EXCLUSIVE: Showtime is in final negotiations to make a straight-to-series commitment for a drama that Oscar-winning screenwriter Steve Zaillian will write and direct that focuses on Tom Ripley, the sociopath anti-hero of the Patricia Highsmith crime novel series. Sources said that this will go in a straight-to-series…

EXCLUSIVE: The hot package that has several networks salivating is a series that Oscar-winning screenwriter Steve Zaillian will write and direct that focuses on Tom Ripley, the sociopath anti-hero of the Patricia Highsmith crime novel series. Sources said that this will go in a straight-to-series deal and that…

EXCLUSIVE: Angelina Jolie is poised to star in Those Who Wish Me Dead, a drama that Taylor Sheridan wrote and will direct late this spring. BRON Studios and Film Rites are set to produce and Creative Wealth Media will finance the rugged thriller helmed by Sheridan, who made his directorial debut on the celebrated Wind…

Fox has acquired feature rights to The Mirage Man: Bruce Ivins The Anthrax Attacks, And America’s Rush To War, the 2011 book by Pulitzer winning journalist David William abut the hunt for the anthrax killer who terrorized America in the days that followed the 9/11 attacks. Steve Zaillian and Cybill Lui will be the…

EXCLUSIVE: Amazon Studios has greenlighted Cortes, a four-hour miniseries based on the epic saga of Hernan Cortes starring Oscar winner Javier Bardem (No Country for Old Men) in the title role. The series, from three-time Oscar winner Steven Spielberg and Amblin Television, is created for television and written by…

John Turturro's portrayal of Manhattan criminal court attorney John Stone in HBO's The Night Of is one of the Brooklyn native's most sublime 180-degree turns. Wrinkly clad and plagued by eczema like it's a cross to bear, Stone is a joke among cops and his legal peers. But one night the attorney encounters Nasir Khan…

Richard Price and Steve Zaillian’s eight-hour HBO limited series The Night Of, based on a four-part UK series Criminal Justice, is “chess, not speed chess,” Price said today at TCA. Price called the project the “antithesis of Law & Order… put-in-the-microwave-hit-60-seconds-and-serve.” The Night Of  focuses on a…

EXCLUSIVE: Fox has acquired film rights to The Dark Side, the Anthony O’Neill novel that created buzz at the Frankfurt Book Fair. Garrett Basch & Steve Zaillian’s Film Rites will produce. The novel is in the spirit of Philip K. Dick’s style, or Avatar or Blade Runner. It’s an elevated sci-fi noir story set in a future…

EXCLUSIVE: One of the most compelling movie questions coming into 2014 is, what film will Steven Spielberg direct? I don’t know if this is next or far down the line, but here is a tantalizing possibility: I'm told that he has his sights on Montezuma, an epic tale of the kinship and ultimately the bloody collision…

EXCLUSIVE: After a spirited bidding battle involving multiple studios, 20th Century Fox has just closed a 7-figure deal for film rights to the international spy thriller Red Sparrow by Jason Matthews. Film Rites‘ Steve Zaillian and Garrett Basch will produce. The book sold to Scribner in a similarly vigorous…

Martin Scorsese and Steve Zaillian are teaming to produce a documentary on Roger Ebert inspired by the film critic’s 2011 memoir Life Itself. Steve James, who directed the doc Hoop Dreams, will helm it. Garrett Basch is producing, Scorsese via his Sikelia banner and Zaillian via Film Rites are exec producing, and…

BREAKING: I’m hearing that 20th Century Fox is the frontrunner to acquire Wool, a self-published e-book that has become an internet sensation and is being called the sci-fi version of Fifty Shades of Grey. Ridley and Tony Scott’s Scott Free are partnering on the deal with Film Rites’ Steve Zaillian and Garrett Basch…