After directing the critically lauded and box office smash Logan, James Mangold didn’t have to wait long to find his next project. According to Deadline Hollywood, the filmmaker looks to be back with 20th Century Fox to develop The Force, the upcoming NYPD corrupt novel by author Don Winslow. The novel, which won’t be published until June 20, has already drawn early comparisons to police-corruption films like Serpico, Prince of the City and Martin Scorsese’s The Departed. It’s also received raves from such novelists as Stephen King and Lee Child (the Jack Reacher series).
Winslow is best known for his Mexican drug cartel novels The Power of the Dog and sequel The Cartel, the latter of which is also being developed by Fox and will reunite director Ridley Scott with his Body of Lies star Leonardo DiCaprio. Considering Mangold’s earlier film Copland, which starred Sylvester Stallone and Robert De Niro, revolved around police corruption, The Force seems like an ideal fit.
As for the story itself, Sgt. Denny Malone has three options. Choose his family, his partners, or his life. To stop the city’s long-simmering racial tensions from exploding, he must resign himself from the corrupt cop he’s become and turn back to the guardian he once was. Such a reconciliation comes at a price as multiple entities attack him on his road back to redemption. Including Harlem drug gangs, the mob, fellow cops he’s about to indict, the mayor’s office, and federal investigators. Whew.
To get a first-person account of a cop’s life, Winslow, a native of New York City, interviewed a myriad of individuals, from top-level police officials to veteran detectives and street cops. As the creator of the short-lived TV police drama UC: Undercover it would seem that Don Winslow’s books are becoming in-demand Hollywood properties. Besides The Cartel, his novel Savages was adapted by Oliver Stone and The Winter of Frankie Machine looks to be in the works with Martin Scorsese reuniting with Robert De Niro.
