Mike Fleming

It is decision time for director Tony Scott. Tracking board missives made the rounds today that Scott might direct an adaptation of the John Grisham novel The Associate for Paramount, which has a script by William Monahan and a longstanding attachment by Shia LaBeouf. The story was picked up tonight by the LA Times. This has been something Scott has been mulling for weeks,  but nobody would confirm because Scott has others he has to decide between for his next slot. Top of that list is Potzdamer Platz, the drama financed through True Romance producer Sammy Hadida, and the Fox 2000 drama Hell’s Angels. The latter project has a script coming in imminently by Scott Frank, with Mickey Rourke and La Beouf as Scott’s choices to play the two lead roles. The film is a Donnie Brasco-like drama about a young cop who attempts to infiltrate the motorcycle club and its alleged illegal activities. Rourke would play Sonny Barger, the man who transformed the Angels from a local club into a national organization. That character takes the young member under his wing. Barger sold rights to his memoir to Fox 2000 a decade ago.

Rourke, who starred for Scott in Man on Fire, is also a centerpiece of Potzdamer Platz, a drama about two soldiers in a New Jersey-based crime family who try to expand internationally. The drama was shopped at Cannes with Rourke joined by Javier Bardem and Jason Statham, though right now Rourke is the only actor officially attached. The Buddy Giovinazzo script, rewritten by Sexy Beast scribes David Scinto and Louis Mellis, has relocated the original Germany setting to Puerto Rico. Scott, whose upcoming Fox 2000 film Unstoppable with Denzel Washington and Chris Pine opens November 12, should make a decision by end of summer and will start production on either Potzdamer Platz, Hell’s Angels or The Associate by early next year.

Separately, there was a rumor passed to multiple online sites that concerned Scott’s brother–and Scott Free partner–Ridley Scott hiring his Blade Runner scribe David Peoples to adapt the Joe Haldeman book Forever War. The tip was based on something Haldeman wrote on his blog. A bunch of sites ran the story, but it is outdated information. Peoples might have worked on the long-gestating project some time ago, but the writer in the middle of it now is Matthew Michael Carnahan, the State of Play scribe who more recently scripted World War Z, the Max Brooks zombie novel that is being fast tracked at Paramount with Marc Forster directing.