T.J. Newman is a former flight attendant, so she knows a thing or two about life in the air. She had an idea for a thriller set around the world of flying and the 36-year-old wrote a book on her iPad from notes scribbled on airplane napkins and old flight manifests while on breaks on red-eye flights.
Whatever she did worked, as fourteen major studios, networks, and streaming services are pursuing screen rights to this book – Falling.
On a full flight from New York to L.A. none of the passengers or crew know that 30 minutes before take-off the captain’s family were kidnapped.
To save his family the pilot has been ordered to crash the plane. The story follows action both on the plane and as an FBI agent races against time to save the family on the ground.
The project has, unsurprisingly, been called Speed at 35,000 feet. Which is kind of funny considering that Speed, despite screenwriters claiming otherwise, was thought to have been based on a short story about a plane that has a bomb on board that will explode if it goes below 30,000ft. Hmmmm…
At least two formal offers are already in the bag. One is a studio movie and the other is a limited mini-series for a network series.
The book itself is not even published yet, due in July.
