By Director Richard Kelly hasn’t exactly enjoyed a prosperous career since his breakout hit Donnie Darko met with widespread acclaim and pseudo-philosophical ramblings on high school campuses everywhere. His director’s cut of the movie was generally seen as a change for the worse, his follow-up Southland Tales was laughed out of town, and his psychological thriller The Box received a near-unheard of F rating from reputable market research company CinemaScore.
He’s now looking to redeem his career by changing direction, abandoning the sci-fi pretensions for a drama based on real, but decidedly odd, events. Amicus tells the story of record executive Lawrence Horn, who hired a hitman, James Perry, to kill his family for the inheritance. Unfortunately for Horn, Perry wasn’t the most naturally gifted of assassins, and resorted to using a How To manual to get the job done. The movie will occur over a twenty-five year span, centering on the victims’ families suing the manual’s publishers. Sounds weird? Well, Nic Cage is apparently set to play attorney Rodney Smolla, and if he’s involved, you can be damn sure the strange will follow.
[via Variety]