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For 23 years, a group of friends from Washington state have been playing a game of tag. It started in high school, and went through college. Rules eventually developed that turned it into a no-holds-barred, nationwide game that goes on every year throughout the month of February. Who ever is “it” will travel all over the country to tag one of their competitors, sometimes creating elaborate schemes to do so. Whoever is “it” at the end of the month is “it” for the whole year.
In January, the novel idea caught the interest of a Wall Street Journal reporter who turned it into a human interest story. Since then, the Tag Brothers, as they’ve been coined, have been fielding pitches from Hollywood producers who want to turn their real life game into a movie.
Wednesday, the Tag Brothers sold the rights to their story to Broken Road producer Todd Garner. He’ll create a pitch and take it to Hollywood studios.
Deadline broke the news of the deal, which apparently was a fairly hot property among Hollywood producers.
This story screams “high-concept comedy” with an all-star cast and it makes perfect sense that producers took notice. You can read the full Wall Street Journal article at this link, but the gist is as follows. Ten friends attending high school at Gonzaga Preparatory School in Spokane, Washington began playing tag and never stopped. The game continued to grow and grow and has gotten to the point where now, 23 years later, it can get expensive and elaborate.
Everything is normal all year until February. At that point, the men have been known to travel, set up pranks, hire people to play roles and more just to be able to tag one of the other competitors and make him “it.”
I have a feeling we’ll be hearing more about this movie in the coming months, as a studio is bound to hire a screenwriter to write this concept up. Do you think it should be totally comedic or maybe have some serious in it?
