With one cowboy turn in the bag via Cowboys & Aliens, Harrison Ford is now trading in his brown hat for something a little darker. The star is attached to play iconic outlaw Wyatt Earp in an adaptation of Max Allan Collins' novel Black Hats: A Novel of Wyatt Earp and Al Capone. Penned under the pseudonym Patrick Culhane, the book is a fictional account in which Earp teams up with his former deputy Bat Masterson to help the son of Doc Holliday who has become tangled up with Al Capone and his gang (whew, that's a lot of historical names for one sentence).

For more on the project, including a synopsis of Allan's book, hit the jump.

According to Heat Vision, Kurt Johnstad (300) will pen the adaptation which will begin searching for distribution after producers Basil Iwanyk and Jason Netter develop and package the project a little more. Speaking of that development and packaging, I'm interested in seeing who they tap for the role of Capone. You may remember author Max Allan Collins' name from the credits of Tom Hanks and director Sam Mendes' Road to Perdition. The author penned the graphic novel on which David Self's screenplay was based. For more on Black Hats, hit the jump to check out a synopsis of the book.

Here's a synopsis for Black Hats [from Amazon]:

The pseudonymous Culhane (aka Max Allen Collins) once again shows himself a master at the historical thriller. In 1920, 70-year-old Wyatt Earp, who's working as a PI in Los Angeles, is hired by "Big Nosed Kate" Elder, the widow of his best friend, Doc Holliday. Kate wants Wyatt to go to New York and help her speakeasy-owning son, John (fathered by Doc as he was dying), who has fallen afoul of a local tough guy, the young Alphonse Capone. In New York, Wyatt teams with another old pal, Morning Telegraph sportswriter Bat Masterson. It's a fabulous setup, and Culhane has all the skills and experience to bring these great characters leaping off the page. The bad guys may have organized gangs and tommy guns, but in the end these whippersnappers are no match for Wyatt's cunning and 10-inch-long-barreled .45. The exigencies of historical fact force Culhane into a tamer ending than some readers might like, but the sheer fun of riding along with the two old lawmen and their memories will run roughshod over any quibbles or complaints.