Sealand by Dylan Taylor-Lehman

Author:Dylan Taylor-Lehman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General Fiction
Publisher: Diversion Books
Published: 2020-04-03T16:00:00+00:00

Sealand on the Big—and Small—Screen

The history of the principality is obviously cinematic in scope, and Roy Bates had been speaking to the press about the possibility of a Sealand movie since at least the 1970s. But it wasn’t until 2003 that Sealand got its first real brush with Hollywood fame when a young writer named Sean Sorensen sold a movie script of the story of the principality to Warner Bros. Sorensen befriended the Bates family a few years earlier and became the first American citizen of Sealand, and he used the $20,000 he won on a short-lived Fox game show called Greed to sustain himself as he worked on the script. Based on Sorensen’s treatment, the story was billed as a “modern-day Braveheart.”

Michael first met Sorensen at a party hosted by a mutual friend, and he was intrigued by the fact that Sorensen was sitting quietly by himself reading the script of Gone with the Wind in the middle of a social event. They got to talking, became friends, and Michael worked with Sorensen to bring the script to life. Roy Bates is probably the most interesting man in history, Sorensen said.

“I first heard about this project when I was nine, and when I became reacquainted with the story last year, I tell that it was such an empowering story I had to make a movie about it,” he said. “It’s an audacious and inspirational story about people that achieve seemingly impossible dreams.”

Since then, Michael has sold the film rights to the family’s story no less than three times, which has paid handsomely and has gone on to benefit the operations of the micronation. Director Mike Newell (of Donnie Brasco and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) was set to direct the piece, with A-listers such as Russell Crowe, Mel Gibson, and Emma Watson rumored to star throughout the years. Most recently, Michael Bates met with the director of a major film franchise who was interested in the project, though disputes with one of the scriptwriters and the directors left the project hanging once again. Part of the problem was the difficulty in trying to determine whether the adaptation would work best as a love story, comedy, or action film, Michael said. He prefers the latter—“It’s more like Mel Gibson and Lethal Weapon”—but he said if a love story will sell the film, then so be it.

Though not a movie, Michael and his sons did partake in a pilot for a reality show about Sealand in which a film crew would follow them around on their daily business running the fort. Eric Roberts, Julia Roberts’s brother, was involved and especially excited about the project. Cameras did in fact follow them around, and one scene from the pilot included a drone Michael bought breaking and falling out of the sky and almost hitting an elderly lady. Another segment included the father and sons fielding pitches from people interested in building up the fort. The Sealand reality TV program never made

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