Producers Rick Gitelson and Jeff Wynne have optioned one of 129 semifinal scripts from a record 7,197 submitted this year to the Motion Picture Academy's Nicholl Fellowships on Screenwriting. Jeffrey R. Field's script Pop Hit follows a washed-up, one-hit wonder hired to write a song for a teenage pop star who then turns to sabotage when the teen idol steals the songwriter's planned comeback song, the producers said.
"When I read Pop Hit this year, I thought it was one that had the makings of a hit movie," said Wynne, whose own career started when he became a quarter-finalist for the Nicholl Fellowship.
