PORT ANGELES — A book co-authored by Port Angeles resident Matthew Randazzo V has been sold to the Fox TV network for development as an hour-long weekly dramatic TV series.
Breakshot: A Life in the 21st Century American Mafia, the memoir of Japanese-American gangster Kenny “Kenji” Gallo, co-written by Randazzo, was originally optioned by European producer Henrik Bastin, who attached Oscar-winning screenwriter Robert Moresco as executive producer and writer of the pilot.
“Right now, it’s in development by Fox with an Oscar winner at the helm. That’s one in a million,” said Randazzo, 27.
Moresco and Paul Haggis won Oscars for best original screenplay for “Crash” in 2005.
The deal was originally mentioned by Variety, the show business newspaper, in an announcement of the sale of Bastin’s Fuse Entertainment to Red Arrow Entertainment Group.
Published in 2009 by Phoenix Books and then republished in 2010 by an imprint of Simon & Schuster, Breakshot is the story of Gallo’s journey from a teenage drug smuggler to one of the FBI’s top undercover informants against both the Los Angeles and New York Mafia.
Gallo’s undercover work is responsible for information that led to the arrest of the street leadership of the Colombo Crime Family — one of New York’s five Mafia families — and the thwarting of a mob plot to defraud the World Trade Center Ground Zero reconstruction project.
Gallo survived an apparent attempt on his life and now lives a law-abiding life under a government-provided assumed identity.
TV special
“It’s great to see Breakshot get this recognition,” Gallo said of the book, which was the subject of a 2010 Discovery Channel TV special, “Mobster Tells All.”
The book also received a prestigious “star” in its Publisher’s Weekly review and was the subject of a cover article in OC Weekly newspaper that was syndicated nationally to Village Voice Media publications.
“We have been working on this project for almost five years now, and we couldn’t be happier to have our work be recognized by world-class talents like Henrik Bastin and Bobby Moresco,” Randazzo said.
“This is the middle of a long process, and we have a little ways to go before it gets on air, but I’m happy to see the progress we’ve made.”
Randazzo started work on the book while living in Portland, Ore., and finished it after he moved to the North Olympic Peninsula.
He didn’t know when the show might air.
“They can pick it up for the next season, as in next fall 2012, or they could re-option it,” he said.
Randazzo is the development director of the North Olympic Land Trust, which is headquartered in downtown Port Angeles.
He is also the volunteer public relations director of the Northwest Raptor & Wildlife Center, vice president of the board of the Forks-based Olympic Animal Sanctuary, co-chair of the Peninsula Young Professionals Network and the chairman of the Clallam County Democratic Party.
Randazzo was also recently appointed to the Clallam County government’s Animal Issues Advisory Committee by the three county commissioners.
For more information on Randazzo, visit www.facebook.com/MRVBooks and www.MRVBooks.com.
