Oh, fudge, get ready for sundae bloody sundae.
New Line has picked up the film rights to The Cold War, a magazine article based on the true-life battle between rival ice cream truck drivers in Salem, Ore.
Andrew Lazar of Mad Chance and Joshuah Bearman and Joshua Davis of Epic Magazine are producing. The article, written by David Wolman and Julian Smith, was originally published on the Epic website and later featured on Radiolab.
The Cold War article centered on feuding ice cream vendors: Dennis Roeper, considered an all-American family man, and Efrain Escobar, a Mexican immigrant and aspiring entrepreneur. What began as a simple turf war escalated into an all-out ice cream offensive with price slashing, tailgating and even arson. The two men found themselves on the verge of destroying the thing they loved the most: the joy of ice cream.
In its own way, the article looked at the modern job market, immigration and even the meaning of the American Dream.
Arthur Spector, Epic’s new head of film and TV, is overseeing development, along with Sam Brown and Michael Disco at New Line Cinema and David Fliegel at Mad Chance.
Bearman and Davis are journalists who have had films made based on their articles (Bearman wrote what became Argo, for example) and the duo launched Epic Magazine as an online platform for long-form journalism that also has film and TV potential. Epic recently received a pilot order on The Legend of Master Legend at Amazon.
Lazar has tackled true tales before with movies such as Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper and the comedy I Love You Phillip Morris.
