Director Lawrence Kasden going to Stay Close

Lawrence Kasden, after nearly 11 years away from directing since the very uneven Stephen King adaptation, DREAMCATCHER , is stepping back behind the lens for STAY CLOSE , an adaptation of the novel by Harlen Coben.

The novel synopsis is as follows:

Megan is a suburban soccer mom who once upon a time walked on the wild side. Now she’s got two kids, a perfect husband, a picket fence, and a growing sense of dissatisfaction. Ray used to be a talented documentary photographer, but at age forty he finds himself in a dead- end job posing as a paparazzo pandering to celebrity-obsessed rich kids. Jack is a detective who can’t let go of a cold case-a local husband and father disappeared seventeen years ago, and Jack spends the anniversary every year visiting a house frozen in time, the missing man’s family still waiting, his slippers left by the recliner as if he might show up any moment to step into them.

Three people living lives they never wanted, hiding secrets that even those closest to them would never suspect, will find that the past doesn’t recede. Even as the terrible consequences of long-ago events crash together in the present and threaten to ruin lives, they will come to the startling realization that they may not want to forget the past at all. And as each confronts the dark side of the American Dream- the boredom of a nice suburban life, the excitement of temptation, the desperation and hunger that can lurk behind even the prettiest facades- they will discover the hard truth that the line between one kind of life and another can be as whisper-thin as a heartbeat.

“I think it’s the most adaptable of his books, with a tight plot and strong characters,” the writer-director noted to Indiewire. “We’ll have the script ready by March, and at that point we’ll see who salutes. When you boil Harlan’s fiction to its core, it’s intensity, momentum and tension and this will be a medium budget sexy and violent film.”

It’s sometimes easy to overlook Lawrence Kasden when talking about great cinematic directors. We get wrapped up in the big names, like Spielberg, DePalma, and Coppola, while ignoring some of the great achievements by other filmmakers that grew up at the same time. Kasden is one of those directors.

While he’s had his missteps (FRENCH KISS , WYATT EARP ), he’s also had tremendous success (THE BODYGUARD , BODY HEAT , SILVERADO , THE BIG CHILL ) and is responsible for lending the much-needed gravitas to RETURN OF THE JEDI , THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK , and RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK , co-writing them with George Lucas. Imagine if he’d been asked back to co-write the prequels. Could’ve been a very different, and less aggravating, experience.

Kasden recently wrapped DARLING COMPANION with Diane Keaton and Kevin Kline, which is making the festival rounds now. Stay tuned for more deets on STAY CLOSE as it develops.