EXCLUSIVE: In an auction that had keen interest and bids from multiple studios, Warner Bros acquired screen rights to The Son, the latest thriller by bestselling Norwegian novelist Jo Nesbo. Kevin McCormick’s WB-based Langley Park will produce.
The novel, which will be published by Knopf in 2014, focuses on a young man who is in prison because he took the rap for crimes that others committed. The thriller starts as the young man’s father, who is said to be a corrupt cop, commits suicide. When the son learns that his father was actually an honest man who was murdered, he escapes to avenge the killing. Along the way, he also begins to rectify the crimes to which he confessed. Nesbo and Niclas Salomonsson will be exec producers.
Nesbo is driving the growing genre of European crime fiction, along with authors like Stieg Larsson and his crime trilogy that started with The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo novels. Nesbo is best known for his series involving the detective Harry Hole. Those novels include The Snowman, a Working Title project that has Martin Scorsese and screenwriter Matthew Michael Carnahan attached. RWSG’s Sylvie Rabineau brokered the deal for The Salomonsson Agency.
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