Although he has a variety of projects competing for his attention, Paul Greengrass has yet another potential directing job landing on his to-do list. He’s attached to direct an adaptation of Greg Mitchell’s upcoming book **The Tunnels.
Mitchell’s planned book – which isn’t even written yet, let alone headed for store shelves – tackles the true-life story of a daring 1961 escape from East Germany years before the Berlin Wall was brought down in 1989. A group of West Germans struggled to help their families escape East Berlin and had help from US news networks. The story has been brought to life once before in 2001 German TV movie Der Tunnel, but producer Mark Gordon and FilmNation Entertainment’s Aaron Ryder are hoping the director will bring his particular stamp to it.
“Finding an untold true story of this calibre is such a rarity,” Ryder tells Variety. “Greg’s proposal will make for a very human and cinematic experience. We have no doubt that Mark’s producing and Paul’s directing will make audiences around the world as excited about this film as we are.”
There’s no sign yet when Greengrass will work on the film – he’s linked with the new Bourne outing and has the likes of The Director, Memphis and Agent Storm on his list of possible gigs.