Ridley Scott to direct "Red Riding"

Ridley Scott has an ever growing "To do" list with projects such as "The Kind One," "Child 44," "Monopoly" and the (Cautiously) anticipated Alien Prequel, now news arrives that he has just added anbother according to Variety.

Columbia Pictures has acquired rights to remake the U.K. miniseries "Red Riding," and is negotiating with Steve Zaillian to write the script and Ridley Scott to direct.

The project, based on four David Peace novels, will be distributed in the U.S. this fall by IFC. Studio bought rights to the mini and the novel series.

Scott will produce through his Scott Free banner, along with Zaillian, through his Film Rites banner, and Andrew Eaton of Revolutionary Films, which produced the mini. Garrett Basch of Film Rites will be executive producer.

The miniseries is a study of power and police corruption framed around the investigation of the disappearance of several young girls. For the pic, the setting will be transferred from Britain to the U.S. The mini clocked in at more than five hours, so Zaillian and Scott have their work cut out for them to compress it into one film.

Zaillian last worked for Columbia on a rewrite of the Michael Lewis book "Moneyball" to star Brad Pitt that the studio was ready to put into production until Steven Soderbergh did his own rewrite that prompted the studio to halt the film days before it was skedded to begin production.

Scott and Zaillian previously collaborated on the films "American Gangster" and "Hannibal." Zaillian at present is adapting Par's drama "I Hear You Paint Houses" for Martin Scorsese.

Not sure if this is a good idea or not, the British mini series (Check NSFW trailer below) was highly rated and there seems a lot of material to cram into a movie, however Scott is adept enough to make it work, although I do think he has several projects more interesting than this on his slate.