He’s been in the world of blockbuster action and suspense for a few years now, but it appears that DJ Caruso is itching to get back to smaller, moodier stories now that he’s finished work on alien adventure I Am Number Four. According to the man himself, he’s looking to make the adaptation of Josh Bazell’s novel Beat The Reaper his next directing job.
If the title sparks a memory, that might be because we reported on it back in January 2009, when Leonardo DiCaprio picked up the book rights for his Appian Way production companyand started to develop it as a film for him to star in.
While Reaper is certainly a gear change down from making Alex Pettyfer fight armoured nasties, it’s not exactly a quiet meditation on mortality. It’s the tale of a New York emergency room doctor who just so happens to have been a mob hitman in a former life, before he quit the killing biz and joined the Witness Protection Program. When one of his old colleagues is brought into the ER, his world suddenly gets a lot more complicated again.
Still, it would be good to see Caruso tackle something that’s closer to The Salton Sea than **Eagle Eye’**s OTT machinations. DiCaprio is still attached to produce and the director told The Playlist that they’re still trying to figure out if the actor will also still star. There’s no word on a start date yet, but Ocean’s Thirteen writers Brian Koppelman and David Levien wrote the adaptation.