Michael Mann's untitled Tony Accardo/Sam Giancana biopic

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Michael Mann Planning Chicago Mob Movie Modeled After a Novelization He’s Also Planning Source: Vanity Fair

Michael Mann made waves earlier this week when he announced that he would head up a new publishing imprint called, naturally, Michael Mann Books. The plan was for Mann to commission novels from a stable of in-house scribes, the best of which he would subsequently option for TV or movie adaptations. (He’s already announced one of the most exciting prospects, a prequel novel for his modern-classic caper thriller Heat.) Now, he’s announced plans to essentially executive-produce another forthcoming novel that seems poised to make the jump into Mann’s filmography once it’s been completed.

No stranger to true-crime narratives, Mann has approved a novelization about the life and times of Chicago mob bosses Tony Accardo and Sam Giancana, with a tentative commitment to produce and direct a film adaptation down the line. Known as the “Big Tuna,” Accardo was a close associate of Al Capone, all the way through to the gangster’s imprisonment in 1932, at which point Big Tuna began to rise through the ranks of the Chicago outfit. He then seized power little by little until fully taking over as boss in 1943, a position he held with an iron fist until ceding it to his part-protege, part-competitor Giancana in 1957. Keeping in line with Mann’s John Dillinger biopic Public Enemies, adapted from a book of the same name by V.F. special correspondent Bryan Burrough, the proposed film would combine Mann’s flair for criminal period pieces with intensive character work: the two mens' egos and insecurities collide in a volatile milieu where lives can be taken in a heartbeat. For many fans, it will be a welcome return to noir period drama after last year’s technothriller Blackhat.

Mann also announced that he’ll work on the still-untitled novel with Don Winslow, who co-wrote the script for Oliver Stone’s crime epic Savages with Shane Salerno, who happened to work with Mann on another project a while back — a screenplay about Tony Accardo and Sam Giancana. It’s been a long time coming, but Mann’s gotten tantalizingly close to realizing one of his long-held goals as a filmmaker. Good news for him, and even better news for the moviegoing public.