Ole Bornedal to Helm Koontz’s The Husband
Well, what do you know? As soon as we finish up one story about a book-to-film adaptation, along comes another. This one involves long-time genre fave Dean Kootz and his 2006 novel The Husband.
Focus Features has hired Danish director Ole Bornedal (The Substitute, review here) to direct and write a new draft of the script, originally penned by Glenn Gers. Per Variety, Focus will keep worldwide distribution and sales rights on the project, which was acquired from Random House as part of Focus’ multi-year partnership with the publisher’s film division to develop, co-finance. and co-produce feature films.
The plot of The Husband sounds pretty tasty: One morning Southern California gardener Mitchell Rafferty gets a call on his cellphone from a stranger saying that Mitch’s beloved wife, Holly, has been kidnapped and that he has less than three days to come up with $2 million in cash. Of course, he’s warned not to involve the police. While Mitch is still on the phone, the kidnapper proves his seriousness by directing Mitch’s attention to a man walking a dog across the street. A moment later the man is shot dead. Mitch must walk a fine line — cooperating with the police inquiry into this murder without revealing Holly’s plight.
And while we’re on the subject of Ole Bornedal and The Substitute, the same Variety story reminds us that remake rights to the film have been acquired by Mandate Pictures with Sam Raimi to produce through his Ghost House Pictures shingle. Hmmm … been a while since we heard anything about that one.
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