'Game of Shadows' author says Bonds movie in works

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SAN FRANCISCO -- HBO Films is planning to turn a best selling book about Barry Bonds' alleged steroid use and the federal government's wide-ranging probe into performance enhancing drug use in sports into a movie, one of the book's authors said Thursday.

Lance Williams, a reporter at the San Francisco Chronicle, said that Ron Shelton has been tapped to direct the flick and will co-write the script with "Tin Cup" partner John Norville once the Hollywood writers strike is settled.

The planned movie based on the book "Game of Shadows" was first reported Wednesday by Variety.

Williams co-wrote the book with sports writer Mark Fainaru-Wada, who recently left the Chronicle to join ESPN.

Much of the book was based on secret grand jury testimony of Bonds and other famous athletes leaked to them by Troy Ellerman, a disbarred attorney sentenced to 2½ years in prison for denying under oath he was the reporters' source.

The book recounts how Bonds allegedly began using steroids in 1999 after becoming jealous of Mark McGwire setting Major League Baseball's single season home run mark the previous season.

An HBO spokesman declined to comment.

Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press

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