By Mike Fleming Jr.
May 30, 2018
EXCLUSIVE: Global Road Entertainment has closed a deal to acquire Rawhide Down, a thriller spec script from scribe Alex Cramer that details in real time the day of President Ronald Reagan’s assassination attempt outside the Washington Hilton on March 30, 1981. We’re hearing that Global Road took the spec off the table a mid six-figure deal with Verve.
Mark Johnson and his Gran Via Productions are aboard to produce along with his exec Tom Williams, who brought the project into the company. Lynn Harris, Global Road’s President of Worldwide Production, will oversee.
The script is a true story that chronicles the day of the attempted assassination of Reagan in real time, told from multiple points of view: the Secret Service agents who tried to protect him, the officers investigating the shooter John Hinckley, and Cabinet members engaged in a power struggle as they awaited Reagan’s fate. (“Rawhide” was the code name given to Reagan by the Secret Service.)
Cramer, making his first spec sale here, is repped by Verve, Circle of Confusion and lawyer Rob Szymanski.
Reagan and three others were shot and wounded in the assassination attempt by Hinckley, who said he was trying to impress actress Jodie Foster. One of the victims, White House Press Secretary James Brady, suffered brain damage and was permanently disabled. Hinckley was found not guilty of the shooting by reason of insanity; he was eventually released from a psychiatric facility in 2016.