In what felt not at all unlike one lead simply following the other, Don Winslow‘s work found itself kicked around Hollywood a lot over 2012. The only completed adaptation, Savages, was not the most encouraging start to a transposition of mediums, admittedly, but properties have been stewing elsewhere, only serving as a small indicator of what could be mined. There’s no other way to look at it: Hollywood wants more. (Besides, what genius would depend on Oliver Stone to commence anything of value?)

Being a foreign-rooted deal, the latest movement could be taken as a greater sign of creative reach. Adding their names to the growing list of Winslow adaptees are Nikolaj Arcel and Rasmus Heisterberg, the director and co-writer, respectively, of this year’s foreign-language Oscar nominee A Royal Affair — scribes of the Swedish Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, as well — who are taking interest in the author’s The Power of the Dog. The Deadline report shows a continuing pattern in their working relationship: Arcel will handle directing duties and co-write with Heisterberg, while the both of them are to be accompanied, on that front, by Savages co-scribe Shane Salerno. Someone must like a certain author.

Unlike so many crime films getting put into motion nowadays, any and all descriptions would point toward a hefty tale that might, actually, be better-fit to a TV series. As written, Dog puts focus on a DEA agent, a drug dealer, an Irish hitman, a Catholic Priest, a high-level call girl caught between the lot of them, and how they collide throughout a few decades. So, setting- and story-wise, a shift from the monarch scandal of A Royal Affair, though possibly not without the same predilection for sauciness that, if you ask many, helped Arcel and Heisterberg stand out from the glut of period dramas. It kind of goes without saying, but an application of all this to a film I and many others are more inclined to see makes a huge difference in the long run.

Have you read The Power of the Dog? Could it make for a good feature, especially from these two?