Hey folks, Harry here... Not since the days of Karloff and Chaney Jr has it been so popular to be a radiated human. Remember those films? THE INVISIBLE RAY and THE INDESTRUCTIBLE MAN? Chaney Jr's wasn't the hottest of the two, but damn if I don't love me some glowy man effects.

Ok - so you know what is going on... Remember the Radioactive Russian Spy that died - and the weeks of reports where guys with geiger counters traced his every dying step and told us a tale - not unlike D.O.A with Edmund O'Brien or CRANK with Jason Statham. Well - except this is a true story. Sorta like that poison that got Napoleon. But this is more like they poisoned Napoleon Solo.

Well - creepy lingering poisoning radioactive russian spy death - is the stuff of cinematic legend, so why should we be surprised that two studios and two very big players are leaping at the chance to play with the material.

First we heard that Johnny Depp and Warner Brothers had optioned "Sasha's Story: The Life and Death of a Russian Spy" - which is being written by NY Times scribbler, Alan Cowell.

Well, it seems Michael Mann and Sony have optioned a book with a better title (at least) "Death of a Dissident" - and this book is being written by the widow of Alexander "Sasha" Litvinenko and Alex Goldfarb - and will have first hand details of his whole career.

It's a shame that Johnny and Michael... Warner and Sony - can't marry the talent and the material - but on the otherhand, there's totally different ways to tell this tale. At first glance, Johnny's seems like it'd be more about those dying days - as death raced through Litvinenko. And Mann's seems to be boiling down an entire life of spying in post Soviet - Russia.

Both could be great. But as usual in these sorts of things - the productions will race for the finish line. Never can tell if that's a good thing or not. They'll both have to march through a studio system - there's a chance neither will see the light of day - we'll see.