Fox 2000 has acquired the screen rights to Patricia Cornwell’s series of Kay Scapetta novels, with an eye toward Angelina Jolie starring as the medical examiner heroine. “There are 16 Scarpetta novels, meaning a franchise is hoped for, but this film won't be tied to a specific Cornwell mystery title. Much the way that Jason Bourne morphed into an action hero in plots not rigidly locked into the Robert Ludlum book series, the opera-loving coroner Scarpetta will be the lead in a suspense thriller in the vein of The Silence of the Lambs and Seven,” Variety reports.

How about a little sex, drugs and rock and roll? A biopic of punk legend Ian Dury is in the works, with Andy Sirkis (Gollum himself) slated for the lead role. Ray Winstone, Olivia Williams and McKenzie Crook are also aboard for the story of “a key figure in the punk movement of the 1970s, enjoyed chart success with songs such as 'Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick'.” And it will be called Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll.

Marlon Wayans is ready to get biblical. Wayans will star in and produce an adaptation of A.J. Jacobs’ nonfiction book The Year of Living Biblically for Paramount. “For the book, subtitled One Man's Humble Quest to Obey the Bible as Literally as Possible, Jacobs spent a year attempting to live by the rules of the Old and New Testaments, with comic and enlightening results,” per The Hollywood Reporter.

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