Columbia goes green on 'Impact'

Escape Artists will produce Beavan adaptation

By MICHAEL FLEMING

Columbia Pictures has acquired screen rights to "No Impact Man," an upcoming book by Colin Beavan about his yearlong attempt to live a green lifestyle in Manhattan.

Escape Artists' Todd Black, Jason Blumenthal and Steve Tisch will produce the feature adaptation.

Beavan, who previously wrote books on the French Resistance in WWII and the first murder solved by fingerprints, chronicles a year in which he, his wife and young daughter redesigned their lives with the goal of doing no damage to the environment.

"I set out to eliminate the negative net impact we made, while creating a positive impact so that we could be as close as possible to creating no net impact," Beavan said. "If the typical cosmopolitan New Yorker can do it, anybody can."

That meant no TV, air conditioning or electricity, for that matter. No car or even public transportation, because it produces carbon.

He ate only local seasonal natural foods (grub trekked cross-country creates carbon emissions).

"We all want to incorporate idealism into our lives, but that's difficult with the practical limitations of daily live in the city," said Col co-president of production Matt Tolmach. "This was funny, and the character is completely relatable and not some extremist that people can't identify with."

Aside from losing 20 pounds, Beavan said that the experience made him much closer to his daughter -- TV freed up hours of bonding time.

The book will be published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, and the film deal was brokered by UTA and Janklow & Nesbit.