Dennis Lehane To Adapt "Silk Road"

Bestselling author Dennis Lehane has been brought on board by 20th Century Fox and Chernin Entertainment to write the script for Silk Road.

The deal is one product of the two-year-first-look deal made in August between Epic and 20th Century Fox. Epic is a website that publishes filmcentric, long-form journalism pieces and was founded by Joshua Davis and Joshuah Bearman.

The script for Silk Road will be based on an article written by Davis and published on Epic. The true story is about a young man who created a digital black market. On the website, Silk Road, one could engage in illegal exchange of goods and services, like drug sales, firearms, tutorials on how to hack ATMs, access to  documents and more. In early October, FBI agents shut down Silk Road and arrested William Ulbricht, the founder of the site, who also allegedly hired hit men to murder some of the Silk Road clients.

In his report for Deadline, Mike Fleming Jr wrote, "There was a stampede for the movie rights to this story, and Chernin’s Kerry Foster was integral in making this happen. Amy Schiffman from Intellectual Property Group and attorney Jason Hendler of Hanson Jacobson brokered the deal for Lehane. This is an exciting form of movie making because the story is still developing, as are some of the other movie projects set up by those journos. It also gives Fox a high-profile project after making that deal to try and do things outside the box, and getting A-level talent to develop it."

Previously, Lehane has written the scripts for Shutter Island, Mystic River, Gone Baby Gone, Live by Night, and Animal Rescue.

Recently, screenwriter Kenneth Lonergan also struck a deal to write an adaptation, but for TV. Check out the ScreenCraft post: Kenneth Lonergan To Write “Howards End” Adaptation