Departed Scribe to Direct Noir Drama

Posted by Cole Abaius (cole.abaius@filmschoolrejects.com) on April 3, 2008

Things keep looking up for William Monahan. After exploding onto the scene with Kingdom of Heaven he followed it up by winning an Oscar with his The Departed script. Since then, he’s nabbed screenplay and writing credits for Ridley Scott’s Body of Lies, the upcoming Jurrasic Park IV, and now he’s set his sights on the director’s chair with his adaptation of the Ken Bruen novel “London Boulevard”.

He’s certainly come a long way since editing for Spy Magazine.

“Boulevard” is one of Bruen’s earlier novels. It follows a criminal who is released from prison only to get sucked back into a crime world that he wants nothing to do with. To escape his old life, he sets up working for a former movie star, but he can’t escape his past forever.

Obviously, Monahan is perfect for this type of hard-boiled film noir. He’s still untested as a director, but we can hope he picked up a few pointers from Scorsese while wandering around The Departed set. With the script unfinished, don’t look for this to even go into production until the Fall of this year, meaning a possible release sometime in 2009.

We’ll keep an eye on this project as it develops. Check back with Film School Rejects for updates as they come out.

Source : Variety

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