This is how it goes sometimes in Hollywood. You work on a project, it leaves your hands and then it somehow circles back and lands on your desk. Way back in 2010, Christopher McQuarrie was hired to adapt the U.K. miniseries “Unforgiven” into a feature film, with Angelina Jolie being eyed to lead. A little more than a year later, “Minority Report,” “Out Of Sight,” and “Get Shorty” writer and “The Lookout” writer/director Scott Frank took it over. And once again, the project has changed hands.
Deadline reports that producers GK Films have gone back to McQuarrie to write, direct and produce “Unforgiven.” It will be a feature film version of the BAFTA-nominated UK series about a woman’s attempt to rejoin society after a 15-year prison stint for the murder of two policemen. The officers were in the process of evicting her family from the farmhouse in which they lived when the tragedy occurred. Now that she’s out, she hopes to live quietly with her troubled sister, but two sons of one of the slain men are seeking vengeance.
However, as it also goes in Hollywood, this will sit in development as McQuarrie is still likely to direct “Mission: Impossible 5,” which is aiming to get in front of cameras by the end of the year. So it’s a priority project for McQuarrie, but Tom Cruise’s priority comes first.