In 2007 Michael Gates Gill published a memoir titled How Starbucks Saved My Life. In the story he recounts his life in his fifties - a nice house, loving family and a great job - and his terrible downfall in his sixties - when he lost his great job, had an affair that cost him his marriage, learned that he had a tumor in his brain and discovered that the woman he was sleeping with was pregnant. With nothing in his name, he started working at a Manhattan Starbucks...an experience that would change his life forever as he learned to stop looking at life through his entitled world view and see more of humanity. And now Michael Gates Gill's story is going to Hollywood.
The Weinstein Company has made a deal to acquire the rights to How Starbucks Saved My Life with the intention of turning the story into a feature, according to Deadline. But this actually isn't the first time that the book has caught the attention of a movie studio. Originally the story had been purchased by Universal Pictures and the studio even went as far as to attach Gus Van Sant as a director and Tom Hanks as the star. While the site doesn't say, presumably Universal's hold on the rights ended - though Van Sant's and Hank's connection to the project is unknown. Polly Johnsen and Christy Ezzell, both from Polymorphic Pictures are serving as producers on the project at Weinstein. The site doesn't say if a writer has been hired to take care of the screenplay yet.
