New Director for Film Adaptation of American Assassin by Vince Flynn

CBS Films acquired the rights to Vince Flynn's Mitch Rapp thrillers several years ago and the project therefrom has been a roller coaster ride ever since.

Let's see … back in early 2010 Antoine Fuqua was on board to direct an adaptation of the sixth book in the series, Consent to Kill. Fast forward 15 months, and Fuqua is out as is the book. The studio is now looking at Ed Zwick directing an adaptation of the eleventh book, American Assassin, which isn't so far-fetched as it is a prequel to the series as a whole and would serve as a nice launching point for a franchise.

Today we're learning that Zwick is out and Jeffrey Nachmanoff is in as director. The source material, however, remains the same … for the present.

In American Assassin, Mitch Rapp is introduced. Before he was considered a CIA superagent, before he was thought of as a terrorist's worst nightmare, and before he was both loathed and admired by the politicians on Capitol Hill, Mitch Rapp was a gifted college athlete without a care in the world … and then tragedy struck …

No word on screenwriter, much less an actor to play Mitch Rapp.

(It's little wonder crime novelists are so elated when their books are optioned for film and so discouraged when frequently nothing comes of it.)

(Related article: Deadline.com.)