Sam Raimi To Direct 'Love May Fail' & Joseph Kosinski Lines Up 'The Trials of White Boy Rick'

It’s been well over a year since Sam Raimi dropped the expensive and underwhelming “Oz The Great And Powerful,” and it looks like the filmmaker known for genre flicks and big pieces of fantasy entertainment is taking a turn down the dramedy path.

Deadline reports that Raimi will helm a Mike White-penned adaptation of “Silver Linings Playbook” author Matthew Quick‘s upcoming book “Love May Fail.” It’s another story of quirky characters in quirky circumstances overcoming life’s failings. Here’s the official synopsis:

An aspiring feminist and underappreciated housewife embarks on an odyssey to find human decency and goodness—and her high school English teacher—in New York Times bestselling author Matthew Quick’s offbeat masterpiece, a quirky ode to love, fate, and hair metal.

Portia Kane is having a meltdown. After escaping her ritzy Florida life and her cheating pornographer husband, she finds herself back in South Jersey, a place that remains largely unchanged from the years of her unhappy youth. Lost and alone, looking to find the goodness in the world she believes still exists, Portia sets off to save herself by saving someone else—a beloved high school English teacher who has retired after a horrific scandal.

Will a sassy nun, an ex-heroin addict, a metal-head little boy, and her hoarder mother help or hurt her chances on this madcap quest to restore a good man’s reputation and find renewed hope in the human race? Love May Fail is a story of the great highs and lows of existence: the heartache and daring choices it takes to become the person you know (deep down) you are meant to be.

No word yet on when cameras might roll, but Sony is getting the wheels in motion well in advance of the book hitting shelves next June, so we presume it’s a priority gig. Frankly, we’re glad to see Raimi in a non-franchise world for a minute, and eager to see what he’ll do.

Meanwhile, The Wrap reports that “Tron: Legacy” and “Oblivion” director Joseph Kosinski is going down a similar path with “The Trials Of White Boy Rick.” Penned by Evan Hughes, it’s an ’80s set tale that takes place in Detroit, and is based on a wild true story of a teenager arrested for being a drug kingpin, and who claims he was actually undercover for the FBI. Promising stuff, and a nice switch from the director’s usual.