Universal Pictures and Strike Entertainment have set Frank Miller to adapt the Raymond Chandler novella Trouble Is My Business as a star vehicle for Clive Owen, reports Variety.
Strike partners Marc Abraham and Eric Newman are producing; Owen and Phil Clymer executive produce.
Sin City was Miller’s first collaboration with Owen. Trouble Is My Business was chosen partly because it provides the actor with a similar chance to frame the narrative with a compelling voiceover, using Chandler’s hardboiled prose as hard-drinking private eye Philip Marlowe cracks cases, busts heads and romances femme fatales in 1940s Los Angeles.
The deal comes as Miller takes a more active hand in writing and directing films. His graphic novel 300 was turned into a hit movie by Zack Snyder, and his graphic novel Ronin is being adapted as a directing vehicle for Stomp the Yard helmer Sylvain White. Miller is writing to direct a film based on Will Eisner graphic novel The Spirit and is working on a Sin City sequel he’ll co-direct once again with Robert Rodriguez.
Strike is in pre-production on The Creature From the Black Lagoon, a Breck Eisner-directed remake that Abraham and Newman are producing with Gary Ross, who wrote the script for Universal.
