IP Picks 🔎: A Texas Serial Killer, Criminal NASCAR Driver and Abusive NFL Owner
➕ a new series with a female Muslim American detective kicks off, and a hearing-impaired heroine escapes death
Welcome to The Optionist! As always, thanks for reading. Yet another possible Devil in the White City adaptation has fallen apart. This one was set up at Hulu and to be directed by Todd Fields and star Keanu Reeves. The pair join a long list of people who have taken a swing at this 2003 non-fiction bestseller about a serial killer at the 1893 World’s Fair and missed: Tom Cruise and Paula Wagner, Kathryn Bigelow, Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese, Stacey Sher, and David Fincher. Quite an impressive list. Not many books have so many people chasing them for two decades. I was trying to think is there a more snakebit property in Hollywood? Certainly, as Optionist readers know, my personal pick is The Secret History, but this tops that. Another book of recent vintage that came to mind was The Boys in the Boat, which was scooped up in 2011 by the Weinstein Company two years ahead of publication then languished, even as the book became a huge bestseller. It’s now finally getting made with George Clooney directing — shooting actually started earlier this year.
All this is a reminder, not that anyone really needs it, that going from page to screen is really hard and even having the buzziest book around doesn’t guarantee it’ll happen. But for me the news was another reminder of why I wanted to start The Optionist in the first place. A few high-profile books aren’t the be-all and end-all of adaptations in Hollywood. First, there are hundreds of other stories out there. Really good ones. To use a sports analogy: Babe Ruth isn’t the only player to ever hit a home run, even if he’s the most famous of them all. Second, those might not be the only versions of those stories — or the best, for that matter. Take historical serial killers, the subject of Devil. We’ve featured some equally riveting alternatives over the last few months. And I have the story of another Olympic crew boat in mind that I think is as compelling as Boys, which I’m gonna feature in the next few weeks. It’s not to say that Devil and Boys won’t make great movies — I’m hoping they will — just that if you’re only looking for Everest, you’re gonna miss a lot of other very cool Himalayan mountains in the process.
Now onto this week’s picks. Americans have long been obsessed with serial killers so the success of Dahmer shouldn't come as a surprise, especially with the story in the hands of a master creator like Ryan Murphy. Dahmer’s success has gotten people looking for other serial killer stories and this week’s picks include another hot one. It's currently just a proposal circulating to publishers (I expect a book deal soon) so there's a chance to get in on the project at an early stage. Other picks this week include:
Portnoy’s Complaint-esque coming-of-age story with a modern twist
A murder mystery set in rural America featuring a Muslim American female detective
A hearing-impaired woman being stalked by an intruder
A true crime story involving a pro athlete caught up in a smuggling ring
A sexual harassment scandal involving a pro sports team owner and the brave cheerleaders who outed him