaican patois at Steak Queen.

“There's so much more to it than silly YouTube videos, and miming drunk driving and bowling over councillors and outrageous statements,” said Doolittle. “Danny just seemed like he really cared about the subject matter and wanted to tell that story.”

As for the favourite water cooler discussion — who will play the mayor? — Iron says people are researching it. “That's obviously a difficult casting issue,” he said.

Iron did not specify a timeline for development.

“The story is very current. It does take some time to write a script and make a film, but we're on to do this as quickly as possible while the story is still in people's minds,” said Iron.