Casey Affleck is ready to bring the story of the Boston Strangler back to the big screen and director Mark Romanek may be helping him do it. The One Hour Photo director is in talks to helm the project, which is set up at Warner Bros.
Affleck will executive produce with Kevin McCormick under the Langley Park banner, reports Variety, which first reported the news. Chuck MacLean wrote the script, while Warner Bros.’ Sarah Schechter is overseeing the production.
According to TheWrap, Affleck will not play the stranger, Albert DeSalvo, who terrorized Boston in the 1960s. Instead, he’ll star as a detective investigating the murders.Tony Curtis played DeSalvo in the 1968 film with Henry Fonda.
Romanek directed Robin Williams in 2002’s One Hour Photo and also did the 2010 drama Never Let Me Go. However, he has had trouble getting projects off the ground. He was replaced on Disney’s live-action Cinderella by Kenneth Branagh and was originally supposed to do The Wolfman before Joe Johnston stepped in.
TheWrap notes that he was also Sony’s top choice to do Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol, but the studio has opted to produce Brown’s Inferno instead.
Affleck recently starred in Ain’t Them Bodies Saints and also starred in Gone Baby Gone, which was directed by his brother Ben Affleck. He also appears in Christopher Nolan's Interstellar.
image: ABC/Randy Holmes