Former local helped turn ‘Adams’ into HBO miniseries
HBO's "John Adams" is one of the most ambitious television miniseries ever - a $100 million production adapted from David Mc-Cullough's Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of the United States' second president.
It was Cheyenne Mountain High School grad Kirk Ellis who was entrusted with writing the screenplay and serving as a producer on this massive project, which premieres Sunday on the pay channel.
"For a long time, the miniseries was going the way of the dodo bird," Ellis said by phone from Philadelphia earlier this week, before the final screening in a publicity tour that landed in New York City, Boston and Richmond, Va.
"A project like this, it's not something you do in a two-hour film," he said. "HBO is really the only place this could happen."
Ellis spent more than five years working on the project, which stars Paul Giamatti and Laura Linney. He's written biopics on everyone from Anne Frank to the Beach Boys, but "John Adams" is the biggest project he's tackled, both in budget and in scope.
"It's a real odyssey," Ellis said.
Ellis graduated from Cheyenne Mountain in 1979 and studied screenwriting at the University of Southern Colorado, then worked as a reporter in Hollywood and London before switching to screenwriting. His mother, Doris, still lives in the Springs. Ellis now lives in Santa Fe, N.M., with his wife, Sheila.
Despite the weight of his subject matter and source material - McCullough's acclaimed book - Ellis said he wasn't intimidated by the challenge of dramatizing Adams' life.
"(McCullough) has such a wonderful sense of drama himself," Ellis said. "He has an understanding of this period that translates well to a cinematic medium because he writes history as if it were present tense."
Don't dismiss "John Adams" as merely a period piece or a costume drama, Ellis said. Many of the issues Adams and the other Founding Fathers faced, and the manner in which they handled them, are relevant today.
For instance, Ellis said his favorite episode of the seven-part miniseries is the sixth, in which Adams struggles to keep the United States out of the war between Britain and France.
"Adams essentially staked his presidency on a policy that ensured we did not go to war, which I think is a very topical subject today," Ellis said. "Adams believed in the principle trumping the political.
"It's great to have it out, particularly at this time when everyone is so engaged in the political process," he said. "We all expect that it will step off the entertainment pages and play some role in the national debate."
Dramatically, the core of the film is the relationship between John and Abigail Adams, played by Giamatti and Linney, he said.
"The film lives or dies on people's willingness to spend seven weeks of their lives with John and Abigail," Ellis said. "They (Giamatti and Linney) imbue them with tremendous humanity."
Giamatti was on the set nearly every day, Ellis said, and memorized long speeches, then delivered them through take after take without missing a beat.
"He really does carry the show," Ellis said.
Some of the supporting cast may make viewers reassess their image of the other Founding Fathers, particularly Benjamin Franklin, who is played by Tom Wilkinson.
"I think Ben Franklin is the character that will leap off the screen to people," Ellis said. Wilkinson plays Franklin "not as the curmudgeonly grandfather that you normally see, but as a wily politician."
Ellis became friends with McCullough while working on "John Adams." He hopes to adapt McCullough's "1776" for HBO in a few years. Next up for him, though, is a feature film adaptation of Hampton Sides' "Blood and Thunder," about Kit Carson and the war against the Navajo. Ellis said he revels in adapting these historical stories. "It's like getting paid to go back to school - and pay attention this time," he said.
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TO VIEW
"John Adams" premieres at 7 p.m. Sunday on HBO and continues for seven weeks.
