If it's as autobiographical as is claimed, Hollywood Studios International may want to take out some hefty insurance on James Manos Jr before he gets behind the camera on **Love, Scotch and Death.
The film, set to star Michael C Hall and Vera Farmiga, started life under the moniker The Slow and Complete Decompensation of Jim Manos, and recounts a week in the director's life when he returned home from holiday to find his parents dead in bed, and had to deal with "an unsympathetic funeral director, his bewildered children and manic wife, an eccentric priest, some over-sexed neighbors, an arrest for assault and the death of his wife’s beloved dog." It makes Larry David's life sound normal by comparison.
Manos won an Emmy for his writing on The Sopranos, was a writer and consulting producer on The Shield, and was series creator of a little thing called Dexter, spinning six Showtime seasons (so far) from Jeff Lindsay's cult novels. That ought to be have been enough time for Hall, who'll be playing the on-screen Manos, to learn his mannerisms.
Shooting on the indie production starts as soon as Dexter's sixth season wraps, and it'll be shopped to potential distributors at Cannes.