Intelligencer

Strokes Guitarist Writes Too

Semi-authorized Bukowski.

By Jocelyn Guest
Published May 28, 2007

(Photo: Hal Horowitz/WireImage)

Albert Hammond Jr. is writing a screenplay adaptation of Charles Bukowski’s novel Pulp, which is about an L.A. P.I. who talks to Lady Death and meets aliens along the way. It’s “an adult comedy—dark,” he explains. “It’s just real life.” Hammond has been working on the script for the past year and is currently shopping it to studios, though he doesn’t quite have the rights. Hammond says that Linda Bukowski, the widow, is shy of lawyers and gave Hammond the go-ahead to shop the script, agreeing to iron out a contract once a studio is onboard. Hammond knows the budget ($3 million max) and has a dream cast picked out: “I already have people in mind. I have it in my head—I could do it now.” (He declined to say who.) Though Hammond doesn’t expect to step behind the camera, he has no intention of being a hands-off screenwriter. “I wouldn’t want someone to ruin my script. I don’t think they’d let me direct, but I’d want to be somewhere in the picture like that.”

Have good intel? Send tips to intel@nymag.com.