Werner Herzog is set to direct an adaption of D.B.C. Pierre's novel Vernon God Little.  Per Variety, Vernon God Little is "a coming-of-age story set in Texas about a teenager caught up in the aftermath of a high-school shooting committed by his best friend."  Aside from the perspective being from the shooter's friend instead of a parent (like in the recent films We Need to Talk about Kevin and Beautiful Boy), the book is billed as a "provocatively satirical, riotously funny look at violence, materialism, and the American media."  If Andrew Birkin's script sticks to that tone, I can see Herzog pulling it off, and perhaps one of the few filmmakers who could tackle the material.

Herzog has been focused on documentaries for the past several years, although he's also attached to direct the feature Queen of the Desert starring Naomi Watts and Robert Pattinson.  However, he also hasn't left documentaries behind with his plan to work on Hate in America and On Death Row.  He'll next be seen playing the villain in the Tom Cruise action flick, Jack Reacher.  Hit the jump for a synopsis of Pierre's novel.

Here's the synopsis of D.B.C. Pierre's Vernon God Little.

When sixteen kids are shot on high school grounds, everyone looks for someone to blame. Meet Vernon Little, under arrest at the sheriff's office, a teenager wearing nothing but yesterday's underwear and his prized logo sneakers. Moments after the shooter, his best buddy, turns the gun on himself, Vernon is pinned as an accomplice. Out for revenge are the townspeople, the cable news networks, and Deputy Vaine Gurie, a woman whose zeal for the Pritikin diet is eclipsed only by her appetite for barbecued ribs from the Bar-B-Chew Barn. So Vernon does what any red-blooded American teenager would do; he takes off for Mexico.

Vernon God Little is a provocatively satirical, riotously funny look at violence, materialism, and the American media.