The Farnsworth Invention

On April 29 2004, New Line Cinema put out a news release to the effect that they had acquired the drama script 'The Farnsworth Invention' from award-winning writer Aaron Sorkin. Thomas Schlamme was to direct.

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The release read in part: "'The Farnsworth Invention' tells the story of Philo Farnsworth, a boy genius from Utah who, at 22, 'invented television only to become involved in an all or nothing battle with David Sarnoff, the young president of RCA and America's first communications mogul?. Schlamme described the movie as 'a classic American tale driven by the conflict between a mormon farmer and a Russian immigrant over the ownership of the most influential cultural invention of the 20th Century.' "

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This website was quick to put the opposing case for J.L.Baird, while DavidK of the Antique Radio Forum launched a long discussion thread which has run to 4 pages with about 140 contributions at the time of this update. Debate has raged, with the majority view being that Farnsworth did not ?invent television?.

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A year has passed, but nothing further has been heard from New Line. As of May 2005 there are unconfirmed indications from the Aaron Sorkin Yahoo Group that the movie will not be made and instead the script was rewritten as a stage play.

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It is not known whether the cancellation of the movie project was due to problems of historical accuracy, or concerns about the box office prospects, or a combination of the above. New-Line has not formally released any information to the public on the film since the initial release, causing a slew of websites such as the Internet Movie Database to continue to anticipate a film this year.

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The Farnsworth Invention" is set to premier at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, Ireland, in winter 2005.

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