Agent Bob Bookman Exits Paradigm To Become Manager; Aligning With Alan Gasmer

EXCLUSIVE: Longtime lit agent Bob Bookman will leave Paradigm to become a manager/producer. He will join forces with Alan Gasmer, the former WMA agent who became a manager several years ago and is an executive producer of Vikings. Bookman’s last day at Paradigm will be Friday. This is all happening quickly and he’s figuring out a new company name (Gasmer will likely keep separate his Alan Gasmer and Friends banner). Bookman is also figuring out which clients will take the leap with him. Among his notable current agency clients are Bill Broyles, John Irving, Peter Moffat, Jojo Moyes David Nicholls and Tom Stoppard.

Bookman spent four years at Paradigm, after a 27-year run at CAA. He’s one of those storied agents full of great Hollywood stories and he still holds what I believe to be the record for biggest book to feature film sales in Hollywood history. That was Michael Crichton’s Disney deal for Airframe at $10.5 million, but an asterisk is needed because the late Jurassic Park author was a stand up guy and gave a lot of the money back to Disney when the movie never got off the ground. Fortunately, Bookman also brokered the runner up monster deal, back when big buck book deals were commonplace. That was for the Thomas Harris book Hannibal. Dino De Laurentiis paid $10 million to turn it into a Ridley Scott-directed film that brought Anthony Hopkins back as Hannibal Lecter, with Julianne Moore replacing Jodie Foster after the latter decided not to reprise her Clarice Starling turn from The Silence of the Lambs. Bookman’s exit from Paradigm is amicable.

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