Hillcoat, Penhall line up projects

Director, writer eye potential Daniel Craig pics

By ALI JAAFAR

Their adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" may depict a desolate, post-apocalyptic future, but for director and writer John Hillcoat and Joe Penhall, the road ahead is paved with intriguing projects.

Penhall is in talks with Daniel Craig to write an English remake of Gallic heist pic "La Bonne Annee" for the thesp to star in.

The original film, which was made in 1973 by Claude Lelouch, follows a criminal recently released from prison who hatches a plan to rob jewelers in Cannes.

Penhall and Craig previously worked together on "Some Voices" in 2000 and Ian McEwen adaptation "Enduring Love" in 2004.

Hillcoat is also talking to Craig about another project and is developing a bigscreen adaptation of Nick Cave's novel "The Death of Bunny Munro," about a sex-obsessed traveling salesman on his final road trip. Cave composed the music for "The Road" and also wrote the screenplay for Hillcoat's previous pic, "The Proposition."

Penhall is also working with helmer Mike Nichols on Patricia Highsmith adaptation "Deep Water." That project, about a man who allows his wife to sleep with other men as long as she doesn't leave their family, is set up at Fox 2000.

Penhall and Hillcoat may even end up working together again.

The duo are planning to re-unite on a bigscreen adaptation of Penhall's own play "Landscape With Weapons," about a military technician who invents a revolutionary new weapon set to change the face of warfare. The man then finds himself battling against the military-industrial complex desperate to get hold of the intellectual ownership of the new technology.