I was among the cinephiles who were unmoved by the first trailer for Hugo.  I never should have doubted Martin Scorsese: an early screening at the New York Film Festival drew breathless praise from the lucky few who saw it.  Four decades later, Scorsese is still a master filmmaker.  As is customary for a master filmmaker, Scorsese has a lot on his plate: Silence, The Irishman, The Wolf of Wall Street, a remake of The Gambler, and a Frank Sinatra biopic among other things.  A report from Variety suggests a new project, The Snowman, could leapfrog the others for the next slot in Scorsese's schedule.  The director has reportedly been circling the adaptation of the bestselling Norwegian mystery novel for the last month or so; Paramount has not yet made a formal offer, but Scorsese "is now seriously considering making it his next project."The Maguffin in The Snowman is the pink scarf of a missing woman, found wrapped around an "ominous-looking snowman" in what appears to be the work of a serial killer.  More on the project and a full synopsis after the jump.Matthew Michael Carnahan (The Kingdom) is in talks to adapt The Snowman, the seventh book in Jo Nesbo's series about detective Harry Hole.  Nesbo is on board as executive producer; Niclas Salomonsson are also producing along with Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner of Working Title.  This is a potential franchise-starter for Paramount, with eight more Harry Hole novels waiting for adaptation.The story sounds suitable for Shutter Island-era Scorsese, though more of a straight-up mystery than anything he's ever done.  Let's make this happen.  Fair warning: in researching this article, I noticed most of the new projects Scorsese attaches himself to are reported as Scorsese's Next Movie.  Hugo comes out on November 23, so Scorsese is about to do a lot of press.  Hopefully, we'll receive the final word on what's next in line from the man himself before year's end.Here's the synopsis for Nesbo's The Snowman:

Oslo in November. The first snow of the season has fallen. A boy named Jonas wakes in the night to find his mother gone. Out his window, in the cold moonlight, he sees the snowman that inexplicably appeared in the yard earlier in the day. Around its neck is his mother’s pink scarf.

Hole suspects a link between a menacing letter he’s received and the disappearance of Jonas’s mother—and of perhaps a dozen other women, all of whom went missing on the day of a first snowfall. As his investigation deepens, something else emerges: he is becoming a pawn in an increasingly terrifying game whose rules are devised—and constantly revised—by the killer. [Amazon]