Jerry Bruckheimer must really love Lorenzo Carcaterra’s novel, Apaches. He’s been trying to turn the book into a movie since 1997, and he still hasn’t managed to get it off the ground. The plan is to set up a potential franchise, loosely based on the Sleepers author’s book about a group of retired New York City cops who form a renegade unit to bring down the most vicious criminals (in the novel they take on a drug baroness, although that may not be the plot for the movie version).
Not willing to give up on the project, despite 12 years having passed since he originally started work, Bruckheimer has now tapped screenwriters Sean O’Keefe and Will Staples to try and come up with a workable script for the film. They are the latest in a long line of writers who’ve had a go, including Marshall Todd, John Ridley, John Fusco and David Klass, none of whom managed to write a screenplay that pleased both Bruckheimer and Disney.
Although O’Keefe and Staples haven’t had a movie in cinemas yet, they’re quite hot in Hollywood at the moment after selling their scripts World’s Most Wanted and The Cruelest Miles. It’ll be interesting to see if this fresh blood is just what Apaches needs.