Warner Bros. catches computer glitch pitch

Buys thriller 'Y2K' from writer Zicherman

By PAUL KARON, CHRIS PETRIKIN

Warner Bros. is anticipating the millennium. The studio has purchased a pitch from writer Stu Zicherman for "Y2K," a thriller about computer bugs that send the modern world awry at the dawn of the next century.

Pitch, which reportedly went for a low six-figure sale, is loosely based on newspaper and magazine stories about computer software problems expected to beset society when the internal clocks on computers roll over into the year 2000. The phrase "Y2K" is shorthand for "year 2000."

Zicherman will also pen the screenplay. He developed the idea with Chris O'Donnell's George Street Prods. and producer Akiva Goldsman, who both have production deals at WB. The two companies will produce.

Zicherman's previous credit is "A Day in November," which Warner Bros. bought for Arnold Kopelson in 1995. O'Donnell is attached to that project.

Zicherman was repped by agent David Lubliner of William Morris.