EXCLUSIVE: F. Scott Fitzgerald’s famous unfinished novel, “The Last Tycoon,” may be coming to television soon. So says Billy Ray, the now hot as a pistol in demand screenwriter of “Captain Phillips.” Ray told our PAULA SCHWARTZ on Friday night that he’s working on adapting the novel for long form– either a mini series or more. Ray didn’t say who this would be for, but if the saga of Hollywood’s early big studio days doesn’t sound like an HBO project, I don’t know what does. Ray has an incredible list of would be projects thanks to his writing “The Hunger Games” first installment. Prior to that, his credits were scarce. He did write the much admired “Shattered Glass,” but not much else. Now among his coming projects is the Scorsese Sinatra movie, and about a half dozen high profile deals. Not bad.

Here is Paula’s report:

On the red carpet before the 6 p.m. New York Film Festival world premiere of “Captain Phillips,” Tom Hanks, who rushed to get into Alice Tully Hall on time, stopped in his tracks to chat with veteran New York Post celebrity reporter Cindy Adam. He told her a story – in which every journalist with a tape recorder and camera moved in to eavesdrop – about a phone conversation he had with President Obama, for whom he had narrated an election film.

“Check this out,” Hanks told Cindy Adams – who will kill me for repeating this story – he told Adams he spoke to the President, who asked him what he was up to. “And I said, Well Boss.” Here Hanks paused and turned to Cindy, “Not bad, uh?” he joked. “I’m doing a thing that you figured into,” and then went on to tell the President about the film and the real-life story about the kidnapping by Somali pirates. The punch line involved the President complaining to Hanks, “Let me get this straight? Pirates? With everything else that’s going on, the economy, war, I got to deal with pirates now?”

On the red carpet I got a chance to chat with screenwriter Billy Ray, who was with his daughter Mia. “I didn’t have to invent anything,” he said in discussing one of the big draws in doing the film. He also had access to Captain Phillips whenever he needed him, either by e-mail or phone.

I mentioned to Ray that I was surprised how moved I was by the film because it had a political dimension I didn’t expect. He portrays the Somali pirates as desperate men with few options: vicious warlords demand they kidnap ships for ransom, and they can no longer fish since international conglomerates have stripped their oceans bare of fish.

“From the beginning we were very determined that we didn’t want cardboard bad guys,” Ray told me. He said he and director Paula Greengrass wanted fully dimensional characters. “Not so much that audiences can sympathize but so that audiences can understand and maybe recognize a piece of human behavior in those characters and that was very important to me and very important to Paul.”

Another thing screenwriter and director agreed on was their star. “From the time I started writing he was the only actor I had in my head. He was the only guy I could imagine playing the part. He was the dream actor for the part. And then we got him!”

As for what’s next, Ray, who is sure to be nominated for a best screenplay Oscar, told me “he’s jumping into television. I’m going to be adapting the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel, ‘The Last Tycoon’ as a series.” The 1970’s movie that starred Robert De Niro was miscast and dry. How will he breath life into it I asked?  

“But this will be television,” he told me. “The book is spectacular and we’re going to have years to tell the story. We’re going to be able to tell it like it’s a novel and we get to write that novel. You know Fitzgerald died when he was writing it. We get to finish it for him. It’s a great opportunity.”

No star or actors are attached to the project yet he told me.

As for “Captain Phillips,” Ray told me the biggest challenge in bringing it to the screen was doing “honor to the behavior to these men, these merchant mariners who had survived this thing that I think would have killed me. I wanted to make sure that we shone a light on them that was appropriate in terms of the dignity in which they carried themselves and I’m confident that I did.”

Sony Pictures has had a bad summer, let’s face it. But Paul Greengrass’s “Captain Phillips” starring Tom Hanks is just what the doctor ordered. The truth story of how Captain Richard Phillips survived his boat’s 2009 hijacking by Somali pirates is going to be a box office hit and an Oscar nominee in several categories.

Hanks gives one of his best performances ever as Phillips, a very unshowy hero who kept his cool when Somali pirates boarded the Maersk Alabama cargo ship in the Somali channel. The movie is uniformly well cast and very exciting even though we know the outcome. Last night Phillips and many of his crew were on hand for the opening of the New York Film Festival.

I met and talked to one of them who lamented that five days had to be squeezed into two hours. But Shane Murphy concurred that “Captain Phillips” is pretty much spot on. It certainly conveys the terror of what happened to Phillips and his crew. But Greengrass’s direction and camera work — as in “United 93”– add elements of suspense that make the film entertaining.

Greengrass also managed to make the Somali pirates– all played by Somali actors who live in Minneapolis–less villains than victims themselves. They’re bad guys but you sort of like them. Barkhad Abdi is a stand out. So is Michael Chernus as Murphy.

Some in the jaded NYFF audience thought the film was a little rah-rah America. Usually I’m the cynic. But I really really liked “Captain Phillips.”

Keep refreshing for updates…

Almost 16 million people watched Robin Williams’ new comedy on CBS last night. The Oscar winner and extremely funny comedian’s first TV sitcom, “The Crazy Ones,” had 15.6 total viewers. It was the second most watched show on Thursday night behind the season premiere of “The Big Bang Theory.”

Williams’ show scored a whopping 4.0 in the desired key demo 18-49 as well. Williams also brought in twice as many eyes as Michael J. Fox over on NBC (a good show by the way that should be moved to another time slot).

