BLACK COMEDY W/SCREENPLAY ADAPTED BY NOVEL'S AUTHOR SASCHA ARANGO
Deadline's Mike Fleming Jr. reports today that Brian De Palma is attached to direct the film adaptation of last year's novel The Truth And Other Lies. The novel, which won the European prize for best literary debut (the Prix Européen du Polar du Point, according to Fleming), was written by Sascha Arango, who had previously made a name for himself in Germany as a writer for television. Arango has adapted the novel into the screenplay for the film."The main character is famous writer Henry Hayden," states Fleming, "whose façade of being a virtuous, loving husband is in danger of falling apart when his mistress becomes pregnant. He tries to get rid of her but makes a terrible mistake in the process. In order to keep the past from catching up with him, Henry must manage a growing series of lies and complications."
"I have tried to portray Henry Hayden as a human product of modern meritocracy, where the individual is no longer defined by moral integrity, but by power and success,” Arango said, according to Fleming. “In the Facebook era, the original becomes indistinguishable from fake. Success replaces faith and becomes religion.”
According to Fleming, the novel was optioned by Chockstone Pictures and Nick Wechsler Productions. Steve Schwartz, Paula Mae Schwartz and Nick Wechsler are the producers, with Roger Schwartz listed as a co-producer.
NOVEL REVIEW: VERY LITTLE EMOTION, MATTER-OF-FACT STYLE DESPITE HORROR, SEVERE STORMS...
In his review of the novel last year, Huffington Post's Jackie K. Cooper stated that the book's events were played out "with very little emotion. Arango’s style of writing is to make everything matter of fact no matter how horrific it becomes. It is a plodding way to write but somehow this technique becomes intensely interesting. It shouldn’t be but it is.
"The writing of this story is so bare bones that the locale is never clearly defined. You learn it takes place somewhere in Europe and it is a coastal village, but not much else. There are storms that occur here and some are very severe. There are people in the village with emotional problems and some of them are severe, but details as to why and how they arise are never specified."
A week and a half ago, at the Beaune Thriller Film Fest, De Palma told press that he was currently working to finalize the screenplay for Lights Out, which he hopes to begin shooting this summer in China and Canada.