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For their next collaboration, the "No Country for Old Men" team of Joel and Ethan Coen and producer Scott Rudin will transfer another Pulitzer Prize-winning author's work into a film.Columbia Pictures has acquired screen rights to the bestselling Michael Chabon novel "The Yiddish Policemen's Union," with the Coens writing, directing and producing with Rudin.
Chabon sets up a contemporary scenario where Jewish settlers are about to be displaced by U.S. government's plans to turn the frozen locale of Sitka, Alaska, over to Alaskan natives. Against this backdrop is a noir-style murder mystery in which a rogue cop investigates the killing of a heroin-addicted chess prodigy who might be the messiah.
The Coens will turn their attention to the book after they shoot "A Serious Man" for Working Title and Focus.
"No Country" has become the highest-grossing film for the brothers, and the pic is nominated for eight Oscars. The Coens are up for four of them, and their trophy haul so far includes WGA, SAG, DGA, PGA and BAFTA awards.
"Yiddish" is the third Chabon novel that Rudin is translating to the screen. The first was "Wonder Boys," and Rudin is developing a Paramount-based adaptation of Chabon's Pulitzer Prize-winning "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay," which Chabon scripted.
Casey Affleck is attached to star in period noir drama "The Kind One," based on the just-published novel by Tom Epperson.Film will reunite Affleck with "Gone Baby Gone" producer Sean Bailey, who is producing through his new Disney-based Idealogyshingle.
Story, set in the 1930s Los Angeles, centers on an amnesiac (Affleck) who finds himself working for a mobster -- a sadistic killer given the nickname "the Kind One" -- and falling in love with the thug's girlfriend.
Epperson will adapt his novel when the WGA strike is over.
Last year saw Affleck star in "Gone Baby Gone," and he had a supporting turn in "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford," receiving an Oscar nomination for the latter.
Epperson frequent collaborates with his boyhood friend Billy Bob Thornton. They co-wrote the screenplays for "One False Move," "A Family Thing" and "The Gift." "The Kind One," which marks his literary debut, was published Jan. 22 by Five Star.
Days after signing an interim agreement with the Writers Guild, RKO has launched Roseblood Movie Co., a subsidiary that RKO topper Ted Hartley said will remake eight classic horror films churned out by Val Lewton when he headed RKO's low-budget horror unit in the 1940s.The slate includes "Lady Scarface," which will be written by Tony Puryear; "While the City Sleeps," which will be scripted by Shin Shimosawa and Jim Morris; "The Monkey's Paw," which will be scripted by Todd Farmer; and "The Seventh Victim," which doesn't yet have a writer.
The other films on the initial slate are "Bedlam," "Body Snatcher," "Five Came Back" and "I Walked With a Zombie," titles identified last year (Daily Variety, June 15) when RKO made a co-financing deal on the quartet with Twisted Pictures, the makers of the "Saw" films.
More than one option
- (Co) Daily Variety
Filmography, Year, Role- (Co) Daily Variety
"The launching of the Roseblood Movie Co. was the motivating force behind our making an agreement with the Writers Guild," Hartley said. "We've got other projects at RKO, but we needed to get going on this. The most successful ROI in the movie business comes from scary movies that get wide release and cost under $10 million. We've studied it extensively for our stockholders and investors and we saw the opportunity to take the rich Val Lewton library of scary thrillers and create a unique company out of it."
The moniker is a play on words from the reveal of "Citizen Kane," the biggest title in the RKO library for which Hartley owns remake rights. He said RKO will put some money in the films and is arranging other financing. Hartley said the program of films will be made over 24 months, and the first one will begin production in the fall. No distribution has yet been set.