“Winter’s Bone” and “Deadwood” star John Hawkes will star opposite Yasiin Bey (aka. Mos Def) in an adaptation of Elmore Leonard’s 1978 crime novel “Switch” reports Variety.
Dan Schechter (“Supporting Characters”) is adapting the script and will direct. “Switch” is a prequel to Leonard’s “Rum Punch” which was adapted into Quentin Tarantino’s 1997 feature “Jackie Brown”.
Hawkes and Bey play the younger versions of Louis Gara and Ordell Robbie, the characters Robert De Niro and Samuel L. Jackson played in ‘Jackie’.
The story takes a slightly different approach to the same premise as acclaimed 1986 comedy “Ruthless People”. In this, Ordell and Louis team to kidnap Mickey Dawson, the wife of a corrupt Detroit real estate developer.
When the husband refuses to pay the ransom for his wife’s return, the ex-cons are forced to reconceive their plan, and the angry housewife uses the duo to get her revenge.
Ellen Goldsmith-Vein, Lee Stollman, Michael Siegel and Leonard are producing with shooting to kick off in May.
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