LOS ANGELES - Hollywood long ago mastered cloning. But the Scottish sheep replica has shown up the industry's herd instinct, writes Christopher Reed. Several screenwriters were horrified to hear the news, as events overtook the very scripts they were writing. Lewis Kleinberg had been working two months on a clone thriller called The Seed, but had been sleepless after hearing the news from Scotland.
He told the wall street Journal "Suddenly it's all over the newspaper. Even the scenes I had in my head are being played out on TV all over the world. We planned to take it to the studios later but now we're trying to finish it up today. You know 50,000 people are contacting the scientists in Scotland - the sense of panic is setting in."
The US television late show host, Jay Leno, devoted most of his stand up routine on Monday night to sheep jokes. He received a huge laugh by introducing adult triplets as the Scottish scientists who had brought off the controversial feat of cloning the sheep called Dolly.