It was three years between The Ladykillers and No Country for Old Men, but it looks like we're not going to have to wait nearly as long for our next Coens fix. They're working on Burn After Reading even now, when they're not busy accepting awards for an already-groaning trophy cabinet, and they've added another film to a long 'To Do' list today, with the news that they'll adapt Michael Chabon's The Yiddish Policemen's Union.
Chabon, like No Country's Cormac** **McCarthy, is a Pullitzer-prize winning novelist (so maybe that's lucky for the Coens, who knows?). And the plot sounds none-more-Joel-&-Ethan: the US government plans to displace Jewish settlers on the frozen plains of Sitka, Alaska in favour of native Alaskans in a modern-day setting. Against this background, a drunk rogue cop investigates the death of a (wait for it - this is the good bit) heroin-addicted chess prodigy who might be the Messiah.
It's worth savouring that again: a heroin-addicted chess prodigy who might be the Messiah. Never has a sentence sounded more appropriate for these two filmmakers. Oh, and it's a noir mystery.
The Coens have to finish work on Burn After Reading, probably pick up a few more awards, and do their bit on A Serious Man, their next film, before they start work on this, but it's right there on their slate, with producer Scott Rudin also aboard to make sure that this one doesn't get set aside like To The White Sea, Suburbicon and Hail Caesar did, all of which have been dropped or set aside by the brothers in the past few years.