If you've read your latest issue of Empire, you'll know what a tough time Danny Boyle gave himself in trying to get Sunshine right. But he certainly hasn't let that near-maddening experience deter him, as he's just signed on to direct an adaptation of Norman Ohler's novel Ponte City, which is currently going under the adjusted title of Ponte Tower.
The story is set entirely within the titular skyscraper in Johannesburg, which was thought to be a wondrous piece of architecture at the time – it's cylindrical, you see – but turned into, well, a bit of a shithole in its more recent history. The plot follows a girl from Soweto who moves into the building, which has become a vertical ghetto in the years after apartheid has fallen, and falls for one of her neighbours, who happens to be a charismatic drug baron.
The script is being written by Michael Thomas, who gave us the perfectly decent Brit-scripts for Backbeat and Scandal, and the production will be co-financed with U.K. and South African money. There's no production date set at the moment, nor have any cast been so much as mumbled, but the project is looking like being a complete location job, as development offices are already being assembled at the bottom of the continent.