An Anchorage man who was blinded by a bear on the Russian River nearly twenty years ago tells his story on the big screen.

Dan Bigley, author of “Beyond the Bear,” said he was discussing with producers and a screenwriter the possibility of turning the book he wrote about his experience into a movie.

“Just like after the accident, people were still saying, ‘Oh, you should write a book. You should write a book, ”he said. “And then, as soon as the book came out, people were like, ‘Oh, that would be a great movie. “It was just one of those things that I heard a lot.

In 2003, when he was 25, Bigley was attacked by a brown bear after a day of salmon fishing on the Russian River. The bear bit him in the face, blinding him permanently.

In 2013, he co-wrote a book on the attack and how he got ahead.

He said he had received calls to make a movie of it. But for a while, nothing came of them.

Then he hooked up with screenwriter Molly McAlpine, who was ready to script to spec. Bigley said they were chatting with producers at Guy Walks into a Bar, a New York-based production company behind films like “Elf” and “Sully.”

“We’re in the process of finishing the script right now and we’re going to start shopping around for it and try to hook other actors and people into the project,” he said.

He said the screenplay largely covers the same timeline as the book. But he said he was thinking about the scenes he should keep in the movie.

“In some ways we can include more,” Bigley said. “But in many other ways, we’re limited by the number of scenes and the number of hours we have to tell the story.”

They’re still working on sorting out most of the other details, like where they’re going to film.

“I think we would like to do it here in Alaska,” he said. “Alaska is a character in history, really, it’s my way of thinking.”

Almost 20 years after the accident, Bigley lives in Anchorage with his wife and two children. He said that some days it is more difficult than others to rehash this part of his life.

“But to be honest, one of the things about rewriting the book and sharing the story so widely is that it just got easier,” Bigley said. “I think part of that is the time, obviously, all of the personal work that I’ve done – therapy and things like that. But I think the most important answer is that, really, the more my life grows, the more my disability decreases. And really, the more my life grows, the more the trauma of it all diminishes. And I continued to live a very fulfilling and wonderful life. And that’s the subject of the whole story, is to go beyond the bear.

He said people can follow the progress of the film through his Facebook, @danbigleybearattacksurvivor.

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