Variety reports that HBO Films is making a feature film version of Walter Mosley’s novel LITTLE SCARLET. Jeffrey Wright and Mos Def have been signed to star though, in an unusual twist, it’s undecided at this point who will play PI Easy Rawlins and who will play Mouse, his sociopathic sidekick (Denzel Washington played Easy and Don Cheadle was Mouse in the 1995 feature version of DEVIL IN A BLUE DRESS). Mosley is writing the script himself and my friend Debra Martin Chase (who I worked with for two seasons on the Lifetime TV series MISSING) will produce.
This has serious potential.
I’m looking forward to this. I’m guessing that Mouse would be a lot more fun to play than Easy. I thought Cheadle was marvelously nasty as Mouse in the 1995 film.
THIS has possibilities. I seem to recall HBO was mounting a series based on the wonderful James Lee Burke “Dave Robicheaux” novels, and were in discussion with Tommy Lee Jones to play Dave. This was more than ten years ago, so I’m going to make the guess things did not work out. But still….
Done properly (and I treasure the HBO “Phillip Marlowe” series with Powers Boothe), well….THIS has possibilities…..