Oscar-winning scribe William Monahan to write and direct a new adaptation of Becket

William Monahan has quickly become a talent to look out for after the success of Martin Scorsese’s THE DEPARTED as well as for the wonderfully conceived script to Ridley Scott’s 2005 epic KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. The now full-fledged filmmaker will be making his directorial debut with the very good-looking LONDON BOULEVARD, and today it seems he’s got his next ambitious project all lined up and ready to go.

According to Deadline, Monahan will write and direct an adaptation of the 1959 Tony Award-winning French play BECKET (the play’s full title was Becket or The Honor of God). This would mark the second major Hollywood adaptation of the play; The first was in 1964, starring the legendary duo of Peter O’Toole and Richard Burton.

Here’s Monahan on his upcoming project:

“It’s an adaptation, or re-invigoration, of an older play, which has already been a brilliant film. For me, it’s a chance to take on one of the greatest stories in our civilization, a double tragedy with two heroes, each of them paradoxical, each of them brilliant, each of them making mistakes that lead to their undoing. The world of the Plantagenets was very rich and we’ll open the play up into that world and go into the relationships of the Angevin court more than the 1964 film was able to do. To adapt something is to do a literary personalization of a story, so in that sense I’ll be doing a very different Becket.”

Pre-production for BECKET is expected to begin early next year in the UK. Monahan’s LONDON BOULEVARD opens sometime in February.