An Irish production company is attracting a great deal of interest in Hollywood with a film project based on a book about the Princess of Wales and the paparazzi. News of the project made the front page of the leading US film trade paper, Daily Variety, on Wednesday, and one leading Hollywood agency already has offered to "package" the proposed film, which is titled, Paparazzi.
The film's producer, Mr Ronan Glennane, of the Dublin-based company, Stone Ridge Entertainment, says the project has attracted so much interest in Hollywood over the past two days that he is flying out to Los Angeles on Sunday to meet potential backers.
The film is based on the book, Dicing With Di, published earlier this year and written by Glen Harvey and Mark Saunders, two London-based paparazzi, and it details their experiences pursuing Princess Diana and other celebrities. Mr Glennane insists the princess will not be a character in the film adaptation, which, he says, will concentrate on the paparazzi.
"I started negotiating the film rights to this book last May," Mr Glennane told The Irish Times last night, "and the deal was agreed three weeks before Diana's death.
"I would not have negotiated the rights after her death. The focus of the film will be a pair of paparazzi who stalk a famous American actress in London."
Since the death of Princess Diana, the book has been withdrawn from sale in Britain. However, it is selling strongly in the US.
Stone Ridge Entertainment has a large number of film projects at various stages of development, Mr Glennane said.
They include a thriller, Con Consultants, which has been picked up for packaging by a leading Hollywood agency; a film set in Washington to be directed by Whit Stillman, who made Metropolitan Barcelona; and Guerrilla, which deals with the War of Independence figure Tom Barry.