HBO Plans Film Version of 2008 Election Book

HBO Films has picked up Game Change, a book about the 2008 election, to adapt for the small screen. The book, to be published next year, takes a character-driven look at the campaigns from the perspectives of the candidates and their camps, says Variety. The option continues the network’s recent interest in timely political material, a la last year’s 2000 election saga Recount.

“It’s funny to call Obama and Hillary characters, but that’s how I have to look at them,” said the screenwriter who’ll adapt the book by politics veterans Mark Halperin, of Time, and John Heilemann, of New York. “To me, the primary was one of the greatest title fights of the century, and John and Mark have a treasure chest of anecdotes and inside stories. I think it will present itself almost like a stage play, like Frost/Nixon or The Queen.” (More Barack Obama stories.)