News > John Hillcoat to Direct "The Wettest County in the World"

Australian director John Hillcoat ("The Proposition") will follow up his adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" with an adaptation of Matt Bondurant's upcoming novel "The Wettest County in the World." The fact-based story "revolves around a moonshine gang operating in the bootlegging capital of America – Franklin County, Va. – during Prohibition" (Variety).

Bondurant's own grandfather and grand-uncles were involved in the moonshine trade before they were murdered in 1930 for refusing to join the cartel set up by Commonwealth Attorney Carter Lee.

The novel will be published in October by Scribner/Simon & Shuster. Douglas Wick and Lucy Fisher will produce through their Red Wagon banner and Columbia Pictures will distribute.

Hillcoat's also got a film called "Death of a Ladies' Man" coming up that re-teams him with writer-musician Nick Cave and actor Ray Winstone. The film follows a sex-addicted traveling salesman who uses his beauty products as a means to meet women. The title is taken from the Leonard Cohen album of the same name.

-David Morgan