There aren't many films set in the city of Boston, but unlike New York or L.A., which get get maybe one or two good films for every 10 set there, it has a fairly high batting average. Between movies like Gone Baby Gone, The Departed, Mystic River, The Verdict, and Good Will Hunting, the city has had some very good luck around Oscar season. What you may not know, however, is that two of those five titles have come from the same writer, Dennis Lehane, who also wrote the book Shutter Island, on which the upcoming Scorsese movie is based. Thus far, Lehane's work has been placed into the hands of Oscar winners like Brian Helgeland and Ben Affleck, but apparently he's ready to go out on his own.
Variety is reporting that the Boston-based writer is set to adapt his short story Animal Rescue for Fox 2000. The short comes from an anthology titled Boston Noir, that came out last November and was edited by Lehane. The plot centers around "a killing resulting from a lost and contested pit bull."
It's actually more surprising that Lehane hadn't done this before than the fact that he is doing it now. He wrote three episodes of The Wire following Mystic River's success, and considering that Shutter Island was expected to make an Oscar run prior to it's release date change, you have to suspect that Lehane has been itching to get more involved in the film world. There is only a certain number of gold statues that a man can watch pass by his nose before he wants one for himself. The only question left is after you've been adapted by both Eastwood and Scorsese, where do you go from there?
