After dealing with murder and death in Texas with his eye-opening documentary Into the Abyss, director Werner Herzog is headed back to the state for similar look, but one on the narrative side. We’ve been waiting to see what the prolific helmer would tackle next and it looks like it won’t be the Robert Pattinson and Naomi Watts–led Queen of the Desert, as Variety reports on a new project.
Herzog will be directing an adaptation of Vernon God Little, based on the 2004 novel by D.B.C. Pierre and featuring a script from Andrew Birkin (Perfume: The Story of a Murderer). Drawing comparions to The Catcher in the Rye and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the Booker Prize-winning novel follows a Texas teenager whose best friend just committed a murder-suicide spree and now he’s being questioned as an accomplice. With all the recent public shootings, Herzog has certainly picked a timely subject to explore for his next project. Cloud Atlas producer Stefan Arndt will be teaming with Katja Eichinger on the project, but unfortunately no other production details are known at the time.
Check out the synopsis below via Amazon:
When sixteen kids are shot on high school grounds, everyone looks for someone to blame. Meet Vernon Little, under arrest at the sheriff’s office, a teenager wearing nothing but yesterday’s underwear and his prized logo sneakers. Moments after the shooter, his best buddy, turns the gun on himself, Vernon is pinned as an accomplice. Out for revenge are the townspeople, the cable news networks, and Deputy Vaine Gurie, a woman whose zeal for the Pritikin diet is eclipsed only by her appetite for barbecued ribs from the Bar-B-Chew Barn. So Vernon does what any red-blooded American teenager would do; he takes off for Mexico.
Vernon God Little is a provocatively satirical, riotously funny look at violence, materialism, and the American media.
Are you looking forward to his next project?