Phil Campbell film sees progress

In 1994 a man named Phil Campbell discovered his name was more popular than he ever could have imagined. He stumbled across the small town of Phil Campbell, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Three years ago this “Brooklyn Phil” created a documentary titled “I’m with Phil.”

“It was a do-it-yourself kind of project, and I really learned a lot,” he said.

That experience gave him a brief educational background for the project he is now undertaking: a feature film. As of right now, there is no set title for the film, and Campbell said he is taking the script one page at a time.

This script has evolved from the original idea Campbell had.

“I wanted to make it a buddy film, but something about it just wasn’t working,” he said.

Then, he teamed up with Justin Peters, who does improv comedy.

“He’s the one who came up with the idea to make it a romantic comedy,” Campbell said.

Without revealing too much, Campbell said the story will involve a woman who lives in Phil Campbell and a man named Phil Campbell who is from New York.

“So the male character is kind of like me, but it’s not really autobiographical,” he explained. =

It took a year for the screenplay to be outlined, but Campbell said that they are making slow but steady progress with the writing. As of the beginning of October, he said it was two-thirds of the way written.

“One thing that kind of held me up with the writing is that I was missing the screenplay sense of it,” he said.

Campbell has been a journalist and also worked with the documentary, but he said screenplays are a totally different style of writing.

“I’m taking it one page a day, and I’m learning a lot,” he said.

One thing he said he would like to do is incorporate more voices from Alabama into the work.

“I lived in the South for five years; I want to make sure I represent it correctly,” he explained.

Phil Campbell Mayor Steve Bell said he hopes the movie will be good news for the Franklin County town.

“I’m interested to see how it turns out, and I’m glad for any good publicity that is given to the town,” Bell said.

Campbell said he hopes that by the end of the year, the script will be in a place so he can start pitching and selling it to interested parties.