Michael Fassbender is one of the most exciting actors working today, and he’s landed a promising piece of material for a potential project down the road. Broad Green Pictures announced today that it has landed the rights to John Leake’s true crime novel Entering Hades, which has Fassbender attached to produce and potentially star in the tale of an Austrian serial killer. Jack Unterweger was a celebrated journalist and best-selling author who spent his days investigating murders and his nights committing them, killing over 11 people.

Unterweger committed his first murder in 1974, after which he was arrested and sent to prison, where he became an author. He was released in 1990 and used as an example of rehabilitation, working as a journalist and reporting on various crimes in Los Angeles. Little did the public know that as soon as Unterweger was released, he began killing again. The story then gets even crazier, as he led cops on a chase through the U.S., Canada, and Europe, going so far as to try and call the Austrian media to convince them of his innocence.


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Image via 20th Century Fox

Alexander Dinelaris, who won an Oscar for co-writing Birdman and also co-wrote The Revenant, is rewriting the script for Entering Hades with Fassbender eyed to star, working from an original draft by Bill Wheeler. Fassbender has been mighty busy as of late, moving from X-Men: Apocalypse to Assassin’s Creed to another dark crime thriller, The Snowman. He’s currently shooting the Prometheus sequel Alien: Covenant but has gotten more involved as a producer as of late, shepherding Assassin’s Creed into production.

Entering Hades sounds like it would be another swell addition to his slate, and I’ll be curious to see what kind of filmmaker comes aboard to tell this stranger than fiction story. Perhaps a third collaboration with Macbeth and Assassin's Creed helmer Justin Kurzel is in the cards?

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Image via 20th Century Fox
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Image via 20th Century Fox