The videogame adaptation Max Payne got the cold shoulder from most people. Appropriate then that director John Moore's next project may be **Ice Road Truckers.
The rights to the History Channel's documentary series (shown on Channel 5 in the UK) were picked up by Fox a couple of years ago, but it's taken this long for Moore and an as-yet unnamed writer to come up with a pitch that got the studio listening.
The show, if you haven't seen it, is a morbidly fascinating ride-along with borderline death-wish truck drivers (grizzled veterans and fresh-faced rookies) in the North-West Territories of Canada, where for a limited time every year it's possible for them to drive their massive rigs on treacherous "roads" over frozen lakes, hauling industrial supplies to remote diamond mines. It grew out of a stand-alone episode in a series called Suicide Missions.
Moore, who wants to film in 3D (which Fox are actually ruling out at the moment) says his take is "very much a tough guy movie. Here's a bunch of characters who tackle problems by getting in there and getting things done. We'll turn it into a mission movie that harkens back to Towering Inferno, Jaws, or The Guns of Navarone . You got a problem, go solve it."
Ahab-like obsession, natural disaster, men on a mission... Y'know, this could work, as a sort of Convoy-meets-The Perfect Storm, or better yet, a frozen Wages of Fear. And Max Payne did, at least, have a lot of snow in it.