And Williams had two and a half times as many viewers as “The X Factor.” Simon Cowell’s competition show on Fox has 6 million fans. Sometimes it’s a little more, but basically there are 6 million regular viewers.

Completely in trouble last night was the return of “Glee.” They scored 5.17 million viewers total. They were the fourth place show in their timeslot and didn’t score so well with young people. Did Cory Monteith’s death turn off the audience? The memorial tribute show will probably get big ratings as viewers say goodbye to Finn. But after that, “Glee” may be done.

Kanye West is very angry with Jimmy Kimmel. Poor Kanye has no sense of humor. He also may be a candidate for Asperger’s testing. He’s definitely on some spectrum of something. He lunges at photographers in airports and carries on like crazy. No one will ever forget his famous telethon rant against George Bush. The funny thing is, if you meet him in a social setting, he’s very subdued.
Anyway, here’s the clip from Jimmy Kimmel last night:

Here’s the offending video:

Leah Sydney‘s party notebook still brims with interesting observations from two of the best parties of Emmy Weekend:

WRAPPING UP EMMY WEEK IN L.A.: BAFTA Los Angeles held their TV Tea on Saturday afternoon at the SLS Hotel and the Brits do what they do best, had tea, chatted and held court. Talented Brits in front and behind the camera predictably flock to the classy BAFTA events.
Of course the Downton Abbey crew Michelle Dockery, Hugh Bonneville, Jim Carter, Julian Fellowes stopped in as well as Kerry Washington, Mad Men’s Kiernan Shipka, Joan Collins, Jon Voight, who’s poised to take home Emmy gold when his “Ray Donovan” becomes eligible, Sarah Hyland, Cat Deeley, Alfre Woodard, Camilla Luddington, Jacqueline Bisset, Scott Bakula, Crystal Reed, Victoria Smurfit, Kevin Spacey and more. Kevin’s Brit cred is earned, he was the Artistic Director of the Old Vic for years and his House Of Cards is a Brit original. He, told us that, “I’m hopelessly British deep inside.”

We asked him if he was nervous about his nomination, Kevin quipped, “Nah, I’ve been thru this before.” He worked the room and literally made sure to say hello to everyone there. Downton’s creator Julian Fellowes told us that, “You Americans always do the Award thing right. Way better than we do. It’s like some sort of wedding really, I rather enjoy it. ” Julian’s “Romeo and Juliet” premieres here on Tuesday…

And HBO’s annual bash at the Pacific Design Center: The HBO after party was, as always, the place to be. Everywhere you looked, the celebs and VIPs were shmoozing and huddled together. Judd Apatow laughing with Will Arnett while waiting their turn on the food line, Stephen Merchant at the bar telling a writer for Stephen Colbert to, “please tell Stephen it’s one of my favorite shows, I never miss it.” Emmy winner Michael Douglas, Matt Damon and Steven Soderbergh chatting in the center of it all with HBO Execs Michael Lombardo and Richard Plepler.

Mick Jagger and Laura Dern to their right seated at a table together together while Mick’s pal Boardwalk creator Terence Winter then joined in. Seth MacFarlane laughing it up with Bill Maher. Stunning Jane Fonda and Richard Perry doubling up with David Mamet and Rebecca Pidgeon. Aaron Sorkin then joined that esteemed group. Jeff Daniels, as on cue, then came in with Emmy in hand, prompting them all to stand up and clap. Jeff said so all could here, “Aw, come on, ok stop, ok louder!”

To their right, the Game of Thrones hunk Kit Harrington congratulating Veep’s Tony Hale on his win, as Peter Dinklage looked on and agreed. True Blood’s Stephen Moyer and wife Anna Paquin and their co-star Sam Trammell all hobnobbing with winner Claire Danes and Hugh Dancy.

In the back the Girls crew were having their good time, Allison Williams and Lena Dunham with Modern Family’s Julie Bowen. Boardwalk Empire winner Bobby Cannavale and Rose Byrne chatting with Judy Greer and Real Time’s Producer Dean Johnson. Julia Louis Dreyfus accepting her kudos from Cheryl Hines. Vera Farmiga and Newsroom’s Kelen Coleman chatting next to Julia.
The list goes on and on. HBO always gets it right on screen and with their events.

A third major film has been moved out of Oscar competition this fall. Bennett Miller’s “Foxcatcher” starring Steve Carell has been yanked from the schedule by Sony Pictures Classics. The reason? Like “Grace of Monaco” and “The Wolf of Wall Street” it just could not be ready in time. Now all eyes are on George Clooney and his “Monuments Men,” a film that also shot late into the spring and early summer. Believe me, everyone is crossing fingers that it too won’t suffer the same fate.

The elimination of “Foxcatcher” may also be a key signal in the Sony universe. The company had a lot of failures this year, with “After Earth,” “White House Down,” and “Elysium.” They simply can’t afford for “Foxcatcher” not to be right. Their only Oscar entry will be David O. Russell’s “American Hustle,” set in the 1970s and concerning the ABSCAM scandal. Sony is going through personnel changes in their marketing department, so they may have decided to put the brakes on until everything is just right.

All these films moving to 2014 will make scheduling very interesting. January is usually a month when movies get “dumped.” February 2014 will be light because of the Olympics. This means that April-May-June is suddenly going to be bursting with releases. And Cannes will be eyed as a big launching pad.