One of the defining moments of my early childhood was growing up in Twin Falls Idaho and having Evel come to town to jump that big Snake River. My father, a civil engineer, worked extensively on the jump site. His stories of that time are ridiculous, hilarious, and have lived with me since I was a lil kid playing with my Evel Kneivel stunt cycle, that was given to me by Evel. My best friend from those days was Tim, he got to have Evel's rocket cycle stored in his garage... I was a little jealous, but was also on the privileged inside 'scene' as a 5 year old, which gave me full clearance to view such TOP SECRET STUFF...
These memories, of Bike gangs coming to my tiny farm town, of dad being the coolest of the cool, and in years following, that my dad, always with a chuckle, told me he never got paid for his work. (Hell, he got to drive Evel's Ferrari, what more payment could there be??) Riding my bike to the dirt mound where the ramp was, ( still there btw...) are all part of what keeps me connected to my childhood, and my love of 70s culture. My mom called me to tell me that Evel had passed away, I was kinda relieved for the guy, and have being stewing in a lot of fond memories since.....
A few years back, a good friend and very talented screenwriter, Bradford Richardson, and I were talking over tea and crumpets, at some lil social gathering, and I told him my 'stories'... I told him I thought it would make a great movie... He politely chuckled and quickly moved on.... A couple days later, the phone rang, it was Bradford, after some pondering, he figured that I might just be onto something.... Off we went to Idaho, (with the generous aide of some good friends who believed in our dream), interviewing everyone connected with that jump. We stayed in my Aunt Echo and Uncle Larry's trailer, it lives in their driveway. Appropriately Idaho IMO.... After a few months, a script was created, it is pretty damn cool....
RUNNIN' WILD WITH EVEL KNIEVEL - A Coming-of-Age Action spec based
on true events. Summer '74. When Twin Falls teenager, Kyle Brennan,
learns his college fund has been blown by his father he sets out
to earn the tuition he needs in 8 weeks and makes a wild leap into
manhood when Evel Knievel awards him a security job behind the scenes
of his Snake River Canyon Jump. Tensions build as the event expands
beyond Woodstock proportions. The night before Evel's fateful jump
a riotous gang of bikers threatens to destroy the Skycycle and it
falls on Kyle to risk everything to stop them.
Fortis Films former VP of Development, Lillian Dean, wrote,
"Runnin' Wild is one of the best Bio-Pics I've ever read. It's
a '70's pop-culture, teenage American hero tale that rocks."
RUNNIN' WILD WITH EVEL KNIEVEL was a
2002 Semi-Finalist in the Chesterfield WFP, and the Minnesota
McKnight/Blockbuster Fellowship.
Bradford took our script, RUNNIN' WILD WITH EVEL KNIEVEL, to LA and landed Agent, Fred Price, with it. Fred, formerly the VP of Production for Universal Pictures, and delivered the script to
Universal's Director of Development. The response was terrific, they
wanted to meet. The weirdest thing happened, Director McG,
Quentin Tarantino, Matthew McConaughey and Lifetime Television
simultaneously announced they were all developing their own
30th anniversary Evel Knievel projects. Our, RUNNIN' WILD was left
in the dust. Fred retired. The script was pushed into a drawer."
Anyway, my pops is not doing so good these days, Evel's passing represents a vibrant piece of his life, that is now long gone. To be honest, watching my dad age kinda sucks, as it ain't going to well for him.... In my trip to see him this past August, we talked about that jump as we were walking on the rim of the Snake River. That big dirt mound is still there after all these years. I kinda feel like it belongs to my dad.....
Evel, Thank you for a lifetime of memories.......
Maybe now's the time to dust off
RUNNIN' WILD. Does anyone know George Lucas?