Gaspar Noé May Direct Bret Easton Ellis Script 'The Golden Suicides'

Considering the horrors that some authors get put through with film adaptations of their work, literary enfant terrible Bret Easton Ellis has been fairly lucky. “Less Than Zero” is fairly decent, while Mary Harron turned out a terrific adaptation of “American Psycho,” and even “The Rules of Attraction” has its moments, despite the source material not being very good — leaving Gregor Jordan‘s disastrous “The Informers,” the film on which the writer made his screenwriting debut, as the only out-and-out failure.

But it hasn’t kept Ellis from his copy of Final Draft: he was hired in 2009 to write “The Golden Suicides,” an adaptation of a Vanity Fair article by Nancy Jo Sales about the mysterious suicides of artists Jeremy Blake, who’d collaborated with the likes of Beck and Paul Thomas Anderson, and Theresa Duncan, who killed themselves after allegedly being harassed by Scientologists. Gus Van Sant was brought on board to consult on the script, James Franco and Angelina Jolie were linked to the central roles, and then… nothing. No news for a couple of years now. But suddenly, there’s some movement, and it could mean one of the most interesting directors in European cinema coming on board.

Screen Daily report that Muse Productions (“American Psycho,” “The Killer Inside Me“) are currently courting directors for the project, and one of the names said to be considering the job: “Irreversible” and “Enter the Void” helmer Gaspar Noé. The Argentinian-born helmer isn’t the most prolific, with only two full-length films in the last decade, so it’s big news that he’s circling a project like this, let alone one with a pedigree like this. It seems like it’s early in the process, but we’ll obviously bring you any further news as it develops.