Jerry Bruckheimer has been developing a movie version of the novel Apaches since he acquired the rights to the novel in 1997, but the mega-producer isn't one to give up easy, and has just hired two new screenwriters to have a new crack at the script. Sean O'Keefe and Will Staples are the latest to try their hands at a story of renegade New York cops that's just crying out for a film version.
The book, by Sleepers author Lorenzo Carcaterra, sees a group of pensioned-off NYPD cops set themselves a new mission to continue to fight crime even without the law. The six friends - one of whom has mafia rather than cop connections - set themselves against an Arizona-based drug cartel baroness known as Lucia, both sides using their cross-country connections to strike against one another.
The plan is to base the new script only loosely on the novel, but it still sounds ridiculously film-friendly. Previous writers on the project have included Marshall Todd (Bad Boys II), John Ridley, John Fusco and David Klass. O'Keefe and Staples have written two as-yet unproduced but much talked about scripts called World's Most Wanted and The Cruelest Miles, making them just so hot right now.