A staff sergeant’s memoir that details his time in Fallujah is heading to Hollywood.
A Silver Star recipient’s retelling of one of the Iraq War’s most critical battles will get the Hollywood treatment, but a Deadline.com report says it’ll be in good hands.
Former Staff Sgt. David Bellavia’s “House to House,” a 2007 memoir centered on the fighting in Fallujah three years before, has been optioned by Universal Pictures, Deadline reported Tuesday. Former Army officer Max Adams, a U.S. Military Academy graduate who also saw combat in Iraq, will adapt the book for the big screen.
Adams’ entertainment-industry experience includes writing and producing “Precious Cargo,” a thriller starring Bruce Willis set for a 2016 release, and a co-writing credit on “Bus 657,” an all-star action flick (Robert De Niro, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Kate Bosworth, Morris Chestnut, Mark-Paul Gosselaar, D.B. Sweeney and Dave Bautista highlight an eclectic IMDB page) scheduled for release this year.
Adams will have plenty of Hollywood-worthy material to work with: Bellavia’s Silver Star narrative details his actions during a harrowing Nov. 10, 2004, clearance mission with A Company, Task Force 2-2, 1st Infantry Division. Among the highlights:
- “Seeing a Jihadist loading an RPG launcher, Sergeant Bellavia gunned him down. A second Jihadist began firing as the soldier ran toward the kitchen and Bellavia fired back, wounding him in the shoulder.”
- “Another insurgent was yelling from upstairs, and the wounded Jihadist escaped the bedroom and ran upstairs. Sergeant Bellavia pursued, but slipped on the blood-soaked stairs. The wounded insurgent fired at him but missed.”
- “Hearing two other insurgents screaming from the third story of the building, Sergeant Bellavia put a choke hold on the wounded insurgent to keep him from giving away their position. The wounded Jihadist then bit Sergeant Bellavia on the arm and smacked him in the face with the butt of his AK-47. In the wild scuffle that followed, Sergeant Bellavia took out his knife and slit the Jihadist’s throat.”
No actors have been announced for the project, but there’s behind-the-scenes star power in place, according to Deadline: Producers include Brian Grazer (“A Beautiful Mind,” “The Da Vinci Code,” “24” and countless other credits) and Rich Middlemas, who has been attached to the film since 2012. That year, Middlemas won a Best Documentary Oscar as a producer on “Undefeated,” which followed the rise of a high school football program in inner-city Memphis, Tennessee.
