Locate me
Flanker Press is pleased to announce that its books, The Bay Bulls Standoff by Chris Ryan (2014), has been optioned by Unstoppable Urges Productions in Toronto.
On December 4, 2010, Leo Crockwell, fifty-five, an electrical technician and lifetime resident of Bay Bulls, barricaded himself in his mother’s house in Bay Bulls after an altercation with his sister involving a firearm. Chris “Dutch” Ryan, a friend and neighbour of Leo’s, watched as for the next eight days the RCMP utilized every tool at its disposal to extract Leo from the house and bring the standoff to a peaceful end. The Bay Bulls Standoff is a dialogue-driven account of the eight days in Bay Bulls that made national headlines in 2010. Chris Ryan’s memoir takes the reader on a ride-along tour and, for the first time, shares the frustration and worry the residents of the town felt for the safety of their friend Leo Crockwell.
Unstoppable Urges Productions producer Kelli Kieley says the production team plans to adapt The Bay Bulls Standoff as a movie that will be released and distributed serially as a web series. Unstoppable Urges Productions will co-produce The Bay Bulls Standoff with a Newfoundland-based company. Award-winning Newfoundland filmmaker Mary Lewis will write the screenplay adaptation and direct the project. Newfoundland filmmaker Brad Gover of Mad Mummer Media is also a producer on the project. A Toronto studio, Wanted! Sound + Picture, will provide sound recording and design. A trailer starring Joel Thomas Hynes and Sean Panting was filmed last week in Newfoundland by Roger Maunder. The trailer launched on March 2 and can be viewed here.
“We’re very excited about this project,” says Jerry Cranford, co-owner of Flanker Press. “When we initially read Chris’s manuscript, we felt that this dialogue-driven story would make a spectacular movie, so we’re really looking forward to seeing what Unstoppable Urges Productions does with it.”
Flanker Press began as a self-publishing venture in St. John’s in 1994 with the release of Garry Cranford’s book, Newfoundland Schooner Norma & Gladys: Her Story of Industry, Mutiny & Triumph. Now located in Paradise, the company has eight full-time employees and has published over 200 books, including many award-winners and bestsellers. Last year Flanker Press celebrated 20 years of publishing quality books in Newfoundland and Labrador.
Unstoppable Urges Productions is a Toronto-based production company which produces documentary and scripted productions and recently launched NOW magazine’s first documentary series called Lovers & Fighters. Unstoppable Urges Productions is owned by filmmaker Kelli Kieley, who is from Newfoundland.
