Clarke’s ‘Against all Enemies’ to be a film?

updated 10:03 p.m. ET April 10, 2004

NEW YORK - Former counterterrorism adviser Richard Clarke’s best-selling book may soon be a movie.

Sony Pictures Entertainment has purchased the film rights to “Against All Enemies,” Sony vice chairwoman Amy Pascal told The New York Times for its Saturday editions.

In the best-selling book, Clarke, a counterterrorism adviser to the past three presidents, charges that the Bush administration prioritized Iraq above threats from al-Qaida before and after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

The movie version is to be produced by John Calley, the entertainment group’s former chairman, who worked on the 1976 Watergate drama “All the President’s Men” at Warner Brothers.

“You could shoot the first 56 pages and have an extraordinary half of a movie, then it goes on to more enthralling stuff,” Calley told the Times. “If we were able to do ‘All the President’s Men’ with people meeting in garages and whispering in parks, then certainly with someone sitting at a table in the White House we could have a remarkable event.”

Clarke retired in 2003 after 30 years in government and reiterated the claims made in his book during testimony before the bipartisan commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks.

Sony Pictures did not disclose terms of the deal.

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