Dennis Lehane Pulls Off An "Animal Rescue"

By our guest blogger, Matt Jussim

Novelist Dennis Lehane will adapt his own short story, "Animal Rescue," into a feature for Fox 2000.

According to Variety: Best-selling author Dennis Lehane will finally adapt one of his stories for the big screen himself. Lehane, never interested in writing his work for the screen before, will adapt his own short story, which is “about a killing resulting from a lost and contested pit bull.”

The story, which appeared in the anthology book "Boston Noir," revolves around a murder that seems to be the work of a lost pit bull. Peter Chernin is producing.

"Rescue" is only 27-pages long, but is held in high regard. Keep in mind that the “The Shawshank Redemption” was based on a Stephen King short story.

This will not exactly be Lehane's first job writing directly for Hollywood. He wrote a few episodes of the HBO series "The Wire," but the adaptations of his novels have been handled mostly by A-list screenwriting talents, such Brian Helgeland, who earned an Oscar nomination for penning "Mystic River" for director Clint Eastwood.

Other Lehane works that have been adapted in recent years include "Gone Baby Gone" and next week's "Shutter Island."

I think it’s great that Lehane will work on one of his own projects as it moves from page to film. The works that have been adapted so far have been fantastic, with “Gone Baby Gone” being a personal favorite. I have high hopes for Lehane stretching out the 27-page story into a film.