IP Picks for Political Junkies 🔎: Assassination Gone Wrong and Secret Gov't Plots Exposed
âž• a new look at the life of Ted Kennedy, and a Girl Scout on a mission
Welcome to The Optionist! Election Day coming has had me thinking about politics and the state of democracy in the U.S., so we have a politics-themed issue this week. Here are new and forthcoming or overlooked books and articles that have great screen potential, and speak to the world we live in now (don’t forget to vote on Tuesday!).
Also, if you didn’t get a chance to check out my interview with Josh Bearman, Arthur Spector and MacKenzie Fargo of Epic, give it a read. Epic has had over 50 of its long-form journalism stories optioned. As a bonus to the interview, there’s also an IP pick — an available new story from the team about a teen’s psychotic break, and the struggle of his parents to help him get better (and how they defied conventional medical thinking to achieve it).
It’s part of the second edition of The Optionist we’ve added to the regular rotation. These editions will explore the intersection of intellectual property and Hollywood more generally. We’ll chat with newsmakers, explore trends and highlight important stories you might have missed, plus, I’ll share what else I’m reading.
Now, onto this week's picks. I’m a political junkie, but I’m also fascinated by the true-life rivals-to-lovers romance with a twist. It sounds like the plot of a YA novel that would be dismissed as not believable, but it’s totally true (and equally charming). The rest of this week’s picks deal with politics in one way or another:
A bio of one of the greatest senators in the history of the U.S.
A high-school senior who was also the youngest state legislator in the country.
A political procedural about the 1970s Congressional investigation that blew open the U.S. government’s secret plots to assassinate foreign leaders and spy on its own citizens.
A race-against-time thriller about the attempted assassination of Margaret Thatcher.
