Rockwell learned of Hollywood interest in his book about eight years ago. The movie raises the dramatic tension a notch by making the main character a new kid in town who makes a worm-eating bet with the class bully for acceptance. In the book, a boy makes a $50 bet with a friend that he can eat 15 worms in 15 days. “They did it beautifully, they didn’t back off at all,” he says. Rockwell’s only concern was that the movie would shy away from any actual worm eating, but during a recent screening, his worries were allayed. “I was pleased that it was the people that made ‘Narnia’ and things like that,” he says of “Worms” producers Mark Johnson and Philip Steuer. Speaking by phone from his home - a converted chicken shed a few miles outside Poughkeepsie in upstate New York - Rockwell, 73, evinces an entirely non-Hollywood trust of the film business and comfort with his small role in it. A new edition is being brought out nonetheless, as a tie-in with the movie, which opens today. A hit since its publication, the book has sold 3 million copies, won several awards and has never been out of print.
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