It was just announced this week that the long awaited movie The Billionaire’s Vinegar is to be released in cinemas this year.
Will Smith bought the rights to the book as part of a Hollywood consortium and has been named as one of the producers. The New York Times has some guy named Brad Pitt listed in the Acting Credits.
The movie is set to be directed by David Keopp, the screenwriter for such mediocre films such as Men In Black III, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, War of the Worlds and The Taking of Pelham 123).
Based (and I’m sure it will be very loosely “based”) on Benjamin Wallace‘s book: The Billionaire’s Vinegar – The Mystery of the World’s Most Expensive Bottle of Wine, it tells the story of William Koch, a billionaire Florida wine collector, who in 2005 bought four bottles of 1787 Château Lafite engraved “Th.J” (allegedly bottles owned by Thomas Jefferson). The bottles were sold to him by German wine dealer Hardy Rodenstock for around half-a-million dollars.
Not long after the purchase, Koch alleged several of the bottles were fake (after hiring a team of former FBI agents, wine and glass experts, a former Sotheby’s head of wine sales, and even a nuclear physicist to investigate the authenticity of the bottles) and subsequently sued Rodenstock and Christie’s.
The court case is still pending.
My Thoughts…
I have to confess that I never really took much of an interest in this story when it was in the media. On the surface it seems like kind of boring , but now that Hollywood’s involved…..I’M ALL OVER IT!!!
What I want to know is: How can they possibly work several explosions and (inevitably) Brad Pitt taking his shirt off into the storyline!?!? This could actually be quite a good idea for a drinking game! Hmmmmmm……let me work on that…..
Anyway, without Brad Pitt I predict this would be a “straight to DVD” movie. Wine movies generally suck. Sideways was ok I guess, Bottle Shock was a little better, but I predict this will quite possibly be: THE GREATEST WINE MOVIE EVER MADE!!!!!
I may even go and see it….
