Fox has picked up the life rights for true crime project, Narc, with Zac Efron (The Paperboy) set to star.  Efron will change it up from his run of rom-coms and play a college kid busted for cocaine who turns rat for the authorities.  He manages to continue his life as a student, fraternity president and lacrosse team captain, all while helping cops bust the bad guys on the downlow.  Deadline reports that Narc is being described as a college version of Donnie Brasco and that Fox will tap a screenwriter from the studio’s writers program.

Hit the jump for the latest news on the crime picture, Travis McGee, starring Leonardo DiCaprio.

When last we reported on the Fox Searchlight adaptation of Dennis Lehane’s short story, Animal Rescue, it was to tell you that Neil Burger (Limitless) was in line to direct.  With Burger stepping aside to helm Divergent, writer/director Michael Roskam (Bullhead) is now seated in the director’s chair.  Lehane adapted his own story and penned the script for Animal Rescue, a “crime drama [that] follows a lonely Boston bartender who rescues a puppy from a garbage can and becomes the target of the dog’s abusive and mentally unstable former owner, while simultaneously getting caught in the middle of a criminal conspiracy playing out in his mob-controlled bar.”  Noted animal-lover Tom Hardy (The Dark Knight Rises) is being eyed for the protagonist.  Hit the jump for more.

Director Ben Affleck is reportedly going back to the well to possibly adapt the Dennis Lehane novel, Live by Night, for his next feature.  The multi-hyphenate is expected to write/produce/direct and star in the film, which is set up at Warner Bros.  Another Lehane project would be fitting since Affleck cut his directorial teeth on the author’s novel, Gone Baby Gone.  Live by Night is a new novel from Lehane that was just recently published and is a period piece, taking place in Boston in the roaring ’20s.  Hit the jump for the full plot description of Live by Night.

When last we discussed author and screenwriter Dennis Lehane, he was working on adapting his short story, Animal Rescue, for Fox 2000.  Now, Fox Searchlight has tapped director Neil Burger (Limitless) to helm the adaptation.  The picture was previously described as revolving around a killing as a result of a lost and contested pit bull, with new details adding in a man trying to leave a life of crime and a heist gone wrong.  Hit the jump for more on the project, including why the combination of Burger, Lehane and Searchlight might just be a winning one.

At the end of last week we learned FX was developing Scar Tissue and The Americans, but now THR has brief word on two more series being developed at the cable network. First on the docket is Bunker, a series from Chernin Entertainment and Fox Television Studios which follows a female cop psychologist from Boston. Writer Dennis Lehane, who penned the books behind films like Shutter Island, Mystic River and Gone Baby Gone is writing and executive producing the series. Considering the great stories Lehane has penned and their successful film adaptations, this should be yet another series to look forward to next season.

Next comes Laredo, another crime drama from Flags of Our Fathers writer William Broyles who will also executive produce the new series which is set at the Texas/Mexico border, and should be much more dramatic than the recent border showdown on South Park. There’s yet to be a modern series tackling the idea of immigration in a dramatic context like this, and FX seems to be one of the best places outside of pay cable channels and AMC for some really hard-htting drama.

As impressive as it was on the big screen, Shutter Island was made for Blu-ray. Directed by Martin Scorsese from a book by Dennis Lehane, this psychological thriller looks amazing, sounds even better, and demands that you watch it more than once. Not that it can’t be enjoyed on a single viewing but, after that, having a Blu-ray rocks because a viewer can go back and look at the incredible layers each and every person in the film has considered. And though the disc lacks the plethora of extras that seem to be standard these days, it makes up for a lack of quantity with top-notch quality. Hit the jump for more details and a spoilerific discussion on the film.

With Martin Scorsese’s adaption of his novel Shutter Island being released on DVD and Blu-ray next week, I had the chance to interview author Dennis Lehane by phone yesterday.  Lehane is the best-selling author of 10 novels, including Gone, Baby, Gone and Mystic River.  He was also a staff writer on David Simon’s The Wire from seasons 3 to 5 and is currently working on adapting his short story Animal Rescue for Fox 2000.

Since Lehane’s direct involvement in bringing Shutter Island to the big screen was fairly limited, we spent a lot of time talking about other subjects, including:

• How THR erroneously reported last week that he was writing a script with Paul Tamasy (Air Bud)
• Why he doesn’t ever want to adapt his own novels for the screen
• His golden rule for dealing with Hollywood
• Which novel made him decide to become a writer
• Why he prefers TV to movies and what his favorite shows are
• Why we’ll never see the movie he wrote and directed in the 90s

All this and more after the jump!

At some point you could argue that Martin Scorsese and Clint Eastwood started making movies to get Oscars. This is reductive and not fair to their body of work, but when you look at much of the 21^st century for both artists there’s a sense of making Oscar pictures that perhaps have other merits, but definitely with an eye toward that goal. The rebirth of Scorsese as Oscar contender came in 1990, when Goodfellas lost to Dances with Wolves and engendered years of vitriol. Mystic River lost in the year of Return of the King, but it kicked off Eastwood’s current run of Oscar-bait pictures that have done well in terms of nominations until recently. The Scorsese film stars Ray Liotta, Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci in one of the greatest mob films ever made, while Mystic River is a literary adaptation of Dennis Lehane’s novel of wrongful death and suspicious behavior. My review of both after the jump.

Dennis Lehane has previously provided the source material for the critically acclaimed Mystic River and Gone Baby Gone as well as the upcoming Shutter Island and The Given Day.  Now Variety reports that he’s finally going to adapt one of his own stories because other writers shouldn’t have all the fun.  Lehane will adapt his short story Animal Rescue for Fox 2000 through Peter Chernin’s production company, Chernin Entertainment.  The story, via Variety, “revolves around a killing that results from a lost and contested pit bull. The story appeared in the Akashic Books anthology Boston Noir, which Lehane also edited.”

Lehane has been approached in the past to adapt his own work, but this is the first time he’s done it and it will also be his first feature film.  His only previous work for the screen were for three episodes of The Wire, so I don’t think there’s much to worry about as far as his screenwriting talent is concerned.

SPIKE TV has premiered a 2nd trailer for director Martin Scorsese’s “Shutter Island”.  Unfortunately, the new trailer is more or less the same as the first one, except it’s 45 seconds shorter and it’s missing some of the dialogue.  Of course there are a few new shots mixed in, but if you were hoping to see a lot of new footage, you’re in the wrong place.  Saying that, if you haven’t seen any footage from “Shutter Island”, you should check it out as it’s Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese. Those names deserve your time.  Also, the movie looks nothing like you’d expect…