Sometimes real life is stranger than fiction, and thanks to Fox Searchlight, one bizarre event will soon receive the big screen treatment. Last year, the studio optioned the rights to adapt a New York Times Magazine feature about an unlikely online romance, and now the project could soon have a director.
THR reports that screenwriter Scott Z. Burns is in talks to write and helm The Professor, the Bikini Model and the Suitcase Full of Trouble, which is based on the work by writer Maxine Swann. The piece, which was published last spring, recounts the true story of Paul Frampton, a divorced theoretical particle physicist who pursues a relationship with Denise Milani, a Czech bikini model, through an online dating site. The two begin to correspond and plan their perfect life together, but first, the woman asks the British professor if he would deliver a special package to her, setting him on a course of danger.
Though The Bourne Ultimatum scribe has penned a number of films – including Disney’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea reboot, as well as a trio of films from Steven Soderbergh (The Informant!, Side Effects, Contagion) – The Professor, the Bikini Model and the Suitcase Full of Trouble will mark his first major project, after 2006’s Pu-239. Considering the source material, this should make for an interesting project, particularly coming from Burns.
Have you read Maxine Swann’s feature? Do you think it’ll make a good film?