Jim Sheridan (In the Name of the Father, The Boxer) is developing a movie about notorious Boston mobster and FBI informant Whitey Bulger, says Variety.
Sheridan will direct a script he and partner Nye Heron are writing based on “Black Mass: The True Story of an Unholy Alliance Between the FBI and the Irish Mob,” a book written by Pulitzer Prize-winning Boston Globe reporters Dick Lehr and Gerard O’Neill.
Bulger rose to prominence in Boston as a feared enforcer and built the Winter Hill Gang into an enterprise that did everything from selling drugs to procuring guns for the Irish Republican Army. His rise was helped by John Connolly, a childhood pal who became an FBI agent. Bulger disappeared 14 years ago, creating a major law enforcement scandal.
The producers hope to begin production later this year.
