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Question: What ever happened to plans to make a movie based on "The Haole Substitute" by Waianae Intermediate School teacher Walt Novak? ‘Haole Substitute’ film
awaits a final script
before shooting startsBy Treena Shapiro
tshapiro@starbulletin.comAnswer: Lotus Productions Inc. purchased the movie rights to Walt Novak's "The Haole Substitute" in 1995, a year after the book was published. The company also optioned the unpublished sequel, "Half of September," on which Novak said the movie will be primarily based.
The semiautobiographical novels incorporate Novak's experiences as a surfer-turned-substitute teacher in the public school system and an English teacher at Waianae Intermediate -- including his irreverent take on racial, social and cultural clashes on the Leeward coast.
However, six years later, screenwriters David Mickey Evans and Michael Schiffer have finished only 90 pages of what will eventually be a 120-page script.
Novak said Evans stayed at his home in Waialua for a month about a year ago to get a feel for the script, but shortly afterward began working on another project. Novak said he is optimistic that the screenwriters will return to his script soon.
Although he spends a month in Los Angeles each summer, Novak said he has not seen any of the script.
Until the movie goes into production, Novak will be unable to get his four or five other finished novels published.
"I've got this whole doggone life that's on hold," he says. "I have four or five novels, finished and sitting in the closet."
He describes publishers' responses to his other novels as "rave rejections" but anticipates that "all they have to do is go into production, then I'm on the map."
In the meantime he continues to surf and teach English at Waianae Intermediate.
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