Ari Sandel's Academy Award-Winning Short film WEST BANK STORY and Info on his First Feature Film THE GAME

It was recently announced that USC graduate Ari Sandel is currently in discussions to direct the big screen adaptation of Neil Strauss' novel The Game: Penetrating The Secret Society of Pickup Artists, for Lionsgate. The book is being adapted into script form by Due Date scribe Adam Sztykiel.

Sandel made a short film called West Bank Story which won him an Oscar in 2007 for best Live Action Short Film, and got him on the road to success. Here is the the short film that he developed. Then below that there is a description of his first full length feature film, which sounds really interesting.

West Bank Story is a comedy/musical short film, directed by Ari Sandel, co-written by Sandel and Kim Ray, produced by Pascal Vaguelsy, Amy Kim, Ashley Jordan, Ravi Malhotra, and featuring choreography by Ramon Del Barrio. The film is a parody of the classic musical film West Side Story, which in turn is an adaptation of Romeo and Juliet. The film follows the romance between the relatives of the owners of rival falafel restaurants, one Israeli and the other Palestinian, respectively named the Kosher Kings and the Hummus Hut, in the West Bank. The film stars Ben Newmark as the Israeli soldier, Noureen DeWulf as the Palestinian cashier, A.J. Tannen as the Israeli restaurant owner and Joey Naber as his Palestinian rival. The film premiered at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, and was screened at numerous additional film festivals across the world, garnering several awards. In 2007, at the 79th Academy Awards, it won the Oscar in the category Best Live Action Short Film.

As for his first feature film The Game, here is the description from the book with is about pic up artists... seriously. This is insane.

Hidden somewhere, in nearly every major city in the world, is an underground seduction lair. And in these lairs, men trade the most devastatingly effective techniques ever invented to charm women. This is not fiction. These men really exist. They live together in houses known as Projects. And Neil Strauss, the bestselling author, spent two years living among them, using the pseudonym Style to protect his real-life identity. The result is one of the most explosive, witty, and controversial books of the year–guaranteed to change the lives of men and transform the way women understand the opposite sex forever. On his journey from AFC (average frustrated chump) to PUA (pick-up artist) to PUG (pick-up guru), Strauss not only shares scores of original seduction techniques but also has memorable encounters with the likes of Tom Cruise, Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, Heidi Fleiss, and Courtney Love. And then things really start to get strange – and passions lead to betrayals lead to violence. The Game is the story of one man’s transformation from frog to prince to prisoner in the most unforgettable book of the year.

So what do you all think? Will this end up making a good movie?