BILL and Monica are back on TV. L’Affair Lewinsky is being made into an HBO movie.
It will be based on ABC commentator and New Yorker writer Jeffery Toobin’s book, “A Vast Conspiracy: The Real Story of the Sex Scandal That Nearly Brought Down a President.”
Like the best-selling book, the film will be a behind-the-scenes look at the “inappropriate relationship” that snowballed into the nation’s first presidential impeachment in more than a century.
“HBO feels this is an important movie for them to make,” said a source close to the production.
The screenplay is still in the early stages, and no one has been cast for the key roles of White House intern Monica Lewinsky or Linda Tripp, according to the industry trade magazine, The Hollywood Reporter.
The President will not be portrayed by an actor in the film, the source said. Instead, it will use actual news footage for scenes that will include President Clinton.
“But it’s so early right now that all can change,” the source said.
It is not known if the movie will share the book’s title, and no air date is set.
Producers currently see the film as being less-than-realistic, similar in tone to 1993’s “Barbarians at the Gate,” the tongue-in-cheek portrayal of the Wall Street battle for the RJR Nabisco empire.
“Making this [movie] is going to be a long process,” the source said. “And that’s almost better, because, hopefully, by the time this comes out [Sexgate] will be out of the American psyche, and then we’ll bring it back and people will care again.”
Critics say “A Vast Conspiracy” was the first book to provide a comprehensive behind-the-scenes look at the machinations of independent counsel Kenneth Starr’s team of prosecutors, Lewinsky’s lawyers, and members of congress during the 1998 scandal.
Toobin also wrote “The Run of His Life: The People vs. O.J. Simpson.” The upcoming film’s producers, Spring Creek Productions, have been responsible for a slew of critically acclaimed cable movies, including “Truman,” and “Citizen Cohn.”
HBO officials declined to comment yesterday.
