Filmmaker James Gray may be working on a larger canvas for his next project.  The We Own the Night and The Yards director has been tapped to write and direct the Boston crime thriller White Devil for Warner Bros., which is being eyed as a priority project for the studio.  Per Deadline, the contemporary drama tells the story of “a white kid who is adopted into a Chinese family, and who rises to the top of the Chinese Mafia in Boston.”  The pic is apparently based on the true story of John Willis, also known as White Devil John.

The report notes that this is being planned as “a big scale film” for Gray, which is rather promising.  The director most recently helmed the period drama The Immigrant starring Joaquin Phoenix, Marion Cotillard, and Jeremy Renner, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival this past May.  Gray is also attached to direct the "search for El Dorado" non-fiction adaptation The Lost City of Z, which is apparently picking up steam again at Paramount, and he's developing the assassin-on-the-run adaptation The Gray Man.