Mann / Winslow Tell Epic Organized Crime Tale In A Novel;
Major Film To Follow
In his multi-media project under the Michael Mann Books imprint, Mann has teamed up with internationally bestselling author Don Winslow, author of The Cartel, to co-create an original novel about the complex relationship between two Organized Crime giants, Tony Accardo and Sam Giancana.
Mann will produce and possibly direct the film.
The film will be based on the novel and a pre-existing screenplay Mann co-wrote with Shane Salerno.
The novel's anticipated breadth will be on the scale of Winslow's Cartel.
Winslow will begin work late spring after delivering his next book.
Discussions with publishers will begin shortly and the book will be released in 2017.
Tony Accardo ran the Chicago Outfit – an efficient, unified and massive organization that was the single most powerful criminal enterprise in America.
In 1959, LIFE magazine estimated that the Chicago Outfit's revenue constituted 6% of the U.S. national income. From Frank Nitti's suicide in 1943, Accardo ran the Outfit. His extraordinary career spanned eight decades from the 1929 St. Valentine's Day Massacre through the Reagan era.
Giancana – mentored and installed by Accardo to front the Chicago Outfit from 1957 to 1966 – elevated the Outfit onto the New Frontier with bold moves that converged national commerce and industry with politics, Vegas, the music industry, Hollywood, and co-ventures with the CIA.
His megalomania elevated him to heights never dreamed possible and to exposure that became radioactive. Giancana was brutally murdered in 1975.
Mann has acquired rights and previously undisclosed material from the Accardo family.
Mann has directed, produced and written or co-written the crime genre classics Heat, Public Enemies, Thief and Manhunter as well as the Oscar-nominated dramas Ali and The Insider and the classic The Last of the Mohicans.
Winslow's The Cartel is a major international bestseller and was named one of the best books of 2015 by numerous publications, including The New York Times.
It was sold to Twentieth Century Fox in a multi-million dollar package and is to be directed by Ridley Scott. In addition to The Cartel, Winslow's The Power of the Dog, Savages, and The Winter of Frankie Machine have won major writing awards, including the Raymond Chandler award in Italy, the Maltese Falcon Award in Japan and the RBA International Prize for crime writing in Spain.
The Michael Mann Books publishing venture is represented by Shane Salerno at The Story Factory. Mann is represented by CAA, LBI and Attorney Harold Brown.
