The Gotham Group has optioned Mike Jones' screenplay "The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break," based on the novel by Steven Sherrill.
Gotham's Ellen Goldsmith-Vein ("The Spiderwick Chronicles") and Lindsay Williams are producing.
Live-action project centers on the mythical half-man, half-bull minotaur who was supposedly slain by Theseus 3,000 years ago and now lives a lonely life in a Wichita trailer park, making ends meet as a short-order cook in a rundown diner.
Sherrill's book was first published in 2000; "Minotaur" is currently out to directors.
Gotham has a slate of more than 30 films set up including "Spanking Shakespeare" at Paramount; "The Devil You Know" at 20th Century Fox, with Shawn Levy attached to direct; and the Dwayne Johnson vehicle "Big Brave Brian" at CBS Films.
Jones, a former journo at
Variety, most recently adapted "Pool Boy" for East of Doheny. His credits also include Matt Dillon's "City of Ghosts" and the spec "Automata," which was bought by Columbia.
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