BERKELEY — In a cottage behind his redwood-shaded home here, Michael Chabon has spent the last 16 months turning his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay" into a screenplay.
Six times he has sent drafts to producer Scott Rudin in New York, and each time the draft has come back with notes: Try again. So Chabon presses on with the seventh draft, hoping it will be the last.
Literary authors have a long and tortured relationship with the movie business, and it is rare for a writer to maintain a thriving reputation while struggling with the idiosyncrasies of moviemaking to maintain a simultaneous career as a screenwriter. Already a star in the world of serious literature whose short stories have been published in the New Yorker, Chabon (pronounced SHAY-bin) is trying to push himself into the same league in Hollywood.
Leading Chabon along the path is Rudin, producer of "The Royal Tenenbaums," "Angela's Ashes," "Clueless" and "The Truman Show." They seem at first an unlikely pair. Rudin--a gruff New Yorker as well known for his screaming tantrums and impatience as his ability to get movies made--and Chabon, the soft-spoken family man, holed up in Berkeley, tapping out stories filled with so many big words the books should come with a glossary.
But while he has made big money with more popular fare like "The Addams Family," "Sister Act" and their sequels, Rudin has a reputation as one of the most erudite producers working today, willing to gamble on literary fare unlikely to turn into the next blockbuster.
He has spent millions for the rights to novels like Jonathan Franzen's "The Corrections"; Michael Cunningham's "The Hours," the adaptation of which will be released this year starring Nicole Kidman; Charles Frazier's "Cold Mountain"; and Chabon's two novels, the first being "Wonder Boys," which headed to the screen starring Michael Douglas.
"You bet on people," Rudin said. "I have confidence in people's talent. I think Michael's writing has extraordinary humanity and behavior and detail and character. He's an authentic great writer."
Chabon says he's heard about the Rudin of myth but never seen it. Rudin, he says, has been sweet and solicitous with advice, often acting like a big brother and helping Chabon navigate a Hollywood that courts novelists with promises of big money, sucks them in and then, often, shoves them off a cliff.
