It's been more than a decade since William Friedkin – director of such classics as The Exorcist and The French Connection made a movie. Yet he's looking to return with a new adaptation of The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial, which will star Kiefer Sutherland.
"I’ve looked at a lot of scripts in the last 10 years, and I haven’t seen anything I really wanted to do," Friedkin tells Deadline. "But I think about it a lot, and it occurred to me that could be a very timely and important piece, as well as being great drama. The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial is one of the best court-martial dramas ever written.”
Originally written by Herman Wouk for a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, the story in the tome is set during World War II. A naval officer named Lt. Commander Queeg (the role Sutherland would play) stands trial for mutiny for taking command from a ship captain he feels is acting in unstable fashion, endangering both the ship and its crew.
The 1954 film version starring Humphrey Bogart and a 1988 Robert Altman-directed TV adaption of the play that Wouk then wrote both maintained the World War II setting, but Friedkin is making changes.
"The original piece was written for World War II, and Wouk included all the pent-up anger in this country over Pearl Harbor," Friedkin told Deadline. "I’ve updated it so that is no longer Pearl Harbor. I’ve made it contemporary, involving the Gulf of Hormuz and the Straits of Hormuz, leading to Iran." With casting now underway, the film should be shooting next January.