A third project based on the Detroit teen drug kingpin: Darren Aronofsky and Scott Franklin‘s Protozoa Pictures produce the film based on a script by Andrew Weiss.
Wershe was a teen living in Detroit in the 1980s when he joined the ranks of the city’s drug kingpins, trafficking cocaine on the predominantly black East Side and going by the name “White Boy Rick.”
There are two other White Boy Rick films in development. Universal optioned the article The Trials of White Boy Rick, with Oblivion director Joseph Kosinski attached to direct, late last year, and Studio 8 acquired a spec script by Logan and Noah Miller in February.
But it looks like Aronofsky and Franklin’s project has a big advantage: Wershe has decided to cooperate exclusively with Protozoa’s project.
“I am pleased that Protozoa has taken such an interest in my life and my continued incarceration,” Wershe said in a statement. “I am confident that they possess the talent, conviction and fortitude to accurately tell my life’s events.”
Franklin will be the lead producer on the project, but this is not a directing vehicle for Aronofsky, and Protozoa is currently out to directors.