Marc Forster to Direct Ludlum’s CHANCELLOR MANUSCRIPT

The critical and financial dismay that surely came from QUANTUM OF SOLACE is not diverting director Marc Forster from going the route of the adult-oriented thriller.   According to Variety, the German-born director is taking the helm of Paramount’s adaptation of Robert Ludlum’s THE CHANCELLOR MANUSCRIPT.

The screenplay, being written by Michael Seitzman (NORTH COUNTRY) and Alessandro Camon (THE MESSENGER), centers on a writer of political thrillers whose latest work of fiction comes too close to the truth in regard to J. Edgar Hoover’s missing secret files.   The novel was first published in 1977.   Leonardo DiCaprio is already on board to star.

It goes without saying (but I’m going to say it, anyway) that Ludlum is the man behind the Jason Bourne series of novels, and, with the success of that franchise, studios have been buying the rights to his properties like bags of salt in the Winter months.   In recent years, movie adaptions of THE SIGMA PROTOCOL, THE PARSIFAL MOSAIC, and THE MATARESE CIRCLE have been picked up.   That latter film in that list is being developed with Tom Cruise, Denzel Washington, and David Cronenberg attached.