While Akica Goldman won an Oscar for writing A Beautiful Mind and has had great success producing the likes of I Am Legend, Mr & Mrs Smith and Hancock, for the last year or so, he’s been looking around for something to direct. He’s been rumoured for various things, and was once even erroneously said to be sitting down in the directing chair for Paranormal Activity 2.
However it now looks like he’s found the film he want to make his directing debut with, with Deadline reporting he’s settled on Man and Wife, which is described as ‘a 20th Century Fox drama about an assassin whos hired to kill a family but becomes conflicted when he falls in love with them.’ It sounds like Goldman’s Mr & Mrs Smith experience might come in handy for this one, although Man and Wife could be a lot stranger and more twisted (does he literally fall in love with the wife, or is it the family unit he becomes conflicted about destroying). The script was originally written by Adam McElroy, but is now being reworked by Jason Keller.
With all the experience he has under his belt, Goldsman has the potential to be a very good director, however as others who’ve moved from producing or screenwriting into directing have shown, just because you’ve had success in one area of film, doesn’t automatically mean you’ll be as good in others.