Warner Bros. sets writer on 'Empire'

Moverman adapting Card novel

By MICHAEL FLEMING

Oren Moverman is adapting "Empire," a novel by Orson Scott Card that is being developed as a large-scale drama by Warner Bros. and Silver Pictures. Joel Silver is producing.

Set in the near future, the novel casts an America in chaos. The assassination of the president and veep plunges America into civil war and a team of special forces operatives try to unravel the conspiracy and save the country. The book was published last year.

Moverman said, "The premise is balanced by an entertaining storyline that is not some dark and foreboding polemic."

Card's novel "Ender's Game" is also being developed by WB as a big-scale sci-fi film by director Wolfgang Petersen.

Moverman most recently co-wrote the Bob Dylan pic "I'm Not There" with director Todd Haynes, and with director Ira Sacks co-wrote "Married Life," a pic that just wrapped. He's also writing "Interrupted," a drama about "Rebel Without a Cause" director Nicholas Ray for director Phil Kaufman, and "The Big Blow," a drama about heavyweight champ Jack Johnson for Scott Free.

He’s repped by WMA.