While much of the attention on Scandinavian crime thrillers has been focused on The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, the best of the genre actually came out earlier this year in Morten Tyldum's Headhunters. A grizzly, fast-paced dark comedy that goes to some deeply disturbing places, the film is one I highly recommended, and apparently it caught the attention of Hollywood in a major way.
Tyldum is set to make his English-language debut with The Imitation Game, one of the most sought after projects going around right now. You might recall the Black List screenplay from Graham Moore gaining a ton of buzz last year when Warner Bros. bought it for a hefty seven-figure sum. That was back when Leonardo DiCaprio was circling the lead role of Alan Turing, the famed English cryptanalyst and mathematician who helped crack the German Enigma code during WWII. Rather than being hailed as a hero, he would be persecuted for being a homosexual and committed suicide in 1954. J. Blakeson(The Disappearance of Alice Creed) had been set to direct, but when DiCaprio and Warner Bros. backed out, the rights reverted back to Moore.In the mean time, Moore is now adapting The Devil in the White City, with DiCaprio attached to play serial killer HH Holmes. The plan is for Black Bear Pictures to finance The Imitation Game completely, then seek distribution later. I'm just happy to see this project gaining steam again, as Turing's story is a compelling one with shades of A Beautiful Mind, and with the right actor and Tyldum directing it could be a future awards candidate. [Deadline]
