Team invests in 'Broker'

'Smoking' duo to adapt Buckley novel

By STEVEN ZEITCHIK

"Thank You for Smoking" exec producer Edward Pressman and associate producer Stephen Belafonte are teaming up for another Christopher Buckley adaptation, a satire titled "God Is My Broker," which is set on Wall Street and in a monastery.

Pressman's Edward R. Pressman Film Corp. has bought the rights to the Buckley tome and will produce with Polsky Films and Belafonte's WhiteShark Films.

Peter Himmelstein, who is writing comedy-drama "The Key Man" for Occupant Films ("All the Boys Love Mandy Lane"), is attached to pen the screenplay.

New Line at one point had the option on "Broker," but the rights reverted to Buckley.

Insiders describe the project as a parody of the self-help movement, much the way "Smoking" was a satire of spin. Plot centers on a Wall Street stockbroker who flees to a monastery, only to find monks who are turning their monastery into a corporation.

Pressman is Buckley's man in Hollywood: Exec's shingle, together with Golcanda Films, is also producing D.C. satire "Little Green Men," to which Whit Stillman has been attached to write and direct.

Pressman also produced "Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus" and "American Psycho."

Polsky is a new outfit focusing on lit and life-rights run by brothers Alan and Gabe Polsky; this is the company's first announced project.

Belafonte, whose Remaguerilla Films recently merged with WhiteShark Films, is also exec producing Pressman's "Sisters" and producing another Pressman pic, John Malkovich starrer "The Mutant Chronicles."