Tom Cruise and UA Option The Monster of Florence

Posted on September 5, 2008

Tom Cruise and United Artists have snapped up the film rights to The Monster of Florence, the bestselling serial killer thriller by Douglas Preston. Cruise will produce and possibly star in the film.

Preston and Italo journo Mario Spezi told Corriere della Sera they have inked with UA for a big-screen adaptation of their reconstruction of eight grisly double homicides believed to have been committed single-handedly between 1968 and 1985 in and around the Italian Renaissance gem. "It's the biggest movie deal in my life," the leading Italo daily quoted Preston as saying in a front page story. Previous Preston tomes made into movies include thriller "The Relic."

"The film will have Florence and the Chianti as protagonists: two of the locations most beloved by Americans," said Spezi, a Florentine crime reporter and "Monster" contributor, to Corriere.

The grisly murders originally inspired the Thomas Harris sequel Hannibal. Chris McQuarrie will write the script, and Cruise will then decide whether he wants to star in the film. We're kind of liking the idea of Tom Cruise as a serial killer. We think he could pull it off and scare the heck out of people. Maybe even nab an Oscar in the process.

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