Gadhafi’s Link to Hollywood

Moammar Gadhafi actually had a connection with Hollywood.

The Libyan dictator's third son, Saadi, was a movie mogul of sorts, with a film production company called Natural Selection, which he co-founded in 2009.

In addition to funding from Saadi, Natural Selection was backed by various private equity groups both domestically and internationally. The company had announced that it had amassed $100 million to use for new film projects.

Natural Selection was apparently planning to produce a slate of approximately 20 films over a five-year span.

The company was represented by WME Global, a newly rebranded arm of William Morris Endeavor Entertainment, the largest agency in Hollywood.

The Libyan dictator's American partner was Mathew Beckerman, an entertainment businessman from New Jersey.

As is fairly typical with regard to Hollywood funding, there weren't a whole lot of people who seemed to care whether the source of the seed money might be coming from a notorious Middle East regime.

Saadi and his partner had produced a movie called "The Experiment," which featured two Academy Award recipients, Forest Whitaker and Adrien Brody. However, the film went directly to DVD in 2010.

A few years ago, Natural Selection produced a horror film titled "Isolation," which also went the direct-to-DVD route.

"Isolation" starred Susan Sarandon's daughter, Eva Amurri, who had roles in "Saved" and "Middle of Nowhere," and also starred veteran actor David Harbour of "Quantum of Solace" and "War of the Worlds." The movie was directed by Steven Kay of the hit TV program "The Shield."

Natural Selection was developing the movie "The Ice Man: Confessions of a Mafia Contract Killer," with the lead role to be played by Mickey Rourke. However, the project never went beyond script rewrites.

The movie business in general is accustomed to having to adjust to circumstances that may arise unexpectedly. But Natural Selection had to shut its doors for reasons that not even the most wildly imaginative scriptwriters could have foreseen.

In March 2011 Saadi was added to the list of Gadhafi family members whose assets would be frozen by the United Sates.

Then in late August 2011, rebel forces arrested Gadhafi's son after he had returned to Libya to serve as commander of special forces in his father's wretched regime.

James Hirsen, J.D., M.A. in media psychology, is a New York Times best-selling author, media analyst, and law professor. He is admitted to practice in the U.S. Supreme Court and has made several appearances there on landmark decisions. Hirsen is the co-founder and chief legal counsel for InternationalEsq.com. Visit Newsmax TV Hollywood: www.youtube.com/user/NMHollywood.