Waltz lands lead in ripped-from-the-headlines thriller.
Oscar-winning ‘Django Unchained’ star Christoph Waltz has signed on to take the lead in the long-gesting European thriller ‘True Crimes.’
Per THR, the film is based off the 2008 New Yorker article ‘Letter From Poland ’by David Grann and involves the real-life case of Krystian Bala, a Polish writer who was convicted of the murder of small business owner Dariusz Janiszewski.
Janiszewski’s body was found in the Oder River in Poland in December of 2000 but the man’s murder went unsolved and baffled the Polish police for many years. That was, until Jacek Wroblewski (the role that Waltz will take) reopened it. Tracking down Janiszewski’s missing mobile phone to en eBay auction, the detective was able to narrow in on his potential suspect, Bala, who had recently published a sadistic, pornographic, creepy novel called “Amok.” The book featured a murder not unlike Janiszewski’s and a narrator named Chris, the English version of Bala’s first name.
Brett Ratner, John Cheng and David Gerson are on board to produce with a director yet to be announced. Waltz’s ‘Carnage’ director, Roman Polanski, has been mentioned as a possibility to helm.