Ellroy
Evans
Grazer
Friedkin
Noir novelist James Ellroy has signed to pen "The Man Who Kept Secrets," a biopic of Hollywood lawyer Sidney Korshak for producers Robert Evans and Brian Grazer.
William Friedkin is on board to direct. Pic is set up at Paramount Pictures.
Upon his arrival from Chicago in the 1940s until his death in the 1990s, Korshak was a Hollywood powerbroker. He was a confidant of several studio heads, including Lew Wasserman at Universal and Evans when he was running Par, and negotiated corporate mergers, political deals and labor settlements behind the scenes. He became almost as renowned for his penchant for anonymity as his backroom dominance. Part of his cache was the ability to serve as a liaison between corporate titans and underworld chieftains.
Ellroy has built his career on telling tales of backroom deals in the Hollywood of yore. His novel "L.A. Confidential" was adapted into the 1997 film of the same name starring Kevin Spacey, Kim Basinger and Russell Crowe.
Sony is readying an adaptation of his novel "The Black Dahlia," a fictional retelling of the actual unsolved 1947 murder of actress Elizabeth Stout. That pic, to be directed by Brian De Palma, will star Josh Hartnett, Scarlett Johansson and Mark Wahlberg.
The project is based on a Vanity Fair profile of Korshak by Nick Tosches. Evans, who considered Korshak his mentor and delivered his eulogy in 1996, optioned the article and later brought on Grazer to help produce.
Dick Wolf is developing Ellroy's "77," set in 1974 at the LAPD's 77th precinct in South Central, for Par. Ellroy has also written "The Night Watchman" for 20th Century Fox.
Ellroy is also a producer on "My Dark Places," an adaptation of his book exploring his mother's murder in 1958, at United Artists.
Ellroy is repped by the recently formed Intellectual Property Group's Joel Gotler.
Contact Gabriel Snyder at
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