OK, Nice Concept, But Let’s Tailor It for 40-Year-Olds--and No Drugs or Suicide

Is the Kurt Cobain story ready for prime time?

Apparently not--but it may have come close.

Within hours after the rock singer’s body was found in his Seattle home on April 8, a proposal for a TV movie of the week project on the life and death of the Nirvana leader was under consideration by NBC. But after two weeks of thumbs up on the project, NBC suddenly pulled the plug, the writer who proposed the project says.

Jim Hiett, a Las Vegas-based special-effects designer and writer who pitched the story to the network, says that for about two weeks he thought all indications were that his pitch would become a reality. Meetings were taken, storyboards drawn up, producers and a scriptwriter were assigned and everything looked like a go.

The crisis-filled rise and fall of the musical hero of Generation X would seem to be a natural for adaptation. The networks were reportedly besieged by proposals for such ventures, and Nirvana’s management also fielded numerous calls from producers and agencies to explore the possibility of doing an “authorized” film.

Why would the network back off from such a headline grabber?

“They weren’t sure who would be the audience,” says Hiett. “I said, ‘How about every 15- to 30-year-old?’ ”

But that’s not who major advertisers are interested in reaching.

“The big-money spenders--the package goods and automobile companies--aren’t generally concerned with that audience,” says Richard Kostyar, president of the New York-based Media First International, a firm that buys advertising for corporate clients. “And the older audience, to a large degree, doesn’t know who Cobain was.”

And then there’s the story itself, with its unavoidable elements of drugs and suicide.

“NBC didn’t want to be portraying that lifestyle,” Hiett says.

“Any story that borders on the edge of things like drug use, some advertisers avoid,” says Kostyar.

NBC spokesman Flody Suarez would not confirm Hiett’s account, saying only that several pitches about possible Cobain films were fielded by the network, but all were passed on.

The band’s manager, John Silva, had no comment about proposed movie projects, but a source close to the band says that the people handling Nirvana’s affairs as well as those of Cobain’s widow, Courtney Love, have made it clear that they would not cooperate with any film production.

Nonetheless, another Cobain project is in the works: a film being adapted from a quickie book that hit the stands just weeks after the death. An aggressive boutique talent agency called Paradigm snapped up the book rights to Dave Thompson’s “Never Fade Away: The Kurt Cobain Story” and is shopping a planned screenplay adaptation to studios around town.

Screenwriter Richard Dilello (“Colors,” “Bad Boys”) has already been tapped to pen the screen version.

But even Thompson says he’s not holding out hopes of a movie being made.

“Whether my book or any, this is a tough story to sell,” he says.