With a second Oscar in his possession, we can hope that Christoph Waltz is finding a nice non-Tarantino place in the film world. Things are looking up, at least: not long after the sign to Stephen Gaghan‘s next project, Candy Store, THR have learned of his starring part in a true crime drama that, ever-so-fittingly, goes by the title True Crimes — plus, in which he’ll break loose from the villain mold to play an out-and-out protagonist.
Though once a prospective effort for Waltz‘s Carnage director, Roman Polanski — and while not entirely ruled out from the process; it’s doubtful many would want to outright remove him from the process — producers Brett Ratner, David Gerson, and John Cheng are seeking a talent at this point in time. Sharing some DNA with the Dragon Tattoo series — though it has a classier root: this New Yorker profile, upon which scribe Jeremy Brock (The Last King of Scotland) has penned a script — True Crimes chronicles the bizarre case wherein a Polish author, Krystian Bala, was convicted for a years-old murder that he’d never been remotely associated with. The leak? Amok, Bala’s novel that contained secretive information directly related to the case; helping crack the story was detective Jacek Wroblewski — the part Waltz has been tapped for — whose investigations ventured into “the dark underworld of Poland’s sex rings, prostitution and drugs.”
There’s no window for a production start, nor has a distributor come aboard. With any luck, this latest development kicks things into gear.
Do Waltz and True Crimes strike you as a proper fit?