It seems as if the producers of the currently-playing Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans enjoyed their trip through a noirish ether and are looking to make a return rather quickly. THR.com reports that Gabe and Alan Polsky have picked up the rights to Gun, With Occasional Music, by author Jonathan Lethem. The project is described as a mix of Raymond Chandler-style pulp detective fiction and
futurist theorizing, and follows an archetypal private eye
through Oakland and San Francisco as he delves into the murder of a
prominent urologist. Among Lethem’s inventions are super-smart
children called “baby-heads,” evolved animals and animal rights,
erotic nerve swapping, debit cards holding one’s karma and a
menacing kangaroo that works for the mob. That last sentence alone bears further investigation.
Gun has actually been optioned a couple of times before, once by Alan J. Pakula in the early ’90s and once by director Hampton Fancher (The Minus Man). Lethem is also known for other sci-fi works, in addition to Motherless Brooklyn and The Fortress of Solitude, the former of which won the National Book Critics Circle Award in 2003. He is also an essayist and short story writer, with his most recent book being Chronic City. Meanwhile, the Polskys are also developing John Williams’ Butcher’s Crossing and Christopher Buckley’s God Is My Broker.