Pair catch Viagra pitch

Pill tale lures producers

By MICHAEL FLEMING

'Hard Sell'

Parent

Stuber

Rising to the occasion, producers Scott Stuber and Mary Parent have made a preemptive acquisition of the Jamie Reidy memoir "Hard Sell: The Evolution of a Viagra Salesman."

The book will form the basis for a fictionalized film about the pharmaceutical supply biz to be scripted by Charles Randolph.

The Universal-based producers used their discretionary fund to pay high-six figures to take the book and Randolph's pitch off the table. They will develop the project at the studio.

Stuber and Parent will produce with Randolph.Reidy's book is a somewhat humorous expose of the highly competitive and cutthroat world of pharmaceuticals, where salesmen schmooze doctors, nurses and hospitals to get them to use their brand of drugs.

While Reidy formerly hawked Viagra and other pills for Pfizer, the film will be set at a fictionalized company.

"It's a world I haven't seen in film before. Charles came up with a pitch for a great character piece," he said. "There is also a good love story in the middle."

Margaret Riley will exec produce.

Project marks the first significant book deal Stuber and Parent have made since leaving the U exec suites last summer to become producers. They just wrapped "You, Me and Dupree" and are in pre-production on the Peter Berg-directed "The Kingdom." They are producing that film with Michael Mann.

Randolph scripted "The Interpreter" and "The Life of David Gale" for U during Stuber and Parent's tenure at the studio. Scribe also worked on the script of the Steven Spielberg-directed "Munich."