US writer Bret Easton Ellis poses during the photocall of "The Canyons" presented out of competition during the 70th Venice Film Festival on August 30, 2013 at Venice Lido.
In a convergence of talents, novelist-turned-screenplay writer Bret Easton Ellis and musician-turned-director Rob Zombie are joining forces for a Fox television series about notorious cult leader Charles Manson.
Manson, who ordered a group of his followers to barbarically murder seven people—including Roman Polanski’s then-wife, a very-pregnant Sharon Tate—was convicted in 1971 and is still in prison to this day. Though the infamous slayings have been the subject of many books, Variety reports that Ellis and Zombie have not optioned any source material. Instead, the duo plans to take a fresh approach by “dramatizing stories drawn from the historical record” and “will revisit the people and events connected to the Manson Family murder spree in August 1969. The project is envisioned as a limited series.”
Ellis, who, appropriately, penned the book American Psycho and the script for 2013’s The Canyons, will write the mini-series. Zombie, who helmed the 2012 film The Lords of Salem, will direct. The project is still in the early stages of development, but we are already planning on sleeping with the light on.
[Variety]