The Chronicle newsroom will once again be depicted in a major motion picture. Last year there was Zodiac. Next year there will be an HBO picture based on “Game of Shadows: Barry Bonds, BALCO and the Steroids Scandal That Rocked Professional Sports,” the best-selling book written by the Lance Williams (left) and Mark Fainaru-Wada (second from left). Both were with the Chron when they wrote the book, but Fainaru-Wada has since jumped to Sports Illustrated. Richard Deitsch of SI.com reports that the first draft of the script is nearly complete:

While athletes such as Bonds, Jason Giambi, Marion Jones, and Tim Montgomery are characters in the film, [Writer-director Ron] Shelton will not cast actors to play them. Instead, he will use news footage and “let the public record speak for itself.”

That’s not the case for Fainaru-Wada, Williams and IRS special agent Jeff Novitzky. Shelton said he would cast for those parts — Novitzky is not participating in the project — as well as former Chronicle editor Phil Bronstein (the former Mr. Sharon Stone).

“Do you know that Mike Greenburg, who is one of the producers with [HBO Sports president] Ross Greenburg, was Sharon Stone’s first husband,” said Shelton. “One day we were in a small room at the Chronicle doing research and we had most of her husbands in the room. I said, Can I buy you guys some drinks? I want to hear some stories.”