BUSINESS -- MEDIA CITY -- MEDIA INK
SUNDAY AUGUST 16, 1998

FIRST-TIME AUTHOR SCORES RARE TRIPLE PLAY
By KEITH J. KELLY

WILLIAM Monahan got a big thumbs down when he first peddled the manuscript for his comic novel "Light-House."

Now in a dizzying two-week period, the 34-year-old first-time author may be more than half-way to millionaire status, thanks to a rare triple play. He sold the film rights, landed a book deal and got hired to write the screenplay himself.

As recently as last February, Monahan was just another out-of-work journalist, after satire mag Spy was forced to shut down and he lost his editor-at-large gig.

He managed to eke out a living as a freelancer, writing for a variety of publications including Maxim, Civilization and the downtown freebie New York Press.

His luck began to change two weeks ago when Bill Gerber and Populuxe Entertainment, who produce pictures for Warner Brothers, picked up the film rights to Monahan's comic novel - even though no book publisher had yet bought the manuscript.

"I showed it around myself about five years ago, but nobody seemed to understand it then," said Monahan. "They didn't seem to get its humor."

Now some big-time comedy types are buying into it. Gore Verbinski, who did the hit "Mouse Hunt" for DreamWorks, is already signed to produce and direct.

Gerber and Verbinski are also tapping Monahan to pen the screenplay - an unusal deal which already has some pundits recalling Peter Hedges, who wrote the novel as well as the screenplay for "What's Eating Gilbert Grape."

"The film deal could come to over $600,000," says Monahan's literary agent William Clark. Bill Contardi at the William Morris Agency is handling the film rights.

And with film rights already in the bag, Clark was able to sell the book to Penguin Putnam's Riverhead Books imprint for an advance estimated to be about $40,000.

"We'll absolutely have it out by the time of the movie," vowed Riverhead senior editor Wendy Carlton.

The book is an action/thriller that puts frustrated artist Tim Picasso on board a boat headed to the Caribbean. Unbeknownst to Picasso, there is a $1.5 million cargo of cocaine on board. He makes the discovery when the ship's captain tumbles overboard one night and is lost at sea.

Picasso decides to complete the journey, deliver the drugs and then flee with the cash. He seeks shelter at a seaside hotel in New England just as a Nor'easter is battering the town.

There he gets involved with the innkeeper's wandering wife, who's sexually frustrated because her husband is in the midst of discovering he's gay. All the while a Cuban mobster pursues Picasso in a bid to relive him of his ill-gotten loot.

"It's like a jewel, and it's only 139 pages," says agent Clark. "It has the diversity of characters of 'Key Largo' and the manic energy of "Flirting with Disaster.'"

Monahan, who dropped out of college to write, is not letting his sudden fortune go to his head. "If you're a writer and you make a decent score and you think of all the [stuff] you've put up with since you were about 18, it works out to be about $1.50 an hour," he says.