Viagra: The Movie

Published 9:00 pm Wednesday, February 15, 2006

You may think I’m making this up, but I’m just not that creative … It turns out that Jamie Reidy, the former Viagra salesman who wrote a book about his experience, apparently has sold the movie rights to that book, which was titled “Hard Sell: Evolution of a Viagra Salesman.”

That’s according to the Chicago Tribune (look toward the bottom of the column), http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-0602160147feb16,1,6429098.story?coll=chi-business-hed, and a few Hollywood-tracking sites: http://www.boxofficeprophets.com/tickermaster/movienews.cfm?tmID=3366 and http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117937280?categoryid=13&cs=1. Reidy claims he got paid in the “high six figures” for the movie rights.

Key quote (from Variety): “Reidy’s book is a somewhat humorous expose of the highly competitive and cutthroat world of pharmaceuticals, where salesmen schmooze doctors, nurses and hospitals to get them to use their brand of drugs. … While Reidy formerly hawked Viagra and other pills for Pfizer, the film will be set at a fictionalized company.”

Way back last March, I actually posted a blog entry about Reidy. By the time the book came out, Reidy had left Pfizer Inc. (Viagra’s developer) and was with Eli Lilly &Co. (ICOS’ partner on Cialis). Lilly executives read the book, which is not flattering to the drug sales industry, and fired Reidy. I also noted at that time that my wife read the book cover-to-cover in about two days. Her quick review: fun read, but nothing particularly insightful; she also thought it had a flat ending.

For the publisher’s home page about Reidy’s book, http://www.andrewsmcmeel.com/hardsell/index.html.