Latest in Shane Salerno

EXCLUSIVE: Paramount Pictures has acquired Brilliance, and will turn the Marcus Sakey novel adaptation into a re-team vehicle for Will Smith and Akiva Goldsman. Smith will star and Goldsman will write the script. They will produce with James Lassiter and Shane Salerno. Pic will be done as a co-production between…

EXCLUSIVE: Paramount Pictures has acquired the screen rights to Adrian McKinty’s novel The Chain in a deal that calls for a guaranteed low-seven-figure payday for the author, an Uber driver until a series of deals for the book changed his life. The book will be published by Little Brown/Mulholland on July 9. The Chain…

When Shane Salerno co-wrote the Shaft remake with John Singleton, they started a friendship that lasted until the filmmaker’s untimely passing. Here he writes about his friend. When John Singleton told you a joke, he would share it with you like it was a secret. When he delivered the punch line, he would lock on your…

EXCLUSIVE: FX Networks has landed the rights to turn Don Winslow's acclaimed Cartel Trilogy into a TV series. The series will encompass Winslow's 2005 novel The Power of the Dog, the 2015 followup The Cartel, and the just published conclusion, The Border. Latter book, which The New York Times called "a hybrid of The Go…

EXCLUSIVE:  Akiva Goldsman has signed on to write and produce the film adaptations of author Marcus Sakey's bestselling Brilliance trilogy. Goldsman will write the adaptations and produce the films with Shane Salerno and The Story Factory. The producers will shop the book series, which has sold two million copies…

EXCLUSIVE: Though the past several years have left Lawrence Kasdan focused in space writing Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Solo: A Star Wars Story, Kasdan will now focus on the period surrounding the JFK assassination. Kasdan has made a six-figure acquisition of the film rights to November Road, the upcoming novel…

EXCLUSIVE: We hear CBS Television Studios has won an auction and is in final negotiations for the rights to former FBI director James Comey’s memoir A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership. The bestselling book by Comey, who was fired by President Donald Trump in May 2017, will be adapted into a miniseries that…

EXCLUSIVE: In its first major executive hire, The Story Factory has named Alex Ott to be Vice President of Production and Development. Ott joins after spending eight years at David Ayer's Crave Films, where he sheperded and received co-producer or executive producer credits on the Ayer-directed Suicide Squad, End Of Wa…

Will they be praised or pummeled? That's the question awaiting those brave filmmakers who plunge this week into the high-risk exercise known as festival season. Each year the field at Toronto, Venice, Telluride or wherever seems to become more crowded and the outcome more extreme: Will the verdict be a rich deal or…

EXCLUSIVE: Bestselling author Don Winslow has optioned screen rights to the non-fiction book The Last Good Heist: The Inside Story Of The Biggest Single Payday In The Criminal History Of The Northeast. Winslow plans to write the screenplay, and Shane Salerno will produce through The Story Factory. Winslow will write…

Shane Salerno was an established screenwriter and documentary filmmaker when a conversation with novelist Don Winslow several years ago first spawned a now-substantial business, brokering book and movie deals for authors. "Don and I had been friends for years," Salerno says, "and one day he told me, 'I've had it, I'm…

EXCLUSIVE: Universal Pictures has set Shane Salerno to write the screenplay for Gears Of War, the big-scale live-action adaptation of Microsoft Studios’ iconic Xbox video game franchise. Universal-based Dylan Clark is producing. Universal and Microsoft announced their collaboration on the game in late 2016. At the…