After a decade of struggling, an adaptation of L.A. Confidential author James Ellroy’s The Night Watchman is finally going ahead, with Harsh Times writer / director to take the reigns. Eanu Reeves, who has been linked with the project for some time, has also sealed the deal and signed on to star.
Ellroy’s most famous works are set in the noir-rich, jazz-soaked ‘40s, ‘50s and ‘60s, and they’re almost always crime stories; the screaming-out-to-be-adapted American Tabloid, The Big Nothing and, recently made by Brian DePalma, The Black Dahlia are all products of the author’s typewriter. But he’s also been responsible for a few more modern works – he wrote the screenplay for the underrated 2002 Kurt Russell / Ving Rhames vehicle Dark Blue, set immediately prior to the L.A. riots. It’s this point in time that he’s returned to – The Night Watchman takes place immediately in the riots’ wake.
Reeves will be playing a cop with a less than spotless record, who discovers a deep vein of corruption running through his department, and sets out to redeem himself. The combination of Ellroy – who criticised the media for being ‘biased’ and ‘liberal’ in their coverage of the Rodney King beatings that helped spark the riots – and Ayer is a potent one, as anyone who saw Harsh Times will attest. And on that subject, as long as the shooting schedule for this one doesn’t conflict with The Dark Knight, we wouldn’t put it past Christian Bale opting for a role somewhere in there, such was his enthusiasm for his Harsh Times director. Watch this space.