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'Clip' latches on at D'Works

Parkes, MacDonald buy rights to Web swapper's story

By MICHAEL FLEMING

Canuck Kyle MacDonald's Web trading operation will be the subject of DreamWorks' 'One Red Paper Clip.'

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Canadian Kyle MacDonald used a red paper clip to start a series of Internet trades in the hopes that it would lead to home ownership. He not only got a home, but he also got a DreamWorks movie deal to go along with the book deal he just made with Random House.

Walter Parkes and Laurie MacDonald bought rights to MacDonald's unlikely story, using the discretionary fund that is part of their DreamWorks deal. The studio and producers hope to turn the tale into a feature called "One Red Paper Clip."

That's the name MacDonald gave his Web site in 2005, when the then-unemployed Canadian began his homeowner quest. The object, which held together MacDonald's resume, was emblematic of how little MacDonald felt he was worth at the time. He traded up quickly.

The paper clip went to two Vancouver women who gave him a fish-shaped pen. He sent that to Seattle for a custom-made doorknob. He shipped that to Massachusetts for a Coleman camp stove. He sent that to California for a generator, and traded that for a neon beer sign and empty keg. Subsequent trades led to a snowmobile, a vacation, a van, a recording contract, a year's free rent in Phoenix, an afternoon with rocker Alice Cooper, a KISS motorized snow globe. Finally, after Corbin Bernsen acquired that by trading a role in "Donna on Demand," a film he was directing, the town of Kipling, Saskatchewan, made MacDonald's dream a reality, giving him a two-story farmhouse. The town is holding a contest and will give the film role to a resident.

"We liked it because it felt more like an urban myth than something that actually happened," Parkes said. "Kyle's story is endearing, and it demonstrates the unlikely social connections that are made through the Internet."

Parkes was initially unsure whether MacDonald's story would work best as a feature, a TV series or perhaps even a reality series. But Random House gave him a book deal, and Parkes and the studio were confident the tale would be something worth watching.