Looks like it will be a good movie for the most part.
Here's hoping that it doen't get fucked away like the movie "Pearl Harbor" did.


From Gregory A. Freeman
author, Sailors to the End: The Deadly Fire on the USS Forrestal and the Heroes Who Fought It
       
       Dear Forrestal veterans and others:

       There is very good news to report about my book SAILORS TO THE END. The book has just been "optioned" for a big screen movie by the studio Fox 2000, a unit of 20th Century Fox. The producer and screenwriters have very impressive credentials with a lot of major movies to their credit.
       
       This is very exciting, as it means that the story of the Forrestal could become a major motion picture in the next few years. The producer intends to adhere to the focus of the book -- the individual young sailors fighting to save their ship and survive a disaster that was thrust upon them. He clearly envisions the movie as pro-Navy, pro-Forrestal and an inspiring story of how young men rose to the occasion when disaster struck.

       I'm sure you have lots of questions about how the movie will tell the story, how it might differ from the book, and what will happen in the meantime. For almost all of those questions, there are no answers yet. This project is in the very, very early stages and much is yet to be determined. These are the only questions I can really answer right now:

       * Will the movie be different from the book?
       Yes, that's a certainty just because movie adaptations are never exactly like the book, or exactly like the true event either. How much it will differ is still to be determined.

       *  Will they include a romantic love story?
       Very likely. The book didn't include hardly any women, but movies need that romantic story line to help make the movie appealing to a broader audience. So it's likely that they will include something about the wives and girlfriends back home, plus family members hearing the news of the fire.

       *  Will everyone in the book be featured in the movie?
       Probably not. The screenwriters probably will focus on a few story lines, not everyone whose story was told in the book. This is just a fact of moviemaking that they can't fit in everything from the book. In some cases, the producers may opt to use "composite characters" who are a blend of real and imagined personalities and events. That's a common device used to tell the story without having to stick strictly to the facts.

       *  Will the producers have to get permission from those whose stories are told in the movie?
       That depends on certain legal details and I'm not able to give any guidance on that. At some later date, the producers may want to contact certain Forrestal vets who were featured in the book to discuss some legal matters. ALL of those matters will be handled by the producers, not me. If your actual story from the book will be used in the movie, it is likely the producers will contact you directly. That won't be any time soon, though.

       * When would the movie be released?
       No way to know yet. It takes a good while, even if everything moves ahead quickly. So a few years from now is probably the earliest you could estimate.

       I have confidence that the producers intend to handle the story in a dignified way. I will be acting as a consultant on the project, so I will have some input as to how the screenplay is written.

       While the prospects for an actual movie look good, I must emphasize that this process is incremental and this is only the first step. No one is hauling out cameras or putting on makeup just yet. At this point, the book has been "optioned," which means that for 18 months the studio has exclusive rights to work on putting a movie together. If they haven't gotten the project on track after 18 months, the option is over and that's the end of it. But we hope that within that 18 months the studio decides to go ahead and actually make the movie.

       Important point: You should note that many movie options never proceed to actually making the movie. There are reasons to be optimistic about this one moving forward to actual production, but I don't want anyone to be shocked if it just peters out and nothing happens.

       I wish I could tell you more, but that's about all I know at this point. Let's keep our fingers crossed in hopes that the project will move forward.

Gregory A. Freeman
author, Sailors to the End: The Deadly Fire on the USS Forrestal and the Heroes Who Fought It

http://www.sailorstotheend.com/

Outstanding!!

Isn't that the Fire that John McCain's plane started???

No.
The Forrestal fire was a tragic chain of events.

July 29, 1967 - The worst accident aboard a US Navy surface vessel since WWII.

On July 29, 1967 the USS FORRESTAL was operating on Yankee Station off the coast of North Vietnam conducting combat operations. This was the fifth such day of operations and at 10:52am the crew was starting the second launch cycle of the day, when suddenly a Zuni rocket accidentally fired from an F-4 Phantom into a parked and armed A-4 Skyhawk.

The accidental launch and subsequent impact caused the belly fuel tank and a 1,000 pound bomb on the Skyhawk to fall off, the tank broke open spilling JP5 (jet fuel) onto the flight deck and ignited a fire.

Within a minute and a half the bomb was the first to cook-off and explode, this caused a massive chain reaction of explosions that engulfed half the airwings aircraft, and blew huge holes in the steel flight deck.

