Ron Howard to Direct Under the Banner of Heaven

Photo: Stephen Lovekin
Ron Howard. Photo: Stephen Lovekin

Ron Howard hasn’t had much luck in his attempts to mount Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series to the screen, but the director’s going to press ahead with another, potentially more difficult literary adaptation. Deadline reports that Warner Bros. has acquired Jon Krakauer’s nonfiction book Under the Banner of Heaven for Howard to direct and Dustin Lance Black to adapt. Published in 2003, the book investigates the origins of the Mormon faith after recounting a particularly grisly double-murder perpetrated by two fundamentalists Mormon brothers. (Black was raised Mormon, too, and his resume is studded with projects grappling with that faith, including Big Love and his upcoming play 8.) [Deadline]

Ron Howard to Direct Under the Banner of Heaven