Rockland author takes 'The Tunnels' to Hollywood

UPPER GRANDVIEW – Greg Mitchell's first major brush with Hollywood came when he thought Tom Hanks might play him in a movie.

That was 15 years ago when Mitchell's book about coaching his 10-year-old son in the Nyack-Valley Cottage Little League was about to be published. Universal Pictures bought the rights to "Joy in Mudville: A Little League Memoir" for Hanks. But the film never materialized.

Now Hollywood has come calling on Mitchell again.

The 66-year-old Upper Grandview writer and blogger recently sold an option to "The Tunnels" based on an 80-page book proposal he wrote about the secret escape routes that were built under the Berlin Wall in the 1960s to help East Germans flee Communist rule. The book will have an American focus, examining the roles of CBS and NBC, which paid to fund the tunnels, and the White House's desire to contain the story amid Cold War fears about how they Soviet Union might respond.

Oscar nominee Paul Greengrass has signed on to direct the film. His credits include "The Bourne Supremacy," "Captain Phillips" and "United 93."

In an unusual twist, Mitchell landed his movie deal with FilmNation Entertainment five days before he inked a book deal with Crown Publishers.

With a book still to write, Mitchell still took some time out to talk about the importance of telling this story and going Hollywood.

You began researching the tunnels after visiting your daughter and her family in Berlin and taking a trip to the Berlin War Memorial in April. Why did this subject capture your interest?

I was particularly taken with the tunnels, which I really knew nothing about. I realized most Americans didn't know anything about them. When I came back to the States, I read up a little more, got more and more into the tunnels' aspects and then saw that, kind of amazingly, NBC had secretly helped fund one of the tunnels for a planned documentary. This is in the fall of 1962. The wall went up starting in August 1961. Many of the escapes were tried in the first two or three years. In the fall of 1962, the White House and John F. Kennedy, who is of course famous for his "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech, actually tried to suppress NBC's film from going on the air. Much of my writing over the years has been related to politics and history and the media. So this story started coming together for me on all of these levels.

And then it got more interesting.

I came across what hardly anyone knows about, that CBS with (correspondent) Daniel Schorr had also funded and intended to film a second tunnel in the same time period. That actually was suppressed. The NBC film was delayed but they eventually aired it. But the CBS film was completely killed.

You make the point that this was the golden age of the network news when 50 million people watched each night. Why did CBS and NBC get so directly involved?

This was an early example of checkbook journalism. They were out for scoops. And they also legitimately wanted to help people trying to get out of East Germany. Altruism, idealism but also news competitiveness.

How many tunnels were there?

There were about 50 in the 1960s. They faded after a while. But of the 50, there were only maybe one-quarter that you might say were successful where some people got out. The majority of tunnels either collapsed or were discovered by the East Germans. Some people were killed. A lot of people were imprisoned. Some were only 100 feet long. Some were 350 feet long. As time went on, they had to be more careful to hide what they were doing so they had to go further on each side of the wall. Some took six months to complete.

What did you find most interesting about this story?

People in West Berlin who had already gotten out of (East Berlin) or who were never in the east were digging to the east. They were in freedom you might say. Safe. They were almost all university students. They took a risk to dig into East Berlin, to bring people out and that's kind of mind-boggling, not just the risks they faced but that they would even do this when it was just the opposite of the usual. While this seems like a very male story, there were a lot of women who played key roles: couriers, who risked their lives from going west to east to try to round up people to escape. Some of the motivation for the tunnelers was their girlfriends or sisters or mothers were trapped in the east. So they were motivated partly by wanting to help people and maybe even family and romance.

How many escaped through them?

Records were not kept so you'd have to go on what people sort of guess. Let's say it's in the hundreds, not the thousands.

You recently returned from meeting with Hollywood producers. What was their reaction to your proposal?

"It got incredible excitement out there for whatever reason. The next thing I knew I was getting phone calls from A-list directors and producers pitching me on how much they wanted to do this film. Paul Greengrass and the producer Mark Gordon, who did "Saving Private Ryan" and has made many TV shows, were among those who called. I've been a Paul Greengrass fan since 2002 with his film 'Bloody Sunday.'"

The book and movie are still a couple of years away. What happens now?

"I'm sort of on an accelerated schedule. I've agreed to December 1 (2015) to hand in the manuscript and then it would be published a year later basically. In terms of working with the film, they want to be very collaborative on this. They're going to want my input throughout. They're going to hire a screenwriter sometime soon."

Any casting suggestions?

"I joke that I could see Matt Damon…playing Daniel Schorr. And maybe Ben Affleck could play the NBC guy."

Twitter: @ksaeed1