Could a Washingtonian be cooking up another story for the silver screen?
Well, put it this way: Harvey Weinstein doesn’t come down here for nothing. The notorious producer met with Washington’s own spy novelist Daniel Silva over lunch at — where else? — Cafe Milano on Tuesday, along with two of Weinstein’s co-producers and Silva’s wife, NBC “Today Show” national correspondent Jamie Gangel.
Silva is busy crashing on deadline for his eleventh novel, “Moscow Rules,” which is due out in July, but we reached Gangel, who told us that her husband is “in the midst of deciding whether to sell the books to the [movie studios]. He’s talking to a number of different producers and Harvey was gracious enough to come down to talk to him.”
Silva’s novels would seem to translate well into a movie franchise. Like Tom Clancy’s novels and Robert Ludlum’s “Bourne” series, many of Silva’s books feature the same main character, an Israeli intelligence agent named Gabriel Allon.
Christopher Hitchens was dining two tables away from Weinstein and Silva, but as far as we know, he’s not getting a movie deal.
Weinstein also snuck out of Milano to take, what was described to us as, “a very long phone call.” That’s Hollywood manners for you. “Washington manners” dictate that you just take the call seated down and leave your tablemate alone to ponder their risotto.