Fed by fuel and bombs from other aircraft that were armed and ready for the coming strike, the fire spread quickly, many pilots and support personnel were trapped and burned alive.

Fuel and bombs spilled into the holes in the flight deck igniting fires on decks further into the bowels of the ship. Berthing spaces immediately below the flight deck became death traps for fifty men, while other crewmen were blown overboard by the explosion.

Quoted: Isn't that the Fire that John McCain's plane started???

Lt. Cmdr. Robert "Bo" Browning one of the pilots due for launch with many others, he was seated in the cockpit of his fueled and armed Skyhawk; the plane was spotted way aft, to port. Lt. Cmdr. John S. McCain III said later he heard a "whooshy" sound then a "low-order explosion" in front of him. Suddenly, two A-4s ahead of his plane were engulfed in flaming jet fuel — JP-5 — spewed from them. A bomb dropped to the deck and rolled about six feet and came to rest in a pool of burning fuel.

http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/ships/carriers/histories/cv59-forrestal/forrestal-fire.html

Quoted: Isn't that the Fire that John McCain's plane started???

Not quite. IIRC, it was McCain's plane, with him sitting in it, that was struck by the runaway rocket.

Quoted: No. The Forrestal fire was a tragic chain of events. July 29, 1967 - The worst accident aboard a US Navy surface vessel since WWII. On July 29, 1967 the USS FORRESTAL was operating on Yankee Station off the coast of North Vietnam conducting combat operations. This was the fifth such day of operations and at 10:52am the crew was starting the second launch cycle of the day, when suddenly a Zuni rocket accidentally fired from an F-4 Phantom into a parked and armed A-4 Skyhawk. The accidental launch and subsequent impact caused the belly fuel tank and a 1,000 pound bomb on the Skyhawk to fall off, the tank broke open spilling JP5 (jet fuel) onto the flight deck and ignited a fire. Within a minute and a half the bomb was the first to cook-off and explode, this caused a massive chain reaction of explosions that engulfed half the airwings aircraft, and blew huge holes in the steel flight deck. Fed by fuel and bombs from other aircraft that were armed and ready for the coming strike, the fire spread quickly, many pilots and support personnel were trapped and burned alive. Fuel and bombs spilled into the holes in the flight deck igniting fires on decks further into the bowels of the ship. Berthing spaces immediately below the flight deck became death traps for fifty men, while other crewmen were blown overboard by the explosion. Quoted: Isn't that the Fire that John McCain's plane started???

McCain was piloting the A-4 that got hit with the Zuni rocket.

www.sailorstotheend.com/gallery1.html

"  On July 29, 1967, tragedy struck one of the mightiest aircraft carriers in the U.S. fleet, the USS Forrestal. One of its jets accidentally fired a rocket across the flight deck and into a plane occupied by pilot John McCain. The lieutenant barely escaped his burning jet before one of its 1,000-pound bombs exploded only 1 minute and 34 seconds into the fire. That horrific explosion wiped out dozens of the crew instantly, including almost all of the specially trained firefighters.
         The first bomb explosion set off a horrifying chain reaction. The crew struggled for days to extinguish the fires, the 5,000 men on the ship experiencing different kinds of  hell -- some trapped in damaged compartments and waiting to die, some battling rivers of flaming jet fuel to get to their buddies. Almost all of them were innocent 18- and 19-year-old kids just trying to get through a year of service, glad to have been assigned to a carrier instead of the jungles of Vietnam. But in an instant they were thrust into a tragedy that nearly destroyed the ship and took the lives of 134 men.
         Filled with never-before-disclosed information, this riveting, meticulously documented book pieces together the events of the tragedy -- correcting the official U.S. view. For 35 years, the government has allowed the Forrestal crew to carry an undeserved share of the blame for the tragedy, never acknowledging that it sent the carrier faulty bombs that exploded before the crew even had a chance to contain the initial fire.
         Told through the stories of a dozen of the ship's sailors, including its former captain, it follows the Forrestal from its home in Norfolk, Virginia, to the fateful fire and its aftermath. Written with the intensity and excitement of a thriller, here is the first full minute-by-minute account of the disaster.
          The following pages show some images from the fire and its aftermath, along with audio clips recorded during the tragedy.
"