News-Info-Alerts

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Re: Humorous POW Film Planned

Date: May 18, 2001

"Hogan's Heroes' Film Deal Reached (AP) - "Hogan's Heroes" have escaped the land of television reruns and are headed for the big screen.

Variety reported on Friday that Revolution Studios has reached a deal to make a movie version of the '60s sitcom, which previously was in the hands of the defunct Destination Films.

"You try to think of movies that you grew up with and loved," said Revolution partner Tom Sherak, who will the executive producer. "Things like `Stalag 17' or `The Great Escape.' We want `Hogan's Heroes' to be a smart movie for everyone."

The original series, which aired from 1965-71, starred Bob Crane as Col. Robert Hogan, an American in a Nazi POW camp.

Other '60s TV shows that have been reincarnated as feature films in recent years: "The Beverly Hillbillies," "Leave It to Beaver," "The Flintstones" and "Car 54, Where Are You?"

AND

"Hogan's Heroes" marches to big screen (Variety) - The 1960s sitcom "Hogan's Heroes," which mined laughs from a WWII prisoner of war camp, is being turned into a feature film.

The project is set up at Sony-based Revolution Studios, which has begun negotiating with English scribes Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais ("The Prisoner of Zenda") to write the screenplay. Revolution hopes to cast a major star as Hogan.

The original "Hogan's Heroes" series, which ran on CBS from 1965 to 71, starred Bob Crane as Col. Robert Hogan, an American imprisoned in a Nazi POW camp.

The twist was that Hogan and his odd-ball prisoners used the camp, overseen by Werner Klemperer's incompetent Col. Klink, as an underground Allied base of operations.

"You try to think of movies that you grew up with and loved," said Revolution partner Tom Sherak, who will serve as an executive producer. "Things like 'Stalag 17' or 'The Great Escape.' We want 'Hogan's Heroes' to be a smart movie for everyone."

The project was most recently in development at Destination Films, which went out of business earlier this year.

Coincidentally, a movie about Crane himself is being developed by director Paul Schrader ("Affliction") and producers Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski ("The People vs. Larry Flynt"). "Auto-Focus" will revolve around Crane's penchant for taping his one-night stands with a video camera, leading to his brutal murder in 1978."