David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, the helmers behind the HBO adaptation of Game of Thrones, apparently don’t have enough going on, what with a gangbuster season four premiere for the George R.R. Martin novel-turned-TV series less than a week ago and a cramazing (that’s crazy-amazing) two-season renewal order. Things are a bit slow for them… Which is probably why they’ve decided to tackle yet another project — this time a feature film they will write, direct, and produce as a duo called Dirty White Boys. And no, it’s not a biography of the men of House Lannister. In fact, it’s not about Westeros at all! Say what?
The 1995 Stephen Hunter novel is about three violent escaped convicts and the lawman attempting to track them down. Hunter’s work is no stranger to Hollywood: one of his other novels, Point Of Impact, later became the Mark Wahlberg flick Shooter.
According to Weiss, it was the characters that drew them to the project. “The characters are so well drawn, really charismatic and awful people, so flawed,” he stated. The novel’s first line, in particular, drew them in and made it impossible to put the book down.
(That line is the following, for those curious enough. But be warned — there’s racism ahoy! “Three men at McAlester State Penitentiary had larger penises than Lamar Pye, but all were black and therefore, by Lamar’s own figuring, hardly human at all.” Yiiiiikes.)
And it was that very line that forced their hand. “We’re sitting around bullshitting and we started talking about lines we were jealous of before it came around to the familiar topic of greatest opening lines in novels,” explained Benioff. “Our friend Scott Frank brought up the opening line of Dirty White Boys…. I’d never heard of [it] before… and it made me go out and buy the book… and [I] just fell in love with it.”
The story focuses on Lamar Pyle, an Alpha Male leader of a trio of escaped convicts being tracked by Bud Pewtie, a state trooper, and the very bloody tear they go on across the southern United States (Sounds they they’d do well as players in the fantasy fantasy league).
Don’t get too excited just yet, though: Benioff and Weiss are deep into the post-production stages of Game of Thrones‘ 4th season and that — in addition to the two-season renewal — doesn’t leave room for a definitive timeline on the film. Weis and Benioff explained that the film is a project they’ll get to when they can.
Have any of you read Dirty White Boys? Think these two are the men for the job? Let us know in the comments!
Stephen Hunter is the master of the shoot-em-up novel and this one is probably the one that would be best if done right. And after watching Game of Thrones for 3 seasons, Weiss and Benioff would appear to be the right people to do it.
This is one of my favorite Stephen Hunter books (most favorite being Black Light). I honestly don’t know how to feel about this. I like their adaptation of ASOIAF (and only recently have begun to appreciate Game of Thrones due to my realization of how confining the medium of television is vs a novel) and can only hope there is a similar level of quality when it comes to this.