Austin Butler is going from King to kingpin.
The actor who earned an Oscar nomination for playing Elvis Presley in Baz Luhrmann’s biopic Elvis will star as a crime boss in a film adaptation of Don Winslow’s City on Fire, Deadline reports.
Winslow’s novel, published last year by Morrow/HarperCollins, follows Danny Ryan, a Providence, Rhode Island, dockworker who goes from reluctant foot soldier in his family’s criminal empire to the ruthless leader of it. In a starred review, a critic for Kirkus called the book “a blistering novel filled with anger and bite.”
Butler will play Danny in the film; he will also serve as a producer, along with Shane Salerno. Sony 3000 Pictures is developing the adaptation.
Salerno is also one of the executive producers and writers behind The Border, an upcoming FX series based on Winslow’s Border trilogy of novels. He’s also producing a film adaptation of T.J. Newman’s novel Drowning: The Rescue of Flight 1421.
City on Fire is the first installment of a planned trilogy by Winslow; the next novel in the series, City of Dreams, is scheduled for publication on April 18. The producers of the City of Fire adaptation hope that the film will also be the first in a trilogy.
Winslow praised Butler, telling Deadline that he was “amazed” by the actor’s portrayal of Presley in Luhrmann’s film.
“I’ve had a number of conversations with Austin about this trilogy that I’ve been working on for almost 30 years of my life, and I have been deeply impressed by his commitment to playing Danny Ryan as well as his passion to also produce the three films with David [Heyman] and Shane and Elizabeth [Gabler] and Marisa [Paiva],” Winslow said.
Michael Schaub, a journalist and regular contributor to NPR, lives near Austin, Texas.
