Although best known for his books such as "Blink" and "The Tipping Point," celebrated author Malcolm Gladwell is finally taking a crack at the film industry.
According to Deadline Gladwell has been hired to polish David Arata's drama script "Hexum" for Disney Pictures.
The story follows a CIA threat-assessment analyst, an alternative-thinking brainiac who is relegated to a distant corner of the CIA where he assembles theories nobody pays attention to. By connecting a series of seemingly random occurrences, he uncovers a sinister adversary planning an imminent global threat.
On top of the fact that Gladwell is an amazing writer, this project almost sounds as if it was specifically geared towards him in the first place. His books detail lots of information and analysis on random occurrences, and if there was anyone I think could put an interesting spin on this story, it's him.
Another positive for this project is the fact that Arata wrote the original script. His past work includes two of my favorite films of all time, "Spy Game" and "Children of Men" and this one sounds as if it is right up that same alley. Both those films were compelling, interesting and very well written, and there's no doubt in my mind this project fits that bill.
Gladwell is one of the smartest writers working out there today and I hope he has as much success with his first crack into film as he has had with book publishing.